Sources of knowledge

Apropos of the report, 8216;Rewriting national history, xeroxing world history8217; IE, October 7, as a student I studied ...

Apropos of the report, 8216;Rewriting national history, xeroxing world history8217; IE, October 7, as a student I studied the syllabi now proscribed by the NCERT. We had to study The Story of Civilisation in three parts. The textbooks were comprehensive and I still refer to them. It therefore surprises me that these days American books are being copied/translated into Indian languages when there are highly qualified Indian historians around. Our educationists must realise that people have to be taught from an Indian perspective, although there is no harm in referring to other works.

The issue of plagiarism is not limited to our history books. During my engineering days, I happened to refer to a book on thermodynamics by Spalding and Cole while trying to solve problems from an Indian textbook on the same subject. I was utterly surprised to note that the Indian text was a complete lift from this book. In this age of intellectual property rights, I hope we will learn to give due credit to the people we freely borrow from.
8212; Prasad Gudimetla, On e-mail

The plagiarism controversy highlights the state of our educational system. I am in the medical field and have seen many acts of plagiarism. I know of instances when well-known medical authors have lifted chapters off internationally recognised medical textbooks and pasted them ad verbatim in their articles published in Indian journals. This explains why our scholars prefer to leave India. They find a superior work culture abroad.
8212; Arun Chandran, On e-mail

Re-writing history, plagiarism, academic dishonesty, scholastic ignorance, a smug belief in some form of supremacy, sycophancy, the list is endless. NCERT will create a society of clones. Does does it matter? These, after all, are the 8220;values8221; being promoted by the present government.
8212; Ramu Dhara, On e-mail

I was surprised to see the word 8216;xeroxing8217; being used by a standard newspaper like yours. As you know, 8216;xerox8217; is the name of a company that manufactures photocopying machines.
8212; V. Raveendra Rao, On e-mail

New India

Thank You, Rohit Prajapati and others Letters, IE, October 7 for putting the record straight on Mahatma Gandhi8217;s article dated August 11, 1920, in Young India and giving us the apt usable quote from it in the context of today8217;s politics, while explaining how shamefully a quotation from it has been used is a distorted fashion by the I038;B ministry.

Gandhiji would also have been horrified to read about 8216;India gets a big ticket8217; by Jyoti Malhotra IE, October 7 and the whopping 150,000 dollars India will dish out as parking fines for its hired cabs in New York. Those not familiar with NY may not know that the UN Plaza Hotel, where our delegates usually stay, is literally across the road from the UN. Yet Indian delegates expect our Permanent Mission to taxi them to meetings!
8212; M. Kunte, New Delhi