Crusade against BS continues

My crusade against Business Standard gathered momentum with many members of Quinkie and IBQ joining me. Though I never wanted to sensationalize issues, my umpteen mails to the newspaper requesting them to stop publishing the plagiarized material, fell on the deaf ears. At last, I felt like bringing the plagiarism to the notice of everyone.

Well, if you are not able to understand what I’m talking about, let me throw some light. Business Standard, a leading newspaper in India, has been carrying a fortnightly quiz column. The columnist is supposed to spend some time and energy researching for questions and compile the quiz. Instead of doing their own research and compiling the quiz, the columnists have been resorting to plagiarism by copying the content for the column from various quiz groups. The columnists never bothered to acknowledge the source for their questions.

The plagiarism has taken disgusting levels since Jaspreet Bindra started writing the column. This quizzer did a sort of redefining plagiarism by lifting almost the entire content for his quiz column from quizzing groups like Quinkie, IBQ, QFI, and Quiznet. I felt the urge to put an end to this diabolical act and wrote marathon missives of communication to Business Standard with the threads from where Mr Bindra took the content. Though the Editor of the Strategist section (where the quiz appears every fortnight) of the newspaper gave me a written assurance that she would take action, her assurance remained a mere assurance when Bindra lifted questions en masse for the nth time.

I didn’t see any point in wasting time, and posted a message about the sordid act of plagiarism in Quinkie and IBQ. Many people from the quizzing fraternity chipped in supporting my move. A member even went a step ahead and launched a signature campaign sending a strong signal to Business Standard.

This evening I received a mail from Mr T N Ninan, the editor of Business Standard. Mr Ninan wrote that he would have it checked and revert. Now I’m confident that Business Standard will wake up from slumber and do something to save its face.