Owing to the importance, this time, I focus on Plagiarism in this column instead of any scientific advancements.
Followers of Indian science would have not missed the recent plagiarism issue in which Prof. Rao, scientific advisor to the Prime Minister of India, was caught in. A summary of the issue can be found here. After having come across such issues from people of such stature world-wide, I am really not surprised. Moroever, from a graduate student's view point, I understand how difficult it is to rephrase some of the sentences from the literature (that does not justify plagiarism, though). It is quite easy to write the results section when compared to the introduction section for this matter. However, what actually is more disheartening in this issue, and more distinct from other cases, is Prof. Rao's unwillingness to accept responsibility, despite the fact that he is listed as the senior author. I certainly do not understand this stance. If he has delegated the task to one of his colleagues, he should not claim authorship, least senior authorship! What appears to be a so simple and straight-forward logic to me, appears to have gone beyond the radar of the critical brain of the elite scientist. This brings skepticism to the his record of 1500+ publications. How many of the publications did he actually involve in? How many is he aware of?
I think this is a point of learning for scientists. If you are not involved in the work, do not claim authorship. It is a serious professional crime to do so.
