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Posted
on 14-Jul-02 11:58 PM
1. Here is yet another discovery... is Suman Pradhan listening? or READING his own paper?
"How the universe will end" (supposedly) by Kumar P Mainali, in Jul 14, 02 Sunday post is another example of copy_paste_change_phange at its worst. A "similar" piece by MICHAEL D. LEMONICK was the cover story in TIME magazine's Jun 25, 01 issue, and can be viewed at URL http://www.time.com/time/pacific/magazine/20010625/cover1.html or http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html .
2. NEW BUSINESS AGE, which has its electronic version at Nepalnews.com, is another promoter of plagiarism. At least one instance of plagiarism appears in last few months' issues of magazine. I will leave it to the readers to be amused with those.
Here is Kumar P. Mainali's work from Sunday Post. Some of the many paragraphs lifted by Mainali are identified with (TIME) opener, which are the versions in TIME magazine.
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How the universe will end
By Kumar P Mainali
..snipped...
Milky Way is a huge, whirling pinwheel made of 100 billion or more stars, and tens of billions of other galaxies lie beyond its edges. The most astonishing fact about them is that these galaxies are rushing away from one another right after the explosive cataclysm known as the Big Bang. Will the galaxies continue to fly apart forever, their glow fading until the cosmos is cold and dark? Or will the expansion slow to a halt, reverse in direction and crash all the 10 octillion (10 trillion billion) stars in a final Big Crunch? Scientists haven’t been able to decide.
(TIME) Milky Way is a huge, whirling pinwheel made of 100 billion or more stars; that tens of billions of other galaxies lie beyond its edges; and, most astonishing of all, that these galaxies are rushing headlong away from one another in the aftermath of an explosive cataclysm known as the Big Bang.
(TIME) Will the galaxies continue to fly apart forever, their glow fading until the cosmos is cold and dark? Or will the expansion slow to a halt, reverse direction and send 10 octillion (10 trillion billion) stars crashing back together in a final, apocalyptic Big Crunch, the mirror image of the universe's explosive birth? Despite decades of observations with the most powerful telescopes at their disposal, astronomers simply haven't been able to decide.
..snipped...
As the universe expands, the combined gravity from all the matter within it tends to slow the expansion, much as the earth’s gravity tries to pull a rising rocket back to the ground. If the pull is strong enough, the expansion will stop and reverse itself; if not, the cosmos will go on getting bigger forever. The former ultimately dissolves the universe into a fireball. This Big Crunch would melt everything, even subatomic particles. The latter makes the universe unpleasantly dark and cold. Over a long period of time, the hydrogen and helium in stars will run low and old stars without enough light are not replaced by new ones. The universe gradually fades to black and cold.
(TIME) Others, meanwhile, attacked a different aspect of the problem. As the universe expands, the combined gravity from all the matter within it tends to slow that expansion, much as the earth's gravity tries to pull a rising rocket back to the ground. If the pull is strong enough, the expansion will stop and reverse itself; if not, the cosmos will go on getting bigger, literally forever. Which is it? One way to find out is to weigh the cosmos-to add up all the stars and all the galaxies, calculate their gravity and compare that with the expansion rate of the universe. If the cosmos is moving at escape velocity, no Big Crunch.
...snipped...
In 1930s it was noted that something beside glowing stars and gases is present in the universe. This was found out by studying the movement of galaxies. The galaxies in clusters were orbiting one another too fast than expected which could not be explained on the basis of gravitational force produced by the visible matter. Individual galaxies were also spinning about their centers too quickly. The greater the gravitational force of attraction is, the faster the galaxies move. Thus the visible matter would not be able to hold the observed orbiting movement of galaxies. Instead the galaxies should long since have flown apart. The only possible reason to explain this is extra gravitational force produced by invisible dark matter.
(TIME) Trouble is, nobody could figure out how much matter there actually was. The stars and galaxies were easy; you could see them. But it was noted as early as the 1930s that something lurked out there besides the glowing stars and gases that astronomers could see. Galaxies in clusters were orbiting one another too fast; they should, by rights, be flying off into space like untethered children flung from a fast-twirling merry-go-round. Individual galaxies were spinning about their centers too quickly too; they should long since have flown apart. The only possibility: some form of invisible dark matter was holding things together, and while you could infer the mass of dark matter in and around galaxies, nobody knew if it also filled the dark voids of space, where its effects would not be detectable.
...snipped....
So astrophysicists tried to determine whether the expansion was slowing down and by how much. In 1995, two groups of astronomers, the Supernova Cosmology Project and the High-z-Supernova Team, set out to find it. They wanted to measure the cosmic slowdown, known formally as "deceleration parameter".
(TIME) So astrophysicists tried another approach: determine whether the expansion was slowing down, and by how much. That's what Brian Schmidt, a young astronomer at the Mount Stromlo Observatory in Australia, set out to do in 1995. Along with a team of colleagues, he wanted to measure the cosmic slowdown, known formally as the "deceleration parameter." The idea was straightforward: look at the nearby universe and measure how fast it is expanding. Then do the same for the distant universe, whose light is just now reaching us, having been emitted when the cosmos was young. Then compare the two.
........ snipped....
-----------------------------
plagiarism watch
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| Truth |
Posted
on 15-Jul-02 06:59 AM
Shame to those people who do nothing when they are defrauding Nepali readers.
Just how much better are these editors from corrupt politicians, I wonder? Will we
ever have any criterion in Nepal or not?
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 15-Jul-02 03:28 PM
Oops, TKP did it again, didn't it?
Very likely, TKP hasn't told its writers what our mom told us in childhood, "Don't steal".
This is so basic a principle, yet it is so accurate.
The editors of TKP must sit down, and think, what is the matter with them? Are they
just too much lenient to the plagiarists? Or are they just like our politicians who see
no evil among their kins ?
Fourth state commands respect from its readership most often because of its
integrity. Otherwise, why should people believe in them? By letting thieves use
the platform, TKP is not doing itself any good. Our little Dubya once roared in
the Capitol Hill, "Those who harbor terrorists are also terrorists", and using the
same logic, "Those who harbor (adopt) plagiarists are also...."
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| villageVoice |
Posted
on 15-Jul-02 10:03 PM
The least TKP could do is a/ check it out; b/ if that's the case, stop the plagiarist from contributing any further. Period. For record: Suman Pradhan, by the way, doesn't have any control over the outside contributors.
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| ,. |
Posted
on 16-Jul-02 01:30 PM
,.
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 16-Jul-02 01:54 PM
May be TKP is not doing enough to publicize its position on plagiarism.
I believe that if it had taken stern actions against the perpetrators and
published that in its front page, TKP would have been in a lot better
position now. Who knows how many other articles are still undetected?
Now that is not anyone associated with TKP can be proud of.
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| sparsha |
Posted
on 16-Jul-02 02:34 PM
What TKP is waiting for?
Once Suman Pradhan came to this site to responsed on plagarism. He also agreed that the practice is wrong. What happened to that internal investigation of TKP against one of it's contributors? Is this how the report ended.."So, carry on dudes....bhad me jaye plagarism and its crtics..."?
Shame to TKP!
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| sweety |
Posted
on 16-Jul-02 04:30 PM
>What TKP is waiting for?
>
>Once Suman Pradhan came to this site to
>responsed on plagarism. He also agreed that
>the practice is wrong. What happened to that
> internal investigation of TKP against one
>of it's contributors?
Suman Pradhan indeed took action against the internal plagarists of TKP.
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| Suman Pradhan |
Posted
on 17-Jul-02 09:59 AM
Yes, Suman Pradhan is listening. Thanks again for bringing this to our notice. We are certainly checking into it, and rest assured action will be taken. The writer in question is an outside contributor. There is actually very little we can do to prevent someone from outside publishing stuff lifted from other's work without proper attribution. Try as we might, it is impossible to read all articles on all subjects on all publications worldwide - which is the only way to find out whether an unpublished article has some plagiarized stuff in it. Basically, we tend to trust our writers beleiving, naively it seems, that they are men/women of integrity.
Just for your info, the Post reporter who was caught by you all plagiarizing last year no longer works for us.
Thanx again,
Suman
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| sparsha |
Posted
on 17-Jul-02 11:33 AM
"Try as we might, it is impossible to read all articles on all subjects on all publications worldwide - which is the only way to find out whether an unpublished article has some plagiarized stuff in it. Basically, we tend to trust our writers beleiving, naively it seems, that they are men/women of integrity."
I agree. However, let me borrow three heavily popular words these days here in the U.S. "zero tolerance policy" and suggest these words to you. When a person is kicked out of a publication for plagarism then let the readers know that (Why the contributor was kicked out).
Let us feel proud not ashamed of TKP and it's contribnutors.
Thank you for listening, Suman Pradhan.
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 17-Jul-02 02:22 PM
>Yes, Suman Pradhan is listening. Thanks again for bringing this to our notice. We are
>certainly checking into it, and rest assured action will be taken.
That's great. If only TKP starts publicizing its action against the plagiarists, half of
its problems related to plagiarism will be solved, I think. And isn't it time TKP
lead the market with high quality article rather than purloined pieces?
Please,ask Madhupark guys how many plagiarists they got after publicizing
their decision to ban plagiarists, and whether it was an effective tool against such
writers. I think Madhupark has been very successful in its drive. The experince
of one of our own media can be useful to another one.
>Just for your info, the Post reporter who was caught by you all plagiarizing last
>year no longer works for us.
And great to hear that . Now, at least , no one can say that Suman Pradhan,
Akhilesh Upadhyay and the gentleman we talked about work together for the
same publication!!
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| himalayan java |
Posted
on 17-Jul-02 09:35 PM
>
>That's great. If only TKP starts publicizing
>its action against the plagiarists, half of
>its problems related to plagiarism will be
>solved, I think. And isn't it time TKP
>lead the market with high quality article
>rather than purloined pieces?
>
>Please,ask Madhupark guys how many
>plagiarists they got after publicizing
>their decision to ban plagiarists, and
>whether it was an effective tool against
>such
>writers. I think Madhupark has been very
>successful in its drive. The experince
>of one of our own media can be useful to
>another one.
>
Biswo and Sparsha are both correct. TKP editors must publicize thier policy of zero tolerance. that is the only way to discourage plagiarists. but hey why are we worried? it's their credibility on the line. thier business will suffer if they don't. but as a reader, it would be sad if things go that way because even today, the kathmandu post is a good paper.
shuvachintak
himalayan java
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| ashu |
Posted
on 18-Jul-02 01:13 AM
Suman Pradhan wrote:
"Just for your info, the Post reporter who was caught by you all plagiarizing last year no longer works for us."
Suman-ji,
Since the staff turnover is pretty high in Kathmandu's newspapers anyway, you'll
agree, being a first-rate investigative reporter yourself, that this kind of news of
people leaving and joining a publication needs to be discerned carefully.
And so, my specific question is this:
Did the gentleman in question leave because of TKP's low tolerance for plagiarism
policy or did he leave because he found more lucrative outlets for his journalistic
pursuits elsewhere?
oohi
ashu
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| daisy |
Posted
on 18-Jul-02 01:25 AM
They also plagiarize some articles on midweek and sunday post. The articles on beauty and skincare etc, is usually staight out of a cosmo, or glamour mag. Many of the skincare tips are issues that Nepali women do not face, or these articles will suggest a remedy that is not available in the Kathmandu market.
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| Suman Pradhan |
Posted
on 18-Jul-02 01:45 AM
Suman-ji,
Since the staff turnover is pretty high in Kathmandu's newspapers anyway, you'll
agree, being a first-rate investigative reporter yourself, that this kind of news of
people leaving and joining a publication needs to be discerned carefully.
And so, my specific question is this:
Did the gentleman in question leave because of TKP's low tolerance for plagiarism
policy or did he leave because he found more lucrative outlets for his journalistic
pursuits elsewhere?
Ashu,
yes, the staff turnover in Kathmandu's newspapers, especially in the English language press, is very high. Part of the reason is that many bright young men and women still don't see journalism as an exciting enough career that also pays them well. Since there are lots of NGOs, INGOs and other organizations which do pay well, they seek thier opportunities there, or fly abroad to America or wherever. I don't think the publishers of newspapers do not know all this. But action is lacking on this front. One way to make journalism attractive is to pay journalists well so that they stick, and of course give a clear career path for the deserving and able. Often-times, what also happens is that, these young men and women come here just for fun, or use the papers as a stepping stone for higher goals. they are not serious to beginwith and have no plans to stick in the long run. Also, there are those - and these are the majority - that just get frustrated and give up. They don't fight to change things, and fall by the wayside. So you see, not that we don't know the problems and thier solutions. But really, this is a matter which ought to be seriously considered by owners, and of course, also by those men and women who venture out into journalism with all the idealism of thier youth. It's tough everywhere, not just here.
As for the answer to your precise quesion:
the person in question left because he was forced out. plagiarism did play a major role in his ouster, though it was not the final straw. no he did not get any other offers from other papers (or rather he might have, but decided not to join them. I really don't know.)
cheers
suman
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| ashu |
Posted
on 18-Jul-02 09:19 AM
Suman,
Thank you for your reply.
Though I have never worked for the Kathmandu Post per se, you know that I have watched you guys as a good friend and as a well-wisher, and I, as a reader of TKP, appreciate all the good work that you and your colleagues are doing and have done there DESPITE the usual HR and other problems which you have talked about and
hinted here.
Keep up the good work; and I am glad to hear that the person in question
was "forced out", and thank you for coming to this public forum to share your
thoughts.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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