Savarna-Brahmin 'merit', their mediocrity and plagiarism. Thread.

Y'day, Indian Express withdrew researcher & former member of PM’s Economic Advisory Council Shamika Ravi's piece after allegations of plagiarism. Shamika copied calculations from Karthik Muralidharan's work 1/6

She also lifted sentences verbatim from Paul Romer's piece. Ironically, Shamika doesn't shy away from calling herself India's most trusted "COVID calculator". A few days ago Marathi daily Loksatta's Brahmin editor Girish Kuber was caught red-handed for plagiarising verbatim 2/6

from scholar Andrew Lilico's blog. In the past, Kuber stole from Govind Talwalkar's article on Charles Dickens published in Saadhana. Proud Gaud Saraswat Brahmin journo Rajdeep Sardesai routinely copies tweets from other handles and has been called out from time to time 3/6

In 2016, Savarna columnist and right-wing bigot Sreemoy Talukdar was caught lifting from The Hindu Business Line's article. In 2017, Savarna liberal journo Swati Chaturvedi copied two of The Economist correspondent Stanley Pignal's tweets verbatim in her articles. 4/6

In 2012, Brahmin scientist CNR Rao and 3 other researchers were accused of copied verbatim from a paper published in Applied Physics Letters. Rao was later awarded Bharat Ratna in 2013. In 2010, India Today's Aroon Purie plagiarized from an article published on Slate. 5/6

In 2008, India Today's the then Deputy Editor Damayanti Datta plagiarized from a blog. Infamous among all these is Sarvapalli Radhakrishanan's case. Radhakrishnan plagiarized extensively from his student Jadunath Sinha's thesis. Radhakrishnan was awarded Bharat Ratna in 1954. 6/6