(Credit: Times of Assam, screenshot)

The Times of Assam accused the Assam Tribune of plagiarism May 4.

The Times of Assam identifies itself on Facebook as a “24X7 News Portal.”  The Assam Tribune identifies itself on Facebook as an “English daily newspaper.”

In its note about the plagiarism, The Times of Assam wrote that “it is nothing new” for its work to be plagiarized, but “it was a pain to find” the Assam Tribune’s April 30 plagiarism of its August 30 article.  

The Times of Assam noted that it “has already made a formal written complaint (via email) to the Editor of the Assam Tribune about the issue of palgarism [sic], however even after 48 hours (till this report was composed), there has been no reply or acknowledgement by the Assam Tribune Editorial team.”

iMediaEthics’ review of the two articles supports the claim that The Tribune article lifted several verbatim sentences from the Times of Assam.  See the screenshot below of the Assam Tribune article, which uses yellow highlight to indicate verbatim content from the Times of Assam.

We wrote to the Times of Assam asking if it has heard from the Tribune since publishing its report, but the newspaper’s chief editor, Dhruba Jyoti Deka, told us that “even after 72 hours,” the newspaper hasn’t heard back from the Tribune.  He wrote that the Tribune “totally ignored” its private complaint, the Times of Assam “had no option” beyond “exposing the issue for public view.”

We have written to the Tribune for more information and will update with any response.

Moving forward, the Times of Assam noted in its article on the plagiarism claims that it “will keep strict vigil on contents being copied and would raise voice or take necessary action as appropriate. The hard work of our writers or contributors would not be allowed to be stolen again.”