'Washington Post' article: PMO hints at plagiarism

A day after Washington Post refused to apologise for publishing an article criticising prime minister Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister’s Office attacked the US paper hinting at plagiarism.

In a letter addressed to Washington Post, Pankaj Pachauri, media advisor to the PM, said the daily had picked up paragraphs from an Indian magazine. “The former media adviser to the PM Dr Sanjaya Baru has complained that you ‘rehashed and used’ an eight-month old quote from an Indian Magazine...We expected better from the correspondent of the Washington Post for fair and unbiased reporting,” Pachauri said.

He also rejected charges that the PMO had denied interview to the correspondent. “You have been telling the media here in India that your request for an interview was declined though the mail below says clearly that the interview was declined “till the Monsoon Session” of Parliament which gets over in two days, ” read the letter.

On Wednesday, Washington Post had published an article calling Singh as one of the biggest failures in the line of Indian PMs.
The author of the article, Simon Denyer, has refuted the allegations saying that before publishing the article he had spoken with Baru and had got the confirmation on the accuracy of the sentiments expressed in the story.

Washington Post, meanwhile, issued a clarification saying the story has been updated and a correction has been made to credit the Caravan magazine for the two quotes printed in the story.