You might recall this article which I wrote on a charity that I am working with in India/Bhopal. Its about abandoned, orphaned kids getting a fresh start. This was published on my blog on June 29th 2008, on Chowk on June 30th, 2008, on Desicritics on June 28th, 2008 and on Boloji.com on June 29th, 2008.
Strangely enough, somebody sent me a link today about this. I am pasting screenshots:
Notice no attribution, no nothing. Somebody called as Er. Snigddha Aggarwal seems to have lifted the entire article wholesale and posted it on her blog on November 29th 2008. This was posted by her on a blog run by Avinash, who is a Project Engineer with ONGC. I could not find an email for Ms. Aggarwal so sent the following email to Avinash.
Hello there Avinash
This is with reference to an article posted by Er. Snigddha Aggarwal on your blogsite.
http://delhiwithavinash.blogspot.com/2008/11/we-can-make-difference.html
There is no attribution to the fact that this was written by myself.
this article was written by me at http://piquancy.blogspot.com/2008/06/we-can-make-difference.html which I wrote on a charity that I am working with in India/Bhopal. This was published on my <a href="http://piquancy.blogspot.com/2008/06/we-can-make-difference.html">blog</a> on June 29th 2008, on <a href="http://www.chowk.com/articles/we-can-make-a-difference-bhaskar-dasgupta.htm">Chowk</a> on June 30th, 2008, on <a href="http://desicritics.org/2008/06/28/124212.php">Desicritics</a> on June 28th, 2008 and on <a href="http://www.boloji.com/ramblings/184.htm">Boloji</a>.com on June 29th, 2008. </p>
To say that I am disappointed would be the least of the statements. This is for a charity for homeless, abandoned, orphaned and abused kids. Somebody left a comment asking for details on how to help the charity. Needless to say, as this was not written by this Er. Snigddha Aggarwal, she would not have been able to assist in giving help to the poor orphans of Bhopal. Now THAT was cruel. What I found seriously hypocritical is that while she was fulminating against Islamic terrorism, she was happily stopping help to poor orphaned Indian kids. Anyway, that's water under the bridge, she has to live with this on her conscience.
This article on your blog was brought to my attention by somebody who was looking to help Bhopal Orphans.
But that's not the problem. I am also not concerned with the copyright issue. If you do want to keep that article up on your blog, could you please add in a link to me or my blog so that any volunteers could contact me like the above lady and we can actually make a difference? I could not find an email for Ms. Snigddha Aggarwal hence am sending this note to you.
Thanks, Avinash, and would appreciate a response on this.
Sincerely
bd
Bhaskar Dasgupta
I know this sounds very self righteous, but I have seen the eyes of those orphans. Feeling very pissed about this entire thing. Lets see what I hear back.
UPDATE 9 April 2010.
This is the original email I received:
From: XXX [mailto:XXX@gmail.com]
Sent: 05 April 2010 06:42
To: bdasgupta@gmail.com
Subject: Request for info on the shelter for abandoned kids in bhopalHi Mr Dasgupta,
Found your post on abandoned kids in Bhopal to be really inspiring -- I'm all excited to pitch in too! However, I cannot find the email ID / phone number of people in charge of running this institution. Could you pls pass me those details ?
Ah, one more thing..I'm not not really sure if you allowed this post to be reproduced under different names (without attribution to the original). Here is a link you might wish to check : http://delhiwithavinash.blogspot.com/2008/11/we-can-make-difference.html ( I found this while googling for contact details of Ms Deepika Suri ! )
Apart from the issue of blatant copy of your text, I am afraid that less informed people would not be able to do justice to the queries about this. In the same post above there is someone like me who is wanting to help out, but the author obviously has no clue and I see no public response either.
Anyway, kudos for championing the cause of these homeless kids ! I hope I can make a difference to their life too..
Regards,
But no response to the email to the blog owner, so I filed a DCMA complaint with Google who replied back today morning:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Blogger Help [mailto:support@blogger.com]
> Sent: 09 April 2010 00:39
> To: bdasgupta@gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [#626597190] Blogger Complaint
>
> Hello,
>
> We have received your DMCA take-down notice on
> http://delhiwithavinash.blogspot.com/2008/11/we-can-make-diffe
rence.htmlm
> dated 4/7/10 and have reviewed the allegedly infringing
> content in question. In accordance with our policies, we have
> taken the content offline and notified the blogger of the
> complaint. Should the content reappear at this post with the
> infringing content included, please let us know and we will
> take further action.
>
> Sincerely,
> The Blogger Team
Good, case closed.
