Amid plagiarism row, Indian School of Business distances itself from Shamika Ravi

The Indian School of Business on Friday put out a series of tweets that all but denounced Professor Shamika Ravi, who has been in the news recently for an article she wrote in the Indian Express.

In a series of tweets, ISB stated that Professor Shamika Ravi is an adjunct faculty member who taught a few courses. They even requested her to remove the ‘Professor at ISB’ from her Twitter bio.

In response, Shamika Ravi said that she was not adjunct, but visiting faculty. She was a regular professor between 2005 and 2015 and has taught several courses at ISB. She also slammed the institute for its 'bullying tactics.'

Shamika Ravi was in the news recently after an article she wrote in the opinion section of The Indian Express was accused of plagiarism. The Indian Express took down the article from its website, and issued the following clarification:

“In her piece ‘A pandemic prescription’ that appeared in the print edition of The Indian Express and online on May 25, Shamika Ravi, economist and former member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, failed to attribute part of the cost calculations needed to minimise the spread of the pandemic to work done by economist Karthik Muralidharan. Ravi requested, and The Indian Express agreed, to add the attribution in the online version on May 26. Subsequently, on the same day, this paper was alerted to allegations — first made public on social media — that parts of the same piece by Ravi were similar to sections of a paper, ‘Roadmap to Responsibly Reopen America’, published on April 23, by Paul Romer, University Professor, New York University, and 2018 Nobel Laureate in Economics. The editorial team found four sections, one to three sentences each, that consisted of substantial or verbatim quotation, unacknowledged, from Romer’s piece.

“Ravi wrote to the newspaper again saying she had spoken to Romer in light of the allegations of plagiarism. The newspaper contacted Romer after which it concluded that Ravi’s piece does not meet its standards of professional integrity.”

In the aftermath of this, ISB put out one more tweet saying, “ISB takes matters of academic integrity, such as plagiarism, seriously and seeks to promote the honest exchange of ideas.”

Last year, Ravi, a senior fellow at Brookings India, was appointed as part-time member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM), a senior government official said.

Ravi leads the development economics research vertical at Brookings India. She also teaches courses in Game Theory and Microfinance.

ISB's tweet has also received criticism from noted journalist Shiv Aroor, who said that the institute did not have a problem with Ravi associating herself with the institute until the Indian Express article.

Interestingly, the institute had put out a tweet congratulating Shamika Ravi for her winning the professor of the year in 2019.