The recent appointment of Urjit Patel as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor didn’t just leave the markets a tad despondent, but also brought along with it the pressure to churn out quick opinion pieces for op-ed writers. Which is probably what explains Firstpostborrowing a tad too heavily from Business Line.

On August 21, Hindu Business Line opinion editor Raghuvir Srinivasan wrote a piece on Patel’s appointment titled “From Rajan to Urjit: the change is seamless”. A day later, on August 22, Firstpost carried an article titled “Urjit Patel as RBI chief: Modi marginalises Swamy, shuts up Congress, wrong-foots media”.

In two places, the Firstpost piece by Senior Editor Sreemoy Talukdar was a bit too similar to the one written by Srinivasan, who pointed it out on Twitter:

The Firstpost article not just freely borrows ideas, but also words and sentences – without attribution.

Replying promptly to Srinivasan’s tweet, Talukdar said it was an “inadvertent error” that will be addressed “immediately”. He added that it was a “rule” at FP, to attribute any ideas that were “sourced from outside”. To this, Srinivasan pointed out that this was not a case of merely ideas being borrowed.

As promised, changes were made in the Firstpost article almost immediately after the tweets, and the borrowed parts were properly attributed, with even a link to the Hindu Business Line piece.

Apologies, clarifications, and amendments done, the matter ended respectfully, without descending into an ugly Twitter fight. However, we wonder how such serious lapses happen at the highest editorial level. We’re looking at you, Dilip Bobb.