Harward Declares Kavya in Embarrassing list

NewYork: The annual list of the most embarrassing graduates and students of Harward is released and Kaavya Viswanathan, a student of Indian origin who was caught for plagiarism has found a place in the list.

Apart from Kaavya, the name of former Cardinal Bernard Law who was accused of protecting child-molesting priests is also included in the list, said pagesix.com.

Former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, now charged with corruption, and former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, currently in jail, also got place on this embarrassing list.

In April 2006, Kaavya's first novel, 'How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life', was published. Shortly after publication, the Harvard Crimson printed allegations that the author plagiarized passages from two novels by Megan McCafferty. Not only this, on May 1, the New York Times ran a story giving national prominence to claims on the Sepia Mutiny blog that Viswanathan may have lifted text from Salman Rushdie's 1990 novel 'Haroun and the Sea of Stories'.

These kind of accusations on an Harward student was embarrasing for the university which landed Kaavya's name on the most embarrasing list. This has been more embarrasing for india as Kaavya being of Indian origin had been accused of this kind of deed. Now also Indians are considered as people who love truth and this list may louse up India's name at the international level.