Journalist Nidhi Razdan says her Harvard University offer was fraudulent, calls it a phishing attack
New Delhi: Senior Journalist Nidhi Razdan on Friday said that she was a victim of “Very serious Phishing attack” adding that her Harvard University offer of teaching post was fraudulent. Razdan had, in June last year, announced that she would be quitting NDTV to take up the new job at Harvard.
“In June 2020 and after 21 years with NDTV, I decided to move on and said that I would be joining Harvard University as an Associate Professor of Journalism,” said Razdan in a statement released on Twitter. “I had been given to believe that I would be joining the University in September 2020. While I was making preparations to take up my new assignment in January 2021. Along with these delays, I began noticing a number of administrative anomalies in the process being described to me.”
The journalist said that she had, at first, dismissed the irregularities as “being reflective of the new normal being dictated by the pandemic, but recently the representations being made to me were of an even more disquieting nature”. After this, the journalist said she contacted the senior authorities at Harvard University for clarity.
“Upon their request, I shared some of the correspondence that I believed I had received from the University,” the statement said. “After hearing from the University, I have now learnt that I have been the victim of a sophisticated and coordinated phishing attack. I did not, in fact, receive an offer by Harvard University to join their faculty as an Associate Professor of Journalism. The perpetrators of this attack used clever forgeries and misrepresentations to obtain access to my personal data and communications and may have also gained access to my devices and my email/social media accounts.”
Razdan further stated that she has filed police complaint in this regard. Her statement further said she had taken the issue up with authorities at Harvard calling on them to take serious note of the incident.
“In the past few days, I have written to individuals and organizations with whom I have been in touch with over the past few months to keep them informed of this shocking development,” it read. “I hope that the police are able to get to the bottom of this attack on me at the earliest and help me bring this unsavoury incident to a swift end.”
She was the host of the NDTV programme Left, Right and Centre.
In November, Razdan won the International Press Institute India award for excellence in journalism for her reporting of the Kathua rape and murder case in Jammu and Kashmir.
Razdan is the author of Left, Right and Centre: The Idea of India, published in July 2017.
I have been the victim of a very serious phishing attack. I’m putting this statement out to set the record straight about what I’ve been through. I will not be addressing this issue any further on social media. pic.twitter.com/bttnnlLjuh
— Nidhi Razdan (@Nidhi) January 15, 2021
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Kumaraswamy backs Banu Mushtaq for Dasara inauguration, objects to Dy CM’s remarks
Bengaluru: Union Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Thursday said he had no objection to Booker Prize winner Banu Mushtaq inaugurating the Mysuru Dasara, diverging from the stand of his party’s ally, the BJP.
Speaking to reporters, Kumaraswamy said his objection was to Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar’s remark that Goddess Chamundi was not just the property of Hindus. “I have no objection to choosing Banu Mushtaq. But saying that temples are not just the property of Hindus is arrogance and will cause big damage to the government,” he said, according to a report published by Deccan Herald.
His son and JD(S) youth wing leader Nikhil Kumaraswamy said the party’s concern was with Mushtaq’s reservations about Kannadambe and other cultural issues. “We respect her and it is not that she should not inaugurate Dasara. Earlier, poet Nisar Ahmed had inaugurated it. Our only objection is to her stand on Kannadambe and related cultural issues,” he said.
On the Dharmasthala issue, Kumaraswamy criticised the Congress government, terming the SIT probe a “drama.” He alleged that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah acted on a complaint by one Dwarakanath under pressure from left-leaning groups.
