Before going into the details, I want to let you know that I am sending this email to many others including journalists, activists, and thinkers who operate in the public space as I have very little faith in the scientific establishment and do not think they will admit to their mistakes or take corrective measures. They will most likely protect one of their own and cover up the whole issue or claim it is no big deal. Sadly, this is today's reality. Of course, had this plagiarism not been called out, the same professor would be extolled as a genius for his findings and been given all sorts of awards and been called the savior of the people of Delhi.
The core ideas in the paper by Andrew McDonald that was published in Nature Sustainability on the cause of Delhi air pollution has been stolen from my mainstream newspaper articles without any attribution to me. My articles were not buried in obscurity. They were in a mainstream newspaper, went viral, were republished on other websites including a popular website that focuses on ecology, have resulted in me being invited to TV panel discussions, resulted in Monsanto protesting my article, and in a NASA Scientist cited by McDonald tweeting it.
From Cornell University's press release reported in Science Daily:
"A new study reveals how water-use policies require farmers to transplant rice later in the year, which in turn delays harvests and concentrates agricultural burnings of crop residues in November -- a month when breezes stagnate -- leading to increased air pollution."
This is an Orwellian claim because that was exactly the content of my detailed article based on original research published in Sunday Guardian in 2017, 1.5 years before the publication of McDonald's paper.
My research which uncovered the real reason for the smoke in Delhi is now being passed off as the result of scientific investigation by the professor. This is blatantly dishonest and unfair to me. It was also NOT a piece of independent research as such "researchers" are wont to claim. It was mine and mine alone. In fact, a NASA scientist, Dr. Hiren Jethva, who works on pollution and has been cited in McDonald's paper tweeted my article with the comment that he now understands why satellites detect more fires over Punjab only post-2009.
I also published a follow up article in 2018 after communicating with the NASA scientist which strengthened my theory.
Had this scientist cited me in a paper instead of a tweet, you would have instantly considered McDonald's work to be plagiarism. The tweet too should be considered a citation in my favor and considered like any other paper.
I am the one who postulated that the change in the direction of wind resulted in the smoke accumulating over the Delhi Metropolitan area, and I am the one who put in effort to study the wind patterns and confirm my suspicions. Likewise, I am the one who uncovered the fact that the reasons for the delay in planting rice were some laws in the two Indian states of Punjab and Haryana.
To put it in simple terms, the key vision and hypothesis for McDonald's paper have been plagiarized from me. At best, what he has done is to gather more data to corroborate my previously published research.
I would like this paper to be pulled from Nature's online and print publications and a description of the plagiarism posted on your website in a prominent place (not behind a paywall).
I hope you know that the "perfect storm" scenario mentioned in Cornell's press release requires a different kind of insight and imagination, and apart from having this unique insight, I also put in tremendous amount of effort studying the wind patterns and digging out the history of policy changes which until then had crossed no one else's mind.
There is no way a chain reaction that I uncovered has been independently uncovered by another person given that a series of steps was involved. This was not just one cause-and-effect scenario. It was a sequence of events that I uncovered.
1) Punjab and Haryana states in India pass laws to delay the planting of rice
2) The delay in planting leads to a delay in harvesting
3) Delay in harvesting leads to a delay in farmers clearing their fields for the next crop by setting fire to the straw residue of the rice crop
4) The delay in setting fire means that the smoke now goes southward over Delhi.
5) I studied the wind patterns and concluded that the delay meant that the wind direction had changed post-monsoon. This is why smoke remained in Punjab before the delay was forced on farmers.
When I confronted Mr. McDonald, he claimed, "This is absolutely the first I have seen of your articles in the Guardian" which was a dishonest claim as can be seen from the following review comment and the response to the comment in which my article was acknowledged.
== REVIEW COMMENT AND RESPONSE FROM PAPER'S AUTHORS PRIOR TO PUBLICATION==
Page 5, Line 112-119: In addition to the seasonal shift in the majority of crop fires leading to congestion in early November, the amount of rice crop production has also increased at a steady pace, according to the data from Dept. of Agriculture, India. See the tweet at the following link.
Increasing crop yields produce residue amounts in proportionate quantities, which is subjected to open field burning in the absence of other affordable alternatives available to farmers.
Hazardous air quality over northern India, particularly in New Delhi, during the first fortnight of November thus can be attributable to both increasing crop amounts as well as a delay in harvesting.
The authors might have (or not) come across a recent media article published in the Sunday Guardian the content of which mirrors that of the present manuscript. I encourage the lead author to go over the report and look for an opportunity to refine the content of the manuscript.
Link to the article:
Noted and our presentation is a consistent, and quantitative, representation of several of the major points made in the article.
***
It is clear that the suppression of information about my articles was a willful act by Andrew McDonald who knew about my articles. He must have realized that my research work resulted in top-notch finding fit for publication in the top ranked journals of the world. He tried to claim my research as his own in violation of the ethics as well as the trust that people have put into the scientific community.
Ironically, Cornell University runs arXiv which many people use as a place to get a datestamp on their preprints so that no one else can claim they came up with the ideas "independently."
Cornell needs to fire him but it is doubtful if they will do that. Nature needs to pull the paper and reject any other similar paper that does not credit me as the originator of the research.
They will probably fabricate some new claim now and completely ignore the fact that the authors acknowledged my article to the reviewer but suppressed it in the final publication and then the key author claimed to me that it was the first time he had heard of my articles a couple of days back.
If you wish to speak with me, I can be reached on my cell phone at +1 (646) 594-4397.