Apparently some idiot in the US forged a document claiming to be a 30 year-old memo using MS Word. That story is all over the American blogosphere and it isn’t a very interesting one for someone in India.
But then, I have some gmail invites to give away and… I haven’t asked my readers a question to show off my knowledge for quite some time, so I might as well ask a question and set a prize… a Gmail Invite! (is there anyone who still wants it?)
There was a forgery scandal in India that was, in a sense, a mirror image of the one that is happening in the US. Someone had used a manual typewriter to forge a document said to have originated in a foreign country, and someone immediately pointed out that the manual typewriter was a museum piece in the rest of the civilized world.
Which scandal am I talking of?
(Hint: Try to narrow down the period during which it might have occurred.)
I don’t need a gmail invite, but is it the St. Kitts forgery case involving Chandraswamy & Co trying to tarnish V.P. Singh?
One needs intelligence even for committing forgery. 🙂
btw, it hasn’t been conclusively proved it is a forgery using MS Word.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/34914/1603
The thing is still raging like a Godzilla with toothache.
I too think it is St.Kitts case…But am little confused because I remember reading somewhere that St.Kitts forgery was exposed using the date on which the document was dated which happened to be a Sunday???
Okay okay people. It was the St Kitts forgery scandal. Lakshmi, it was one of the proofs that the documents were forgeries. There were others too.
You’re sure you people don’t want gmail invites? I’m giving them away at a 50% discount. Just don’t ask for cash in lieu of those damn invites.
SS, the proof that the bush documents are forged is quite overwhelming. No one has to “conclusively prove” that they are forged. Anyone who claims that they are authentic has to answer every one of the questions to prove their case.
Anyone who claims that they are authentic has to answer every one of the questions to prove their case.
Which is what the link I posted did –
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/34914/1603
Though I hear that even the above debunking of the debunking of the memo, is being debunked.
There was an initial furore of indignation that it’s a forgery, now the pendulum is on the it’s-not-a-forgery side.
The simplest way to prove the case would be to:
1) Take a typewriter that was standard at that time
2) Type the same memo without doing anything that a normal typist wouldn’t have done, such as physically change a ball to add the superscript th, (would a typist do this just to type a memo?) or painstakingly adjust the tabs and spaces so that the words get aligned correctly
3) Get the same memo with a better match than that got with word.
Till that happens, it will have to be treated as forgery.
Till that happens,
Am sure a visual counterpart to the debunking arguments is there somewhere. Shall let you know. The funny thing is that most people agree that Bush Jr would very conceivably have done it anyway.
Funny how such a document acts as a rallying point for the left adn right, consolidating the two banks basically. The middle basically don’t care anyway (not least coz it’s abt 30 years ago!), so such an important thing achieves nothing. Sad.