Maharashtra girl's selection on NASA panel based on 'false information'. Here's the shocking story
Days back, a student of Class 10 from Maharashtra's Aurangabad made headlines for being selected for MSI Fellowships Virtual Panel of NASA. What followed soon after was unthinkable. Here's the shocking story.
On August 20, news agency ANI had published a story titled: "After submitting research article, 14-year-old selected for MSI Fellowships Virtual Panel of NASA". Diksha Shinde had claimed that she was selected as a panelist on the Minority Serving Institution (MSI) Fellowships Virtual Panel of the US space agency in June.
Shinde claimed that the International Journal of Scientific and Engineering Research accepted her research paper on 'We Live in Black Hole?' in May 2021.
"I accepted the offer and will start working soon. My job involves reviewing proposals submitted by researchers and describing a collaborative approach to conduct research with NASA and understanding the connection between proposed research area and academic discipline pursuit of the students," she said.
Shinde said that she attends the research discussions every alternate day and that she is paid for the job of panelist. "I just got an email from NASA about selection as a panelist on MSI Fellowship Panel. I was surprised to receive it. I will do my job between 1 am and 4 am on alternate days and also get a monthly honorarium for it," she had claimed in her interview at the time.
However, social media users pointed out inaccuracies in Diksha's claims and also raised questions that alluded to fabrication of NASA certificates. Her scientific paper was also questioned and instances of purported plagiarism were also averred too, the news agency said.
Following these doubts, Diksha was asked to explain the entire matter. In another interview with ANI, she produced email correspondences that contained NASA's email url 'nasa.gov' and screenshots of video conferences she attended which she claimed were NASA officials. She also produced remittance amounts from a Bank of America account number allegedly belonging to a NASA affiliate that her family member received. She claimed it to be an honorarium the US space agency gave to their panel members. Besides, she also gave a copy of her 'scientific paper'. However, the link to the website it was uploaded to was found broken.
Meanwhile, ANI reached out to NASA, and a shocking response was received. Even though NASA's Katherine Brown confirmed that Diksha Shinde was selected as a panelist to review NASA Fellowships with Minority-Serving Institutions, but it was on the basis of "false information".
The NASA official further said that it has neither accepted any scientific paper from Shinde not presented her with any other accolades.
"NASA is currently reviewing the process of verifying potential panelists' backgrounds. The matter has also been referred to the agency's Office of Inspector General. Shinde is not employed by NASA nor has the agency awarded her a fellowship, which are only opportunities available to US citizens," the official said.
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