Yogesh J.

Parekh 1
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REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND RESOURCE PLANNING

ASSIGNMENT Faculty: Dr. Shrawan Kumar Acharya

Explain Regional Development, Regional Economics and Regional Planning

Regional Development

Regional Development as the term suggests deals with the improvement of the lives of the people living
in that region with the help of proper channels. Regional Planning and Regional Economics are two
channels through which we can have proper development. Whether the planning and economics of the
region has led to growth in the living condition can be identified with the help of various indicators like
demographic indicators, natural resources available, type of sectors contributing to the economy, etc.

Regional Economics

A region needs to have a sustained development without depleting it of its resources and that is where
Regional Economics come in to play. It is concerned with understanding and explaining the configuration
of the economy – interdependence of different economic activities of the region, industrial location,
urbanization, migration, land use, etc.

Regional Planning

A region needs to locate the different aspects of its growth in a manner that it will lead the economy in
the region to flourish and in turn lead to development of the region. Regional Planning deals with
placement of land use activities, infrastructure, and settlements for achieving regional development. Its
basically spatial planning demarcating the various land-uses – cities, industrial space, transportation hubs
and infrastructure, military bases, protection of farmland and wilderness. It deals with efficient placement
of infrastructure and zoning for the sustainable growth of a region. 

Explain the difference between “Plagiarism” and “Cheating” in the exam. Why do you think such
unethical practices exist in the Universities? Highlight the role of technology in promoting such unfair
academic practices. What in your opinion are effective measures to curtail such practices?

Plagiarism takes its original roots from the roman word – Plago, meaning “to convert a freeman into a
slave” which is similar to the unjust enslavement or capture of our work by someone else. (By Prashant
Iyengar. Pirates, Plagiarisers, Publishers. EPW, 26 Feb 2011)

An article ‘Plagiarism and Social Sciences’ in Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), dated 26 Feb 2011 by
Manjari Katju, Department of Political Sciences, University of Hyderabad states Oxford University’s
definition of Plagiarism – “The practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as
one’s own”.

Faculty of Planning and Public Policy, CEPT University, Navarangpura, Ahmedabad.

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From the same article, The Code of Students Rights, Responsibilities and Conduct (2005), Indiana
University–Bloomington defines it as “Any ideas or materials taken from another source for either
written or oral use must be fully acknowledged, unless the information is common knowledge. What is
considered common knowledge may differ from course to course.”

The code states that a student must give credit to originality of others and acknowledge an
indebtedness whenever –

I. Directly quoting another person’s actual words, whether oral or written.

II. Using another person’s ideas, opinions, or theories.
III. Paraphrasing the words, ideas, opinions, or theories of others, whether oral or written.
IV. Borrowing facts, statistics, or illustrative material, or
V. Offering materials assembled or collected by others in the form of projects or collections without
acknowledgement.

The article further mentions that according to ‘The University of Leeds’ plagiarism can be committed in
three different ways.

1. Plagiarism committed by accident.

2. In works submitted for marks, not just written assignments but also presentations, computer code,
art work, performances, etc., and
3. Theft of ideas or words without the permission of the original author.

Cheating too is on the same lines but it’s been committed in a different sense. In plagiarism, there is a
doubt that due to some limitation the person had taken the support of such and such article or might
have forgotten to add credits or references, etc. but cheating is done solely to gain an advantage over
something or someone. Cheating is a last resort one uses in many cases and plagiarism is a part of it.

In the exam cheating is done by the student to get the required pass mark. Why he has to adapt such
low tactic might be due to lack of knowledge in the subject. The reason for this might be many like
student not attending the classes, the lack of understanding of the concept, not doing the required
homework, professors not reporting to the classes, etc.

Cheating and Plagiarism in exam are the same as the intentions are same – to get an advantage i.e.
getting more marks, passing the exam.

Prashant Iyengar in his article ‘Pirates, Plagiarisers, Publishers’ for EPW, 26 Feb 2011 points out genuine
reasons for existence of such unethical practices in Universities like “High work pressure”, “lack of
time”, “lack of incentive to do high quality research”, “lack of emphasis by evaluators on high quality
academic work”, “pointlessness of repeating identical research from scratch”, “emphasis on sheer
volume to the neglect of quality of analysis”, “disingenuousness of topics” and “Laziness”.

Faculty of Planning and Public Policy, CEPT University, Navarangpura, Ahmedabad.

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In his research, the common reason the faculty identified for committing plagiarism was that students
thought teachers were unlikely to check or be able to check for plagiarism as they will have huge
number of papers to go through.

He mentions Oscar Wilde’s adage about originality being “the art of concealing the source” thrives today
in the Indian academia. The abundance of informational resources that the internet puts at a
researcher’s disposal, as well as the ease of word-processing makes it easy to rapidly refashion materials
into a pastiche of one’s own.

The article by Dhanwanti Nayak, Karaoked: Plagiarism in the Classroom, EPW, 26 Feb 2011, mention’s a
quote from Penelope Alfrey’s ‘Petrach’s Apes: Originality, Plagiarism and Copyrights principles within
Visual Culture’ (2000) “…the application of new technologies facilitates and encourages plagiarism, at a
conscious and sub-conscious level, particularly in those instances where, due to the process, technology
leads rather than the imagination”.

Students believe copying and pasting material from the internet is sufficient for assignments. They feel
that its not cheating as with the help of today’s technology they manipulate the original to such an
extent that one does not know. The availability of information on the move is one of the major
technological interventions that hinder originality.

Dhanwanti Nayak points out that while we learn to read and write through copying or following others,
the fact that many of our youth cannot express themselves cogently in writing partly because they have
not read sufficiently in any language. Added to this is the fact that reading and writing requirements for
coursework tend to be minimal in the Indian context.

He suggests if teachers worked alongside students by allowing them to present their “copy and paste”
endeavors as the first draft of a paper, with website and other links shown, they might make students
have deeper understanding about the issue.

Manjari Katju points out a need for policy on plagiarism that can act as a guide for disciplinary or
corrective action commensurate with the gravity of the misconduct. Universities and research
organizations have to spread awareness and collectively evolve a code that will transparently grade
offences and correspondingly prescribe penalties. This would strengthen the academic integrity and go a
long way in shoring up research quality.

Plagiarism has much more to do with the way people think. One needs to understand that originality is
not just a matter of telling to be original but to instill the self-confidence to be original.

Faculty of Planning and Public Policy, CEPT University, Navarangpura, Ahmedabad.