‘Tit for Tat’, ‘Work of Art’: Netizens react to the Nidhi Razdan Harvard fiasco, question her logic

Nidhi Razdan and her Harvard Myth

Nidhi Razdan, who was working as a news anchor at controversial far-left news outlet NDTV, on Friday claimed that she was the victim of a phishing attack and that Harvard University never offered her a position as an associate professor in journalism.

Razdan, who was boasting of being an Assistant Professor at Harvard University all along, faced reality recently after it was revealed to her that she was not at all considered as a faculty at the prestigious university and somebody had lied to her about the same.

Ever since the news about Nidhi Razdan allegedly being the victim of the phishing scam broke out, netizens have taken to social media to debate about the reasons for Razdan’s massively embarrassing situation. Several people highlighted the inconsistencies in her claim that she was cheated by some people for almost seven months, while some said that the far-left news anchor who has been caught several times peddling fake news did not deserve Harvard university in the first place.

How social media is reacting to the Nidhi Razdan fiasco

Senior Journalist Soumyadipta took to Twitter to question the intellect of Nidhi Razdan as he asked how could she, who worked at NDTV for over 21 years, not perform proper checks with Harvard University before moving to the US. Raising suspicion on Nidhi’s claims, the journalist questioned her claims saying how could she not verify the claims before claiming to be a victim of a phishing attack.

https://twitter.com/Soumyadipta/status/1350027172308680706?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Another user also raised doubts over her claims saying that her theories look improbable. Rosy, the Twitter user, said how could Nidhi Razdan who claims to be a journalist did not check with the authorities at Harvard or receive proper verbal communication confirming the appointment before quitting her job at NDTV. All this just does not add up, she said.

https://twitter.com/rose_k01/status/1350032080302874626?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Social media users remembered how Nidhi Razdan not only become a victim of phishing scam but also highlighted how she tried to unethically proclaim herself to be an Assistant Professor at Harvard University. NDTV had even gone to the extent of inviting Nidhi Razdan to its panel discussion by wrongly referring to her as an Assistant Professor at the Harvard.

https://twitter.com/indiantweeter/status/1350033024373587969?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Rajesh Juyal also had an interesting point to make. According to Juyal, the alleged phishing attack on Nidhi Razdan was nothing but controversial news anchor getting the taste of her own medicine and termed it as ‘Tit for Tat’ for spreading fake news and building false narratives solely to defame Prime Minister Modi.

https://twitter.com/RajeshJuyal58/status/1350029670708727809?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Another social media user who goes by the name ‘Un-bhadralok bangali’ said Nidhi Razdan’s tweet was nothing but a piece of art and the greatest trick one ever pulled off. He called the plan to trap Nidhi Razdan was just ‘brilliant’ and added that whoever did that deserves massive respect.

He also added that the alleged conning of Nidhi Razdan showed the level of intellect of such journalists.

https://twitter.com/goonereol/status/1350030670932844546?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Anna, a social media user, made some interesting observations pertaining to the entire fiasco saying that there were no interviews, phone calls from Harvard and despite that Nidhi Razdan claimed that she got a job offer from Harvard University. He asked whether Nidhi Razdan’s claim were just like NDTV’s Prime Time show.

https://twitter.com/annaranjan/status/1350041405394202626?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Some of the netizens also tried to explore the funny side of the whole controversy and posted some humorous memes.

https://twitter.com/Rishisharmait/status/1350033384815267840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/AMIT_GUJJU/status/1350041542283587586?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/SaffronSunanda/status/1350042569632174080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Nidhi Razdan was scammed on Harvard Professor job

In a terse statement on Twitter, she said, “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.”

Nidhi Razdan said, “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, I was later told that due to the ongoing pandemic, my classes would commence in January 2021. Along with these delays, I began noticing a number of administrative anomalies in the process being described to me.”

https://twitter.com/Nidhi/status/1350024214997155840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

“At first, I had dismissed these anomalies 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. As a result, I reached out to 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 added.

However, she realized that she had been conned after receiving replies from Harvard University. She said, “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.”

Nidhi Razdan said that she has informed the police and authorities at Harvard University of the matter. A police complaint has been filed, however, it is unclear whether she suffered financial losses due to the scam. But it does appear that she left her job at NDTV because of the ‘job offer’. However, that is not yet confirmed. She said, “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.”

OpIndia Staff: Staff reporter at OpIndia