Dr A Q Khan clarifies

Islamabad, Aug.28 (ANI): Pakistan's former chief nuclear scientist A Q Khan has given a clarification to the recent spate of reactions to his article on the importance of computer technology.

The News quotes him as saying: "The acknowledgement as to the source was put at the end of Part II because it was originally written as one long article. Had Mr Dogar, who initiated this controversy, waited for the second part (Part I clearly said "To be continued"), all this would have been avoided."

"However, I would like to point out that a newspaper article is not the same as a research paper in a reputed magazine, which does, indeed, require full referencing. Since I had been receiving numerous requests from students to write on this topic I used notes I had made about seven years ago from various well-known university syllabuses, not even remembering which notes were from which university."

"I did not go online to any source. Obviously the syllabuses have not changed much in all these years! I purposely left the text in the same simple-to-understand original language because it was meant for students and laymen, not professionals. A university brochure is neither someone's personal intellectual property, nor does it require referencing," Khan says further.

"My friend and former colleague, Engineer Nasim Khan, provided information on various related American websites with comments-what is wrong with that? Those who insinuated negatively about his professional capabilities are ignorant and disparate," he concludes. (ANI)