Bangladeshi teacher probed over thesis interview claim

Bangladesh's top university ordered a probe Sunday into a doctoral thesis by a political science teacher who claimed to have interviewed 1.3 million people in three years -- more than 1,000 a day. Dhaka University's Mohammad Noor Uddin was awarded a PhD last year for his research, "The Practices of Marxism and Their Impact on Modern World: The case of Objectivisation". He said he interviewed 1.275 million people for the research carried out between June 2008 and May 2011, meaning he interviewed about 1,200 people every day, Dhaka University vice-chancellor Arefin Siddique said. "We ordered an inquiry into the thesis work after the dean of the political science faculty and five fellow teachers made complaints. A five-man committee led by university's pro-vice chancellor will investigate the matter," he told AFP. "We have included an Internet expert into the inquiry team as he (Uddin) has claimed that he interviewed all these people through online," Siddique added. Uddin could not be contacted, but one of his thesis supervisors and chief of the university's political science department, Professor Shawkat Ara Hossain, defended the work, saying she believed him. "The thesis was good," Hossain told AFP. State-run Dhaka University is Bangladesh's most famous higher educational institute and churns out some of the country's best-known students and academics every year.