predatory journals – Science Chronicle

A "paper" by two health ministry researchers claiming that COVID-19 in India will end by mid-September has been published in a predatory journal. The authors also have a conflict of interest, which is not disclosed in the "paper". A “paper” based on a mathematical model published in the journal Epidemiology International by two scientists from … Continue reading ‘Paper’ in predatory journal by health ministry claims COVID-19 in India will end by mid-September

The Lancet Global Health retracts a letter about the plight of nurses treating COVID-19 patients in Wuhan published on February 26. Can editors of peer-reviewed journals take a moral high-ground and make disparaging comments about preprints? On February 26, The Lancet Global Health retracted a letter by two nurses from Guangzhou province just two days … Continue reading Lancet retracts letter on plight of nurses treating COVID-19 patients

An independent committee formed by CSIR in early June 2019 to investigate into image duplication and/or manipulation in published papers has submitted its report to CSIR Director-General Dr. Shekhar Mande. The report will be sent to the directors of four-five CSIR labs, which were investigated, for necessary action. An independent committee that was formed in … Continue reading Investigation into papers with problematic images complete, report submitted: CSIR director-general 

Two papers of Prof. Kithiganahalli N. Balaji from IISc have been retracted and three more have been corrected for issues with images, including duplication and undeclared gel splices. Two more papers of his have been listed on PubPeer website. On December 13, 2019, two papers of Prof. Kithiganahalli N. Balaji from the Department of Microbiology … Continue reading IISc professor has two papers retracted, three corrected for image issues

How could the Indian Medical Association with over 500,000 doctors, which is supposed to be reading the journal regularly, be blissfully unaware of what The Lancet has always stood for. It is not an act of commission by the journal, as the IMA calls it, but what The Lancet considers as its beholden duty to speak up … Continue reading Kashmir editorial: Hey IMA, Lancet has commented on other countries too

Dr. Mamta Chawla-Sarkar, a senior scientist at ICMR's NICED has 16 papers listed on PubPeer for image duplication and/or manipulation. Six of these papers were published when she was a Post-doc in Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Science. A senior scientist — Dr. Mamta Chawla-Sarkar — … Continue reading ICMR-NICED scientist has 16 papers with duplicated, manipulated images

A Russian website has listed 344 papers accepted for publication by journals from different countries where authorship is available for a fee. There are 73 papers listed from journals based in India, which is the highest. Web of Science Group, Clarivate Analytics is investigating to identify the journals. There are many things that remain unclear. … Continue reading Authorship in 73 journal papers from India up for sale

Among papers retracted in chemistry and material sciences in 2017-2018, 17.2% was from India though only 7.3% papers from India were published, thus contributing to 2.4-fold difference between retractions and papers published. With 18 papers, Dr. Rashmi Madhuri and Dr. Prashant Sharma from IIT Dhanbad had the “largest clusters of retractions in the two-year period”. … Continue reading 65 papers from India retracted for image falsification/fabrication, errors

Scrutinising images for tell-tale signs of manipulation is no longer a hobby for Dr. Elisabeth Bik; it has become a passion. The passion has become so overpowering that she has taken a “year off from paid work to focus more on science misconduct volunteer work”. She has voluminous papers to report on and a mountain … Continue reading Manipulation within a photo should always result in a retraction: Elisabeth Bik

About half a dozen IISc researchers have 33 papers listed on Pubpeer for image duplication. Most of the duplication is within the same paper. With 13 papers, Akhil R. Chakravarty has the most number of problematic articles. A few researchers have already got or are about to get an erratum published. India’s premier institution Indian … Continue reading IISc has 33 papers listed on Pubpeer for image duplication