Predatory publishers gain foothold in Indian academia’s upper echelon

A new analysis, published in Current Science by the graduated student G. S. Seethapathy and his colleagues, has found that many of the weak papers in predatory journals are coming from top-flight Indian research institutions. The finding has turned the spotlight on an academic culture in India that tends to prize quantity of publications over quality when evaluating researchers. The secretary of India’s Department of Biotechnology (DBT) in New Delhi, K. Vijayraghavan, proposes some solutions to strengthen research evaluation and encourage sharing of research prior to publication.