The
Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has directed that by August 30 all
universities should review academic journals that they recommend following
reports in the press that many journals were publishing papers for a price. In
his response to a starred question in Lok Sabha, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar
said that the government is taking these steps to stop publishing of predatory
and sub-standard journals.
Predatory
journals often publish academic papers without peer reviews and charge a heavy
price for it.
He
added that his ministry is also taking steps to weed out plagiarism and has
directed all universities to scan the submitted thesis using softwares to check
for plagiarised papers.
A
notification issued by HRD Ministry on the issue said that a Standing Committee
of University Grants Commission (UGC) has been constituted on notification of
journals, and that the committee has, after due verification, has removed 4102
substandard journals.
Javadekar
also informed Lok Sabha that the UGC currently only recognizes three categories
of journals — journals indexed in web of science or Scopus, journals
recommended by standing committee and language committee, and journals
recommended by universities.
