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.
