Predatory journals trick unsuspecting CSIR scientist

With no peer review of manuscripts, even sub-standard work gets published in such journals.

A scientist at the Delhi-based Central Road Research Institute, a CSIR laboratory, has published nine “papers” in as many predatory journals between 2013 and 2015.

Predatory journals use deception to trick authors into submitting papers, do not peer-review manuscripts before publishing, thus allowing even sub-standard material to get published, rarely index papers with standard indexing bodies, carry impact factors (a rough measure of the quality of the journal) that are not calculated by Thomson Reuters and are more focussed on the article processing fees.

Neelima Chakrabarty, Senior Principal Scientist in the Traffic Engineering and Safety Division of CRRI, is the first author in most “papers” and the corresponding author in a few.

During the same period, Dr. Chakrabarty had published papers in reputable Indian and international journals such as

Current Science and Elsevier’s Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences .

‘My work is authentic’

“My research works are original and authentic, there is no copy of another work piece is available anywhere (sic),” Dr. Chakrabarty said in an e-mail to

The Hindu .

“I am privy to this problem from day one. I have discussed the issue with scientists. I am sure that I will be able to make them realise the dangers of publishing in such journals. I have sought a clarification from Dr. Chakrabarty on the issue.” Prof. Satish Chandra, who took over as Director of CRRI in January, said in an e-mail.

“Has the scientist been fooled by the journals? Or is the scientist knowingly taking advantage of the easy acceptance and fast publishing process employed by these journals and publishers? There are still some people who are unaware of predatory journals and assume that all scholarly publishers are honest and genuine,” Jeffrey Beall, Scholarly Communications Librarian at Auraria Library, University of Colorado, Denver, says.

Professor Beall first coined the term ‘predatory journal’ and maintains a list of such journals.