Friends,

We have been hearing about paper mills, citation cartels, research misconduct and fraud in academic science publishing. But now comes the granddaddy of them all. 

Please see https://peerreviewcongress.org/abstract/how-a-questionable-research-network-manipulated-scholarly-publishing/, a short presentation by Leslie D. McIntosh, Hélène Draux,Elizabeth Smee, and Cynthia Hudson Vitale.

My colleague Muthu Madhan of OP Jindal Global University is looking at the latest NIRF data and has found a rapid increase in the number of papers over the past decade or so from several recently instituted private universities and is wondering how it is possible. He may come up with an answer soon. 

Arun