India's Research Crisis — Its time we put Integrity before Rankings

India's rise to third position in the world in terms of research paper retractions, after only the United States and China, should stir the country to introspection, not despair. Alarming as the increasing number of retractions may be, is the institutional lethargy that has permitted scholarly malpractice to simmer undetected for years.

 

So far, the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) has favored quantity over quality, where institutions have rewarded paper numbers and not academic integrity. That policy is now changing. From 2025, NIRF will start penalizing institutions for retracted papers. It is a good decision, but belatedly so.

 

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is in the news after retired professor Rajeev Kumar blamed his former PhD student Om Prakash for pilfering and publishing his work in an IEEE journal without permission. The questionable paper, Detection of Fake Accounts on Social Media Using Multimodal Data With Deep Learning, was released on August 7, 2023, with seven co-authors from other institutions. The question is: why are professors at esteemed institutions being unethical — or are they being forced to be?

 

Some of the high-profile examples are like Prof. Zillur Rahman's case from IIT Roorkee who is representative of this broader malaise. Even though five of his papers were retracted between 2004 and 2020 for plagiarism, duplication, and dubious data, he continued to serve as dean up to May 2025. When whistleblower Achal Agarwal from India Research Watchdog brought the matter to the attention of the institute, he was ignored. Neither the professor nor the institute gave any response.

 

Figures from post-pub indicate that the retraction rate for India rose from 1.5 per 1,000 articles in 2012 to 3.5 in 2022. Pressure to publish—particularly on aspiring PhDs and young teaching faculty—is real. However, the underlying issue is the lack of legal protection. Whereas nations like Denmark and the UK have an independent agency to probe research misconduct, India lacks one. Rather than addressing complaints, they are shuffled between regulatory bodies such as the UGC and Department of Science and Technology—typically with no follow-up.

 

Even among public universities, the rot does not stop. Private colleges, influenced by the NIRF's measurements, tend to pressure professors to produce research without proper funding. It is no surprise that this creates hasty, subpar publications—many in predatory journals that bypass quality checks altogether.

 

A few institutions like BITS Pilani are already leading the way by establishing Research Integrity Offices and making ethics training investments reducing AInxiety in students and professors.. Isolated interventions, however, cannot repair a damaged system. It’s a game of quality vs. quantity — which one wins?

 

The forthcoming Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) can provide more regulatory bite. But with or without participation by state governments, it is questionable whether it will be effective.

 

If India wants to be a world center for research, integrity cannot be a choice. Academic dishonesty must have actual, career-changing penalties. Otherwise, the harm to India's reputation as scholars will go on—beneath the radar, but never-ending.

Bio: Nibedita is an independent journalist honoured by the Government of India for her contributions to defence journalism. With over 15 years of experience in print and digital media, she has extensively covered rural India, healthcare, education, and women’s issues. Her in-depth reporting has earned her an award from the Government of Goa back to back in 2018 and 2019. Nibedita’s work has been featured in leading national and international publications such as The Jerusalem Post, Down To Earth, Alt News, Sakal Times, and others.