C.N.R. Rao involved in copying matter

C.N.R. Rao, Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister of India is involved in a matter involving copying of text FROM a paper published in 2010 INTO a 2011 paper co-authored by Rao. The authors of the COPIED text which appeared in 2010 in Applied Physics Letters were S Ghosh, B K Sarker, A Chunder, Lei Zhai and S I Khondaker.

from the Hindu Times:

The paper in question, “Infrared Photo-detectors Based on Reduced Graphene Oxide and Graphene Nanoribbons” published in Advanced Materials online on July 22, 2011 was authored by Basant Chitara (IISc), L.S. Panchakarla (Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research), Prof. Krupanidhi and Prof. Rao.

On July 28, 2011 the editorial office of Advanced Materials wrote to Prof. Rao and Prof. Krupanidhi seeking a clarification “about the possible overlaps between your publication and a paper that was published in Applied Physics Letters last year (April 2010).

Verbatim overlap

The editors cited the following paragraph, as an example of an almost verbatim overlap:

“In addition, controlled reduction of GO [graphene oxide] by chemical or thermal means allows the tunability of optoelectronic properties. Thin films prepared from solution-processed GO offer ease of material processing, low cost of fabrication, mechanical flexibility, and compatibility with various substrates, making them attractive candidates for large-area devices. GO-based thin films have already been used as transparent and flexible materials for electronic devices.”

Professor Krupanidhi said the editorial office of Advanced Materials, which pointed out the similarity in text to the authors, had not used the word ‘plagiarism' in their communication, and instead referred to the sentences as “direct overlap” and “possible overlaps.”

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