Retracted publications and communication practices: Insights from Indian research

This study analyzes 1,726 retracted publications involving corresponding authors from India, focusing on author misconduct, institutional affiliations, and email address usage. Data from the Web of Science and Retraction Watch reveal that 79% of the Indian corresponding authors used non-institutional email addresses, especially those affiliated with colleges, hospitals, or state universities. Of 88 unique retraction reasons, 24 were linked to author misconduct and categorized into four groups, with fake peer review and plagiarism or duplication emerging as the most prevalent. A sharp increase in retracted publications during 2021–2022 was primarily driven by the mass retraction of articles from guest-edited issues of the Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing. To a lesser extent, it was also influenced by a Hindawi mass retraction, likely the largest of its kind to date.