At last count, 35 papers published by researchers at the CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute (CSIR-CDRI), Lucknow have images that have been manipulated and/or duplicated. All the 35 papers have been listed on Pubpeer, a website that allows independent scientists to publish post-publication review of scientific papers.
It was reported recently that 130 papers of researchers from the Lucknow-based CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (CSIR-IITR) have been listed on Pubpeer for the same reason.
A former director of CSIR-IITR Dr. Kailash Chand Gupta and the current director Dr. Alok Dhawan too have papers with such images.
And unlike in the case of CSIR-IITR where papers published as early as 2004 had images that were manipulated, manipulation of images for paper publication seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon at CSIR-CDRI. All the 35 papers with manipulated images have been published between 2010 and 2018. While some images have been reused in the same paper, there is no image that has been reused in another paper, which was the case at CSIR-IITR.
And unlike the CSIR-IITR, there are several scientists who have no record of any paper on pubpeer website.
With five, Chief Scientist Dr. Naibedya Chattopadhyay has the most number of papers with manipulated images. While another paper of his has been retracted, four more have been corrected for faulty images. Compare this with Dr. Yogeshwer Shukla of CSIR-IITR who alone has 40 problematic papers.
There are about half a dozen papers from CSIR-CDRI that have been retracted for manipulated images and another half a dozen corrected in journals.
While CSIR has instituted a three-member independent committee to investigate the issue at CSIR-IITR, it is not immediately clear if similar independent committees will be constituted to look into the issue at other CSIR institutions.
Problematic papers listed on Pubpeer website
Jeetendra Kumar Nag, Nidhi Shrivastava, Dhanvantri Chahar, Chhedi Lal Gupta, Preeti Bajpai, Shailja Misra-Bhattacharya
Ruchi Saxena, Vishal Chandra, Murli Manohar, Kanchan Hajela, Utsab Debnath, Yenamandra S. Prabhakar, Karan Singh Saini, Rituraj Konwar, Sandeep Kumar, Kaling Megu, Bal Gangadhar Roy, Anila Dwivedi
PLoS ONE (2013)
Atul Kumar, Vishwa Deepak Tripathi, Promod Kumar, Lalit Prakash Gupta, Akanksha, Ritu Trivedi, Hemant Bid, V.L. Nayak, Jawed A. Siddiqui, Bandana Chakravarti, Ruchi Saxena, Anila Dwivedi, M.I. Siddiquee, U. Siddiqui, Rituraj Konwar, Naibedya Chattopadhyay
Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry (2011)
Vishal Chandra, Iram Fatima, Ruchi Saxena, Shakti Kitchlu, Sharad Sharma, Mohammad Kamil Hussain, Kanchan Hajela, Preeti Bajpai, Anila Dwivedi
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (2011)
Amit Kumar Tripathi, Ashish Dwivedi, Manish Kumar Pal, Namrata Rastogi, Priyanka Gupta, Shakir Ali, Manjunatha B H Prabhu, Hari Narayan Kushwaha, Ratan Singh Ray, Shio Kumar Singh, Shivali Duggal, Bhaskar Narayan, Durga Prasad Mishra
Journal of Biomedical Science (2014)
Namrata Rastogi, Rishi Kumar Gara, Rachana Trivedi, Akanksha Singh, Preety Dixit, Rakesh Maurya, Shivali Duggal, M.L.B. Bhatt, Sarika Singh, Durga Prasad Mishra
Free Radical Biology and Medicine (2014)
Megha Dubey, Abhishek K. Singh, Deepika Awasthi, Sheela Nagarkoti, Sachin Kumar, Wahid Ali, Tulika Chandra, Vikas Kumar, Manoj K. Barthwal, Kumaravelu Jagavelu, Francisco J. Sánchez-Gómez, Santiago Lamas, Madhu Dikshit
Ankita Misra, Smriti Srivastava, Seshadri Reddy Ankireddy, Nashreen S. Islam, Tulika Chandra, Ashutosh Kumar, Manoj Kumar Barthwal, Madhu Dikshit
Ankita Singh, Vishal Singh, Rajiv L. Tiwari, Tulika Chandra, Ashutosh Kumar, Madhu Dikshit, Manoj K. Barthwal
Sukka Santosh Reddy, Heena Agarwal, Manoj Kumar Barthwal
Sabbu Satish, Ankita Srivastava, Pragya Yadav, Salil Varshney, Rakhi Choudhary, Vishal M. Balaramnavar, Tadigoppula Narender, Anil Nilkanth Gaikwad
Poonam Parashar, Chandra Bhushan Tripathi, Malti Arya, Jovita Kanoujia, Mahendra Singh, Abhishek Yadav, Shubhini A. Saraf
Drug Delivery and Translational Research (2019)
Rajendra K. Baharia, Rati Tandon, Amogh A. Sahasrabuddhe, Shyam Sundar, Anuradha Dube
PLoS ONE (2014)
Deepak Gurbani, Vandna Kukshal, Julian Laubenthal, Ashutosh Kumar, Alok Pandey, Sarita Tripathi, Ashish Arora, Swatantra K. Jain, Ravishankar Ramachandran, Diana Anderson, Alok Dhawan
Ruchi Saxena, Vishal Chandra, Murli Manohar, Kanchan Hajela, Utsab Debnath, Yenamandra S. Prabhakar, Karan Singh Saini, Rituraj Konwar, Sandeep Kumar, Kaling Megu, Bal Gangadhar Roy, Anila Dwivedi
PLoS ONE (2013)
Atul Kumar, Vishwa Deepak Tripathi, Promod Kumar, Lalit Prakash Gupta, Akanksha, Ritu Trivedi, Hemant Bid, V.L. Nayak, Jawed A. Siddiqui, Bandana Chakravarti, Ruchi Saxena, Anila Dwivedi, M.I. Siddiquee, U. Siddiqui, Rituraj Konwar, Naibedya Chattopadhyay
Vishal Chandra, Iram Fatima, Ruchi Saxena, Shakti Kitchlu, Sharad Sharma, Mohammad Kamil Hussain, Kanchan Hajela, Preeti Bajpai, Anila Dwivedi
Preety Dixit, Kailash Chand, Mohd Parvez Khan, Jawed Akhtar Siddiqui, Deepshikha Tewari, Florence Tsofack Ngueguim, Naibedya Chattopadhyay, Rakesh Maurya
Phytochemistry (2012)
Hamidullah, Rajeev Kumar, Karan Singh Saini, Amit Kumar, Sudhir Kumar, E. Ramakrishna, Rakesh Maurya, Rituraj Konwar, Naibedya Chattopadhyay
Biochimie (2015)
Richa Shrivastava, Mohammad Asif, Varsha Singh, Parul Dubey, Showkat Ahmad Malik, Mehraj-U-Din Lone, Brij Nath Tewari, Khemraj Singh Baghel, Subhashis Pal, Geet Kumar Nagar, Naibedya Chattopadhyay, Smrati Bhadauria
Cytokine (2018)
Gatha Thacker, Yogesh Kumar, Mohd. Parvez Khan, Nidhi Shukla, Isha Kapoor, Jitendra Kumar Kanaujiya, Savita Lochab, Shakil Ahmed, Sabyasachi Sanyal, Naibedya Chattopadhyay, Arun Kumar Trivedi
Olajumoke Omolara Ojo, Smrati Bhadauria, Srikanta Kumar Rath
PLoS ONE (2013)
Ruchi Gera, Vikas Singh, Sumonto Mitra, Anuj Kumar Sharma, Alok Singh, Arunava Dasgupta, Dhirendra Singh, Mahadeo Kumar, Pankaj Jagdale, Satyakam Patnaik, Debabrata Ghosh
Scientific Reports (2017)
Ruchi Saxena, Vishal Chandra, Murli Manohar, Kanchan Hajela, Utsab Debnath, Yenamandra S. Prabhakar, Karan Singh Saini, Rituraj Konwar, Sandeep Kumar, Kaling Megu, Bal Gangadhar Roy, Anila Dwivedi
PLoS ONE (2013)
Atul Kumar, Vishwa Deepak Tripathi, Promod Kumar, Lalit Prakash Gupta, Akanksha, Ritu Trivedi, Hemant Bid, V.L. Nayak, Jawed A. Siddiqui, Bandana Chakravarti, Ruchi Saxena, Anila Dwivedi, M.I. Siddiquee, U. Siddiqui, Rituraj Konwar, Naibedya Chattopadhyay
Poonam Goswami, Sonam Gupta, Neeraj Joshi, Sharad Sharma, Sarika Singh
Sonam Gupta, Poonam Goswami, Joyshree Biswas, Neeraj Joshi, Sharad Sharma, C. Nath, Sarika Singh
Poonam Goswami, Sonam Gupta, Joyshree Biswas, Neeraj Joshi, Supriya Swarnkar, Chandishwar Nath, Sarika Singh
Molecular Neurobiology (2016)
Supriya Swarnkar, Sarika Singh, Poonam Goswami, Ramesh Mathur, Ishan K. Patro, Chandishwar Nath
Neurochemical Research (2012)
Ethika Tyagi, Rahul Agrawal, Chandishwar Nath, Rakesh Shukla
Innate Immunity (2010)
Rahul Agrawal, Bhanvi Mishra, Ethika Tyagi, Chandishwar Nath, Rakesh Shukla
Pharmacological Research (2010)
Rahul Agrawal, Ethika Tyagi, Rakesh Shukla, Chandishwar Nath
Ujjal J. Phukan, Gajendra Singh Jeena, Vineeta Tripathi, Rakesh Kumar Shukla
Plant Biotechnology Journal (2018)
Richa Pahuja, Kavita Seth, Anshi Shukla, Rakesh Shukla, Priyanka Bhatnagar, Lalit Kumar Singh Chauhan, Prem Narain Saxena, Jharna Arun, Bhushan Pradosh Chaudhari, Devendra Kumar Patel, Sheelendra Pratap Singh, Rakesh Shukla, Vinay Kumar Khanna, Pradeep Kumar, Rajnish Kumar Chaturvedi, Kailash Chand Gupta
ACS Nano (2015)
Nagendra Kumar Rai, Anushruti Ashok, Asit Rai, Sachin Tripathi, Geet Kumar Nagar, Kalyan Mitra, Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay