Mukt Shabd Journal: Is it a Fake Journal?

About a couple of weeks ago, I came across two online journals, Mukt Shabd Journal and Tathapi, which I suspected to be cloned/fake. When I cross-check the journals with that in the UGC-CARE List, I feel convinced that both would be fake/scam primarily because in less than four months, i.e. March-June, Mukt Shubd Journal published 2538 papers; and Tathapi published about 1163 papers during the month of June alone.

Let me share my tiny experience with this cloned/fake journal named Mukt Shabd Journal. Since I was convinced that the journal could be fraud, I was sharing this for research scholars for awareness.

Firstly, whenever you log-in to UGC-CARE List (Link: https://ugccare.unipune.ac.in/apps1/home/index), you will surely see a message which says This is to alert all the stakeholders that a few fake websites, imposing as CARE website, have come to our notice. All the stakeholders are advised to be careful and avoid falling prey to these potentially predatory websites. Anybody still following such websites may do so solely at his/her own risk and consequences, and in no manner whatsoever, will the UGC be responsible for the same.

You will also see an Alert: Researchers are advised to check whether the journal they are submitting their work to is not a clone version of another print/online journal [This Alert message has been replaced with the list of "cloned Journals" now, and fortunately, both these journals are included in it: https://ugccare.unipune.ac.in/Apps1/User/Web/CloneJournals?fbclid=IwAR2mrifUMZftdR7hoiyYgvKolpABIqtBT5z1Vt1ClBh9HghKAr8CGWqlXSA]

This communication, I think, is very important though many scholars are indifferent to it. It is significant because many predatory journals are coming up. So, be cautious in case you ever think of publishing in a paid journal.

When I visited the journal website, it says that it is in the UGC-CARE List with ISSN No.(2347-3150) and an Impact Factor: 4.6, and that with a payment of ₹2000 only as manuscript & certificate charges, a paper can be published within a week. It also claimed that the journal published twelve issues a year. Remember, no genuine journal will charge money for publication.

When I personally verified the details, I came to know that some of the articles published are as short as one page...and the current issue (June 2020) alone has about 658 articles. Apart from the Current Issue, it published Special Issue and Regular Issue as well.

In the Editorial Board, most of the names are from American Universities, and some of them are from South Africa, Taiwan, Venezuela, etc. So, I collected the email addresses of some of the Editorial Board members including that of the editor-in-chief (Prof. Sumit Ganguly), and enquire about the journal. In a very short time, they all replied to my emails and clarified that they have nothing to do with the journal. Some of them even hinted to take legal action [I did the same with some of the Foreign Editorial Team members of Tathapi too].

Again, when I cross-check the UGC-CARE List, I got a similar journal name with the same ISSN No. (for both the journal). However, with a closer look, the one on the UGC-CARE List and that on the websites were different. The one in UGC-CARE List is in the Marathi Language and Gujarati Language respectively and is published only in PRINT. But the one with the websites are a multidisciplinary one covering almost every discipline (both in English and Regional languages).

Out of curiosity, I once again check the websites of these Journals, and to my astonishment, they have published about 2538 articles in less than four months, i.e., between March and June this year (Tathapi published about 1163 papers during the month of June alone).

Then, I calculated how much they might be earning in the name of manuscript and certificate charges which is ₹2000 per paper, and the total amount, according to my estimate, comes to about ₹50,76,000. Imagine a journal earn more than ₹50 lakhs in less than four months!

Here, to my utter amazement, some of the University Professors, and even staff in the administrations, thought the journal to be genuine. Probably they check only the NAME and ISSN No. and didn't cross-check with that in the UGC-CARE List. I suggest that we, the academics, should be more careful about such scams. I am not claiming what I said to be perfectly accurate, but I was 99% sure with my logic that the journal was a scam. Otherwise I wouldn't write this. [Link: https://ugccare.unipune.ac.in/Apps1/User/WebA/ViewDetails?JournalId=101002785&flag=Search].

Remember, this Journal invite articles in other webpages as well [Link: https://www.researchfora.net/submit-paper.php?jname=Mukt%20Shabd%20Journal]. Another website claims that the said journal in question is one of the journal in the Current UGC-CARE List [Link: http://www.kkjournals.com/npdf/ugc_list@28april2020.pdf]. 

For those who are interested to check out these two cloned/fake journals, you can click the link here [http://shabdbooks.com/ AND https://www.tathapi.com/index.html]. Remember also that most of the links included in the UGC list of Cloned Journals had been disabled one after another.

(Clarification: Just a few days after I wrote this blog, the UGC notified a list of  CLONED JOURNALS, and hence I am compelled to edit a little bit. However, I wouldn't accept responsibility for any error. Kindly cross-check the websites before taking a decision.)