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The police accused of corruption and cheating the chairperson in the Haryana State Higher Education, an autonomous body created to promote academic excellence in the state. The main allegations against him include the appointment of staff in the university against the norms, opening of new educational centres, which were not required, extending favouritism, illegal withdrawal of university funds and spending the same on family’s personal expenses by misusing his official position.

After reports of corruption in the process of recruitments to its universities, the Higher Education Department plans to hand over tasks of screening candidates and issuing appointment orders to the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA). According to an official, “one university had given a written exam in a sheet of paper that was handwritten and with nonsensical questions’’.

Corruption charges and the arrest of former vice-chancellor of Bharathiar University still fresh, another controversy erupted on Monday, this time in the form of a video. The clip that surfaced showed the head of the Tamil department receiving money from a person, allegedly for a posting in the university. The state higher education department has decided to send the video to the police department and probe its authenticity as well as the allegations.

In order to improve the quality of published research and to crack down on so-called ‘predatory’ academic publishers – who charge fees to authors but fail to provide adequate quality control, or make misleading claims about their quality – India’s University Grants Commission (UGC) has published lists of approved journals for publishing research papers. The UGC, a statutory body that oversees university education in India, has now linked academic promotions and recruitment to its system of Academic Performance Indicators which will only recognise papers published in journals that are on the approved lists.