With an h-index of 75, computer scientist Thippa Reddy Gadekallu ranks among the world’s most highly cited researchers. But the speed and means of his ascent to those lofty heights of scholarship has been as remarkable as the achievement itself.
In less than a decade, Gadekallu, a professor at Zhejiang A&F University in China, has managed to bootstrap himself from scientific obscurity by collaborating with colleagues around the world who cite each other’s work in ways that have raised questions. In some years, Gadekallu received more citations than Yoshua Bengio, a pioneer in artificial intelligence and the top-rated computer scientist on Google Scholar.
Earlier work uncovered a network of reviewers on papers Gadekallu edited who frequently suggested adding citations to his work. A closer look by Retraction Watch shows the impact of that strategy on Gadekallu’s h-index, and reveals additional possible collaborators in the network.
“Man, this is crazy,” said Vincent Larivière, an information scientist at the University of Montreal, whom we asked to review the metrics. “These numbers are definitely suspect.”
The h-index is based on citation rates, and growth becomes more difficult with each new paper. Extraordinarily prolific researchers, such as John Ioannidis, have experienced single year jumps as high as 16, but yearly increases in the single digits are more typical.
David Robert Grimes, a Retraction Watch Sleuth in Residence, examined the citation records of Gadekallu and his closest collaborators, and found that, in 2019, Gadekallu’s h-index jumped 17 points, from 10 to 27. The following year, it jumped 23 points, and then 19. Matching Ioannidis’s career high, Grimes said, “is kind of like matching Usain Bolt’s 100-meter time.”
Repeating the feat three times in a row? “You either have a truly exceptional scholar or something else is going on,” Grimes said.
| Year | Number of publications | Number of citations | H-Index |
| 2014 | 1 | 25 | 1 |
| 2016 | 8 | 63 | 4 |
| 2017 | 7 | 280 | 10 |
| 2018 | 2 | 57 | 10 |
| 2019 | 1 | 6 | 10 |
| 2020 | 28 | 4057 | 27 |
| 2021 | 49 | 4906 | 50 |
| 2022 | 83 | 7531 | 69 |
| 2023 | 93 | 3987 | 74 |
| 2024 | 82 | 1883 | 75 |
| 2025 | 87 | 239 | 75 |
Grimes’s work has revealed that his network includes dozens of coauthors spread around the world. Like Gadekallu, Grimes found, his most frequent collaborators have experienced remarkably steep increases in their h-indices, raising the question of whether such metrics should continue to be relied upon.
Over the course of several emails with us, Gadekallu admitted that he typically leaned on collaborators to conduct peer reviews, but insisted that he has never participated in any intentional manipulation.
“I completely understand why it might look concerning from the outside, but I categorically deny any behind the scenes coordination, pressure, or exchange regarding citations,” he wrote.
Hung-Wen Chiu’s experiences tell a different story.
In April 2021, Chiu, a biomedical engineer at Taipei Medical University in Taiwan, submitted a new paper to PLOS One. The paper described a method to automatically classify medical images of different body parts that had been captured on different types of machines.
PLOS One’s editorial board is made up of thousands of volunteer editors from around the world. Chiu’s paper was assigned to Gadekallu, then at the Vellore Institute of Technology in India, who delegated it to two peer reviewers.
The peer review comments Chiu received several weeks later were brief and generic. “Discuss the limitations of the current work,” the first reviewer suggested. “Typo’s [sic] in the whole paper,” the second reviewer said.
But in one area they offered more precision: citations. Both reviewers felt Chiu’s paper should reference two of Gadekallu’s own articles and two others from one of Gadekallu’s collaborators. One provided a link to the Google Scholar profile for the collaborator: “Visit this profile and cite related papers.”
The papers were broad, descriptive surveys with little analysis and lots of citations. None was particularly relevant to Chiu’s study, but he agreed to add one, which at least had a section on medical imaging. “Inappropriate,” was how Chiu described the request in an email to us.
Five days after submitting his revisions, Chiu’s paper was accepted. “We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication,” Gadekallu wrote.
Chiu’s experience with Gadekallu was hardly unusual according to Maria de los Ángeles Oviedo-García, an economist at the Universidad de Sevilla, who has reviewed Gadekallu’s history. Her review of 31 publicly available peer review reports from PLOS One and other journals finds Gadekallu’s reviewers have recommended that authors cite Gadekallu’s work on 35 occasions and the work of his coauthors on 79 different occasions.
Gadekallu has served as a reviewer on at least 949 papers, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science. At least in the reports that are publicly available he, too, has recommended that authors cite his own work. “I believe there is much more hidden than I can find,” Oviedo said.
Although Gadekallu has been linked to numerous retractions in various journals he edited, he was a productive PLOS One editor until his dismissal from that board in October 2024. Beth Baker, a spokesperson for PLOS, told Retraction Watch that an investigation around Gadekallu’s activities is still ongoing. “PLOS does not support or condone coercive citation practices,” she added.
While there’s a long history of peer reviewers gently nudging authors to cite their own work, organized citation rings, which can involve dozens of participants actively boosting each others’ metrics, emerged just over a decade ago. These schemes often distort the peer-review process with bogus reviews and irrelevant citations. Editors, too, have been implicated.
Gadekallu’s own rise as a citation powerhouse began in 2018, shortly after he completed his Ph.D. at the Vellore Institute of Technology in southern India. VIT, founded in 1984, was little known outside the region, but over the next decade it seeded the engineering literature with a raft of low-quality publications and a generation of editors who would be linked to retractions of entire special issues tarnished by evidence of peer-review manipulation.
Much of Gadekallu’s work consists of lengthy descriptive “surveys,” which typically summarize and define various fields of study. Some of these papers feature “tortured phrases” — often a hallmark of questionable research papers — while others contain irrelevant citations and seemingly impossible data, according to commenters on PubPeer.
“There is no secret to this growth other than working rigorously at the forefront of evolving fields, which naturally increases the likelihood of contributing meaningful results,” Gadekallu told us.
Gadekallu supercharged his impact by establishing a network of more than 1,000 coauthors with whom he has published more than 480 papers. One of his closest collaborators is Praveen Kumar Reddy Maddikunta, who obtained his Ph.D. from VIT the same year and remains an associate professor there. The two have published 97 papers together, helping to elevate Maddikunta’s h-index from 9 in 2017 to 55 today. Seventeen articles were retracted from a special issue he guest edited for the journal Mobile Information Systems for peer review manipulation and inappropriate citations.
| Year | Number of publications | Number of citations | H-Index |
| 2013 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2015 | 2 | 22 | 2 |
| 2016 | 4 | 7 | 3 |
| 2017 | 9 | 144 | 6 |
| 2019 | 7 | 140 | 9 |
| 2020 | 21 | 3556 | 21 |
| 2021 | 30 | 2826 | 36 |
| 2022 | 29 | 4241 | 47 |
| 2023 | 22 | 1746 | 52 |
| 2024 | 14 | 624 | 55 |
| 2025 | 3 | 34 | 55 |
Some of Gadekallu’s most successful collaborators have gone on to obtain positions at universities in Europe and North America. Consider the case of Gautum Srivastava, a computer scientist at Brandon University in Canada. Between 2019 and 2024, Srivastava published 68 papers with Gadekallu, racking up thousands of citations, while his h-index rose from 9 in 2018 to 74 today. Several of his articles with members of the network have been retracted for “compromised editorial handling” and “inappropriate or irrelevant references” among other allegations.
While a steep rise in an author’s h-index can be a warning flag, it’s still not possible to identify citation rings without carefully reviewing the studies and the author’s history. “There is no test which is a smoking gun for metric manipulation,” Grimes said. “All we can detect is unusual changes, which have to be seen in context.”
| Year | Number of publications | Number of citations | H-Index |
| 2007 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 2011 | 3 | 95 | 3 |
| 2013 | 2 | 108 | 5 |
| 2014 | 2 | 7 | 5 |
| 2018 | 8 | 160 | 9 |
| 2019 | 32 | 3673 | 26 |
| 2020 | 78 | 4030 | 44 |
| 2021 | 152 | 7380 | 59 |
| 2022 | 136 | 5023 | 69 |
| 2023 | 159 | 3332 | 72 |
| 2024 | 116 | 2066 | 74 |
| 2025 | 59 | 143 | 74 |
Some of the context for Srivastava’s career trajectory can be seen in his work as an editor. Srivistava’s web page indicates that he has worked as an editor for at least 14 journals and guest edited more than a dozen special issues, though some of those do not appear to have ever been published.
In one special issue Srivastava guest edited with Gadekallu for Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience, 122 articles were retracted for “inappropriate citations” and “peer-review manipulation,” among other issues. (After our article published, Gadekallu told us he had no editorial control of the special issue’s content. “While my name appeared as a co-guest editor, my role was nominal only. I did not edit any of the articles in question,” he wrote.)
In another special issue he guest edited for Computational Intelligence, 17 out of 29 articles were retracted based on a “compromised peer review process.”
In a brief phone interview, Srivastava declined to comment on his own retractions and denied participating in a citation ring. “I’m not part of anything like that,” he said. “I do have a lot of collaborators and that might have something to do with it.”
Gadekallu has himself racked up four retractions. Fang Kai, the vice dean of academics at Zhejiang A and F University, where Gadekallu is currently based, did not respond to multiple emails requesting comment.
As for Gadekallu, he does not see those retractions as indicative of his overall reputation. “While I take the publishers’ decisions on these four papers very seriously, they are isolated anomalies within a much larger body of work, and they do not account for the growth of my overall citation metrics,” he said.
Update, May 28, 2026, 3:14 UTC: The paragraph about the special issue in Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience has been updated with a clarification Gadekallu sent us after this article was published.
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PLOS One is “investigating”. As usual nothing happens, because it’s just a few citations and no actual peer review…
It’s so disappointing how slow publishers are at reacting. if they react at all…
Main Culprit is Elsevier top 2 percent scientist list, if you carefully check it, you will find that many such things.
Why single out one researcher when the failure is clearly systemic? In a journal submission system, there are multiple checks and safeguards at every stage. These include initial screening, the peer review process, the decision making of the handling editor, cross checking by the associate editor, and finally, after acceptance, the work of the publication team preparing the final proof.
If an article is found to contain tortured phrases, irrelevant references, or citations coerced by reviewers or editors, that paper can be rejected at any of these stages, right from initial screening all the way to the generation of the galley proof. The problem lies with the system itself, and it represents a collective failure if such practices persist.
This raises a larger question that is almost never addressed. Why are authors always singled out for scrutiny and punishment while the journals that enabled these practices face no consequences? If citation manipulation and peer review rings are flourishing, it is because the editorial infrastructure allowed it. Journals profit from the metrics these papers generate, yet when problems come to light, they deflect all responsibility onto individual researchers. Their investigations drag on indefinitely, and their reforms, if any, are cosmetic.
The lack of accountability for publishers is a glaring gap in the current discourse. If the same energy spent on naming and shaming authors were directed at the journals and their broken processes, actual change might follow. Until then, researchers remain convenient scapegoats for a system designed to reward volume and metrics over genuine scrutiny.
While I agree there is a lack of accountability, I do not agree with your insinuations that the fault is mostly with the editors/journals or publishers. People who manipulate the system are still manipulating it. If you use tortured phrases, or coerce citations than you are to blame. Not the publisher. Furthermore, the publisher is actually doing a great thing by publishing these papers and then retracting them. If they would have stopped the papers and informed the authors about these issues, the authors could correct it and send their ‘crap’ (that is now improved) to another journal. You seem to put the blame on the wrong people. The ones who manipulate the game are the ones to blame, not the others.
Slightly paraphrasing Mike Downes, https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1316 –
“The aim is not to
‘prepare faculty to navigate the dynamic publishing
environment’ or to ‘actively adopt a
broader suite of indicators and thereby build a stronger ranking system for scientists.’ It is not to get ‘a consensus on a definition of citation stackers’ – laudable
and necessary as this and all other tools may be. The aim is not
to develop and refine measures of the quality of evaluation systems, to
develop ‘standardised reporting of a range of citation metrics’ or
‘improved metadata,’ or to ‘develop and evaluate
intervention strategies such as educational campaigns and policy
mandates’ (Grudniewicz et al., 2019). Nor is it to reinforce our critiques of the debate about the pros and cons of traditional and modern publishing and business models in the light of new global
realities and the Internet. No. The aim is to get the crooks out of
the academy.”
As an old-timer, it is discouraging to see what has happened to academic publishing and the use and misuse of citations. After a six-decade career spanning several disciplines, I have a modest h-index of 38. The numbers being touted by researchers today are prima facie not credible. I thought I was being productive with a few papers a year. 159? It is physically impossible to author/coauthor in any actual or meaningful way so many papers in one year. Full stop. Instead of discarding or discounting metrics completely, it would make more sense to set a reasonable threshold beyond which claimed publications are ignored altogether.
100% agreed. I am honestly sick and tired of hearing that one should give “hyper-prolific” researchers any benefit of the doubt. The only conceivable way that anyone could publish 100+ papers a year, while being fully cognizant and responsible for their content, is if they were to do nothing else all day, every day, but read manuscripts prepared by others. Never any original contribution.
Agreed.
This is why I suggest using a new index: h’ = log(log(h)). The (absolute) value of h’ is unimportant, what matters is the sign. We have h’ 0. If someone remains in the negative territory for a very long time, he should consider trying to make a career change.
The only drawback of h’ is that it does not work for people who have published only one article (example: Thomas Bayes). Note that Peter Higgs is critically close to h’ = 0, even if he belonged to the positive group, I think.
Obviously, h’ should be reported to one (or two at the most) decimal places, in the range [-0.5, 0.5], otherwise the metric is useless. There is a parallel with the journal IF’s: I’ve seen colleagues believing in good faith that a journal with IF = 3.642 is “much better” than another one with IF = 3.511. Clarivate publishes now IF’s with one decimal place, but this makes little difference: 3.6 is still “better” than 3.5.
Sorry for the hiccup in my comment: equations were lost in translation… The 3rd sentence should read: “we have h’ negative for those starting their careers, and at some point, they join the group of researchers having h’ positive”.
A very interesting proposal! I personally favor an “adjusted” citation count that normalizes by coauthorship, penalizes for retractions, and incorporates diminishing returns. For the a given paper i, let’s define r(i) = -1 if the paper i has been retracted, or r(i) = 1 otherwise, and let’s also define m(i) = the number of authors of the paper i.
c* = Σ_{over all papers i} of ( r(i) * [ (citations to paper i)/m(i) ]^(1/2) )
A clown author from a clown university shooting up his h-index is suspect. There should be a way to normalize by journal reputation and the university’s reputation. Someone from a bottom tier university with no pedigree publishing copiously in bottom-tier journals should be rounded back to the lowest hundred, i.e., 0.
I have read the article with deep pain and disappointment. I understand that questions about research integrity, peer review, citations, retractions, and editorial practices must be taken seriously. I also understand that the academic community has every right to ask difficult questions when something appears unusual from the outside.
At the same time, I feel the article presents my entire academic journey, my coauthored work, my collaborators, and the recognition our papers have received in a deeply unfair and one-sided manner. It appears to reduce years of hard work, sacrifice, learning, collaboration, and genuine research effort to suspicion and insinuation. That is extremely painful.
Let me state this clearly. I accept responsibility for mistakes that happened in my academic and editorial journey. Some mistakes happened because of ignorance, lack of experience, negligence, or poor judgment at certain points in my career. I do not deny that there were things I should have handled better. I should have been more careful in some editorial decisions, in citation-related suggestions, in checking references, and in ensuring that every paper I coauthored met the highest possible standards. I take those concerns seriously.
However, I strongly reject any suggestion that I intentionally participated in a citation ring, deliberately manipulated citations, pressured authors, or coordinated behind the scenes to artificially inflate my metrics. That is not true.
On editorial work and reviewer selection
When I worked as an editor, I initially tried to invite independent reviewers. In many cases, reviewers did not respond, declined, or were unavailable. Over time, I sometimes invited researchers I knew or had worked with, because I believed they had the necessary expertise and would respond in time. Looking back, I understand how this can create a perception of conflict of interest or lack of independence. At that time, I did not fully understand the seriousness of this issue in the way I understand it now.
This was a mistake in judgment, and I accept responsibility for it.
But I never instructed, pressured, or forced reviewers to ask authors to cite my work. In fact, in many editorial comments, I clearly indicated that authors should cite reviewer-suggested papers only if they found them relevant and useful for improving the quality of the manuscript. I never treated citations as a condition for acceptance, and I never intended peer review to be used for citation gain.
On suggesting citations to my own work
It is true that earlier in my career, while reviewing papers, I sometimes suggested related papers, including some of my own or coauthored papers, when I believed they were relevant to the topic. At that time, I saw this as helping authors improve the state-of-the-art discussion. I now understand that even when the intention is not improper, suggesting one’s own work can create ethical concerns, especially if done repeatedly or without sufficient justification.
Once I became more aware of this, I reduced and stopped such practices. I have learned from this. I accept that I should have been more cautious much earlier.
But the intention was never quid pro quo. It was never a hidden arrangement. It was never a coordinated exchange. It was never a strategy to manipulate metrics.
On citations and h-index growth
The article suggests that my citation growth is suspicious. I understand why unusual citation patterns may attract attention. But it is unfair to assume that citation growth itself proves misconduct.
Many of my highly cited works were published in emerging and fast-growing areas such as federated learning, blockchain, deep learning, cybersecurity, healthcare applications, transportation systems, intrusion detection, Internet of Things, and other AI-related domains. These were active and rapidly developing research areas. Papers published at the right time in such areas can naturally attract significant attention.
I request readers to examine the actual papers that received citations. Please look at their topics, timing, scope, relevance, and use by other researchers. Then decide whether they were cited because of their usefulness and timeliness, or because of the allegations suggested in the article.
I also ask a simple and rational question. How many citations can someone realistically obtain by asking others to cite their work? A few dozen? A few hundred? If thousands of citations have come from researchers around the world, then it is only fair to examine whether those citations were given because the works were useful to their own research.
If any researcher who has cited my coauthored papers reads this, I humbly request them to state openly why they cited that particular work. Let the academic community hear from the researchers who actually used the papers.
On review papers
The article appears to downplay review papers by describing them as broad or descriptive. I strongly disagree with that characterization.
High-quality review papers are a very important part of research. A good review paper does not merely summarize existing literature. It organizes a field, identifies research gaps, explains open challenges, compares methods, highlights future directions, and helps new researchers understand where the field is going. Many researchers begin their work by reading strong review papers because these papers help them understand the state of the art.
I was fortunate to learn from experienced researchers who had published strong review papers in respected venues. Over time, through hard work, I improved my ability to contribute to such papers. Many of my review papers were written on timely and emerging topics, which is one reason they attracted citations.
It is unfair to dismiss review papers as if they are automatically less valuable than other research contributions.
On coauthors and collaborations
The article also refers to my large number of coauthors and presents this as suspicious. I understand that a large collaboration network may raise questions. But collaboration is a normal part of modern research, especially in interdisciplinary areas like AI, cybersecurity, healthcare, IoT, and data science.
I do not personally know every coauthor in the same way. Some collaborations came through students, colleagues, senior researchers, international projects, invited contributions, or topic-specific expertise. In many cases, I was invited to contribute because of my experience in a particular area. In other cases, I invited people with relevant expertise to improve the quality of the work.
That is what collaboration is supposed to be. No researcher is perfect in every area. We learn from each other. We work with domain experts, method experts, senior colleagues, students, and researchers from different countries. That should not automatically be portrayed as a network created for citation gain.
I have never asked anyone to include my name as a coauthor without contribution. Those who have worked with me know the time I spend discussing ideas, revising manuscripts, guiding students, giving feedback, attending meetings, working late nights, and improving papers. My students, collaborators, and colleagues can speak about the effort I put into research.
I request my collaborators and coauthors, if they read the article, to share their honest views about the quality of our work, my contribution, and the way our research teams functioned.
On errors, problematic references, and retractions
Regarding concerns about irrelevant references, tortured phrases, or mistakes in some papers, I accept that such issues should not happen. I have tried to check papers carefully, but in some cases I missed things. I regret that.
However, it is also important to recognize that a research paper passes through many stages. Authors, coauthors, editors, reviewers, associate editors, senior editors, editors-in-chief, editorial staff, production teams, and proofing teams all play roles in the publication process. This does not remove my responsibility. I am not trying to escape responsibility. But it is unfair to place the entire blame for every issue in every coauthored paper only on one person.
Every author should be responsible. Every journal process should be responsible. Every editorial system should be responsible. If there are weaknesses in the system, we should fix the system rather than simply turning individual researchers into public targets.
Regarding retractions, I take every retraction seriously. I do not dismiss them. I regret that any paper connected to me has faced such an outcome. But a small number of problematic papers should not be used to define an entire body of work involving hundreds of papers, many collaborators, students, and research groups.
On career growth and academic recognition
The article gives the impression that my growth itself is suspicious. This is painful.
In every field, people grow by learning, adapting, and working hard. A child first learns to crawl, then walk, then speak, then study, then work, then improve. In research also, we start with basic ideas, learn from seniors, improve our skills, enter new areas, and gradually contribute more. Growth should not automatically be treated as evidence of wrongdoing.
When I started research, many researchers were working on classical machine learning, hybrid algorithms, soft computing, and related methods. As the field changed, I moved into newer and fast-growing areas. In AI and related fields, new topics emerge very quickly. Researchers who work on timely and important problems naturally receive more attention. That is not misconduct. That is how research evolves.
If rankings, h-indexes, or “top scientist” lists have limitations, then the academic community should improve or reconsider those metrics. But it is unfair to insult or suspect every person who crosses a certain threshold. If the grading system has flaws, correct the grading system. Do not automatically attack the people who received a high grade.
On the tone and impact of the article
What hurts me most is not that the article pointed out mistakes. Mistakes should be pointed out. Concerns should be investigated. I am ready to answer questions and improve wherever needed.
What hurts me is the way the article appears to frame my entire career and the work of my collaborators as if it were built on malicious practices. That is unfair. Such writing can damage reputations, careers, students, collaborators, families, and institutions. It can make genuine researchers look like they are being cornered before all facts are fairly examined.
I request the publishers and authors of the article to verify facts carefully, moderate the framing, and avoid presenting allegations or suspicions in a way that wipes out years of legitimate work and recognition. It is one thing to report concerns. It is another thing to create an impression that all achievements are the result of wrongdoing.
If the purpose is to improve research integrity, then the focus should be on improving the entire publication system. That includes submission checks, editorial screening, reviewer selection, conflict-of-interest management, citation ethics, production checks, post-publication review, and transparent correction mechanisms. Authors, reviewers, editors, publishers, and institutions all have responsibilities.
The goal should be reform, not public humiliation.
My position going forward
I am willing to take responsibility for mistakes that happened due to ignorance, negligence, or lack of awareness. I am willing to learn, improve, cooperate with fair investigations, and support stronger ethical practices in publishing and peer review.
But I cannot accept being branded as someone who intentionally built a career through manipulation. I cannot accept the dismissal of all my work, all my collaborators’ efforts, and all citations to our papers as if they were the result of a citation ring.
I respectfully ask readers not to judge me, my coauthors, my students, or our research without examining the actual papers, the contexts, the timelines, and the contributions. Please judge the work fairly. Please listen to those who worked with me. Please ask those who cited our papers why they cited them. Please separate genuine mistakes from intentional misconduct.
I have made mistakes, and I am ready to improve. But I have also worked extremely hard, sacrificed much, and contributed sincerely to the research community. It is deeply unfair to erase that entire journey with suspicion.
My only question is how can someone publish 80-100 papers in a year? Surely, if someone is publishing these many papers in a year, they must be running a paper mill with no meaningful scientific contribution, originality and rigor.
How kind of you to publicly confess: “Many of my highly cited works were published in emerging and fast-growing areas such as **federated learning, blockchain, deep learning, cybersecurity, healthcare applications, transportation systems, intrusion detection, Internet of Things**”
Really? Are you the reincarnation of John von Neumann, perchance? It is simply unbelievable that someone could be a real expert in so many different fields.
Also, re: “It is unfair to dismiss review papers as if they are automatically less valuable than other research contributions.” Straw Man fallacy. No one is dismissing review papers in general as less valuable than other research contributions. What people are saying on PubPeer is that YOUR review papers are not valuable.
Worth pointing out that scanning this comment through Pangram, a relatively reliable AI detector, gives a high confidence estimate that 100% of this was written by AI. I think this answers Alan’s question about how someone can publish so many papers a year.
Wow, what an inspiring academic model: aim for one billion citations, flood the world with publications, and call it research excellence. Why should the old-fashioned academics keep preaching about originality, ethics, and meaningful contributions when one can simply rewrite the rules, dominate special issues, attach powerful names, and present collective work as individual brilliance?
Perhaps this is the new definition of being “Number 1” in academia: generating endless low-value publications, strategically appearing in special issues, building citation empires, and acting as though everyone else is merely pretending to do research. Truly, a masterclass in how academic metrics can be turned into performance theatre.
Write papers and sell to Chinese authors. Earn money.
Kudos VIT University for preparing such individuals. Gunasekaran Manogaran, Priyan Malarvizhi Kumar, Arun Kumar Sangaiah, Vijayakumar Varadharajan.
First make your Google Scholar Public
What many fail to realize is that some professors insist that their students put the professor’s name on the manuscript. Thus, there are a bunch of demonic professors running around with inflated h-index scores with at best, varying levels of knowledge regarding their students’ findings. Corruption is baked into the system.
When I looked up this person on Google Scholar, I found h=98:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=nQFCxmkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
Am I missing something, or maybe it went from h=75 to h=98 in a few days?!
Google scholar’s reported h-index is inflated by duplicates.
https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/cfb2w_v1
The relevance of Pierre Bourdieu’s cold realities of social inequality in citation cartels and gamification of the h index
https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/ksjyd_v1
Bullying in not even bad.
both preprints deal with h index. h index needs to be vaildated.
I think this discussion should be approached with fairness, context, and evidence. Concerns about citation practices, peer review integrity, and special-issue handling certainly deserve serious scrutiny, and journals should investigate them transparently. At the same time, unusual citation growth or a rapid rise in h-index should not automatically be treated as proof of intentional misconduct.
Prof. Gadekallu has contributed extensively to fast-growing and interdisciplinary areas such as IoT, cybersecurity, blockchain, federated learning, healthcare AI, intrusion detection, and intelligent systems. Pioneering or timely works in such emerging areas often attract accelerated citations because they become useful to multiple research communities at the same time. Therefore, rapid citation growth may look unusual, but it should be interpreted in relation to the subject area, publication timing, collaboration pattern, and actual usefulness of the papers.
It is also important to look at the distribution of impact. His publicly visible ScienceDirect/Scopus-linked profile reports around 449 documents, more than 23,000 citations from over 19,000 citing documents, and an h-index of 76. By definition, an h-index of 76 means that at least 76 papers have each received 76 or more citations. This suggests that the citation impact is spread across many papers rather than being concentrated in only one or two highly cited articles. Such a broad distribution is difficult to explain solely as the work of a small closed group and should not be reduced to a simple narrative of manipulation without detailed paper-level and citation-level evidence.
Of course, any questionable editorial or citation-related practice must be examined through proper processes. But a balanced assessment should distinguish between proven misconduct, possible process-level concerns, and the broader scientific value of a researcher’s contributions. Until clear findings are established by the relevant journals or institutions, the discussion should remain cautious, evidence-driven, and respectful.
So. much. STRAW.
“unusual citation growth or a rapid rise in h-index should not automatically be treated as proof of intentional misconduct.” > That was never the point. It’s suspicious, but not proof. Sure. Just ignore all the evidence that was gathered about the citation rings!
“Such a broad distribution is difficult to explain solely as the work of a small closed group” > No one said the citation rings are small and closed. It seems like the quite big operation, to the contrary.
“Until clear findings are established by the relevant journals or institutions, the discussion should remain cautious, evidence-driven, and respectful.” > Ah yes, it wouldn’t be a non-rebuttal rebuttal without the obligatory appeal to civility thrown in at the end. Forget countering the points that were actually made, just whine that people are being mean to you!
What benefit does this clearly AI-generated comment provide to this discussion?
“unusual citation growth or a rapid rise in h-index should not automatically be treated as proof of intentional misconduct.” Sure; the explosive growth in his h-index over a few years is not proof by itself. But how about when next to all the other evidence showing an active citation ring? It was never the premise of the article that the highly suspicious h-index evolution is prima facie proof of misconduct.
“the work of a small closed group” Okay, please explain in what world are over 1,000 alleged ‘collaborators’ a “small” number? Probably not every single one of them are part of the citation ring, but it certainly is quite a lot of people who are involved at minimum. Just in the article alone at least 3 confirmed citation ring members are profiled.
“Until clear findings are established by the relevant journals or institutions” You don’t come here very often, do you? The overmuch esteemed Simon Kolstoe has educated us thoroughly on why institutions will never take responsibility. As for journals, use the evidence of your eyes.
“the discussion should remain cautious, evidence-driven, and respectful.” And, of course, it would not be a complete non-rebuttal rebuttal without the obligatory appeal to civility at the end. Why bother addressing the actual claims made when you can just complain about how rude all of these journalists are being by exposing the truth?
It is very unfortunate to see my name mentioned in the article in a manner that may create an impression of wrongdoing on my part. I therefore wish to place on record the following facts regarding my role as a Guest Editor of Mobile Information Systems.
I served as one of the Guest Editors of Mobile Information Systems and carried out my editorial responsibilities with professionalism, honesty, and in accordance with the journal’s editorial policies. I was not involved in peer-review manipulation, inappropriate citation practices, or any other form of publication misconduct.
Unfortunately, many journals published by Hindawi were subsequently delisted, and Mobile Information Systems was one of them. As a result, a significant number of papers were retracted across the journal. These actions affected many editors and guest editors associated with the journal, including myself.
https://retractionwatch.com/2023/12/19/hindawi-reveals-process-for-retracting-more-than-8000-paper-mill-articles/
Additionally, my role as a Guest Editor was limited to the editorial responsibilities assigned to me for the special issue. I was not involved in the journal’s operational management, publishing decisions, investigations, or the publisher’s retraction process. Therefore, the actions taken by the publisher regarding the journal and the retraction of articles were beyond my scope of responsibility and control.
I would also like to respectfully state that I am not responsible for the retraction of any papers. Retraction decisions are made by the publisher based on its own investigations and policies. Furthermore, I believe that any statements or allegations concerning a researcher or editor should be verified with the concerned individual before publication.
I strongly object to any implication of misconduct against me.
To the best of my knowledge, I performed my editorial duties honestly, diligently, and in good faith.
Spending around 33 year in academia still when i read this kind of blogs, make me feel why its the GEs, authors that have to suffer. Why not you discuss the system who is benefiting majorly?
Below are my few cents on this blog.
This blog reads as a speculative interpretation of citation data presented without sufficient evidence to support the serious implications it invites.
Analyses based primarly on citation graphs, reviewer suggestions, and co-authorship patterns do not, on their own, establish misconduct. At best, they demonstrate correlation not causation and should be treated with appropriate caution.
Many of the researchers being indirectly asociated with so-called “networks” have extensive publication records in highly selective venues, including top-tier journals such as IEEE Transactins and other leading publications. Their sustained contributions, peer recognition, and impact across the field should be evaluated on their own merits, rather than being overshadowed by inference-driven narratives built on partial data.
A key concern is that the blog does not clearly define what constitutes a “citation network” or establish any transparent threshold for distinguishing normal academic behavior from misconduct. In many specialized research areas, dense citation patterns are both expected and inevitable, as a relatively small community of experts builds upon each other’s work. Interconnected citation structures, therefore, are not inherently suspicious they are often a natural outcome of an active and focused research domain.
Similarly, the suggestion that reviewer-recommended citations indicate wrongdoing requires far more careful qualification. Recommending relevant literature is a standard and legitimate part of peer review. Without clear evidence of systematic, excessive, or irrelevant citation demands, such observations should not be interpreted as coercive or unethical behavior.
The framing used in the blog risks leading readers to conclusions that go beyond what the evidence can justify. Referring to individuals as “possible collaborators” in a questionable network creates an implicit association with misconduct, even where no direct evidence of coordination, intent, or benefit-sharing is presented. This kind of suggestive language can have significant reputational consequnces while remaining difficult to challenge due to its ambiguity.
While, there are broader structral issues within academic publishing that deserve closer scrutiny. The widespread use of special issues by major publishers including IEEE and other leading journals has created systemic incentives that may influence editorial practices. These special issues often generate substantial revenue while relying heavily on the largely unpaid labor of guest editors. Yet when concerns arise, responsibility is frequently narrowed to those guest editors alone. You should mention EIC, whole EIC team, associate editors, production staff since they have a role in this whole process.
This raises an important and largely unaddressed question: is it reasonable to attribute complex editorial outcomes to a single guest editor, while the journal’s editorial board, reviewers, publishers, and oversight mechanisms bear no meaningful responsibility? Journals benefit financially and reputationally from these publication models, yet accountability appears to be selectively assigned when problems occur. If the goal is to genuinely strengthen research integrity, then scrutiny must extend to the full publishing system not just to individuals who are easiest to single out.
Finally, with respect to citation practices, it is important to distinguish between unethical coercion and more nuanced realities. While coercive citation is widely considered problematic within academic ethics frameworks, it is not illegal. Moreover, even if isolated instances occurred particularly early in a researcher’s career these should not be conflated with systematic manipulation, especially where an individual has accumulated thousands of citations across a broad and demonstrably impactful body of work. Any fair assessment must consider scale, context, and proportionality.
Protecting research integrity requires careful, evidence-based analysis, clear definitions, and responsible communication. Drawing strong implications from indirect or incomplete signals risks mischaracterizing legitimate scholars and detracting from the deeper, systemic issues within academic publishing that warrant serious and balanced investigation.
Why is the focus always placed on a single researcher when the problem is clearly much larger and deeply systemic? A journal submission process involves several layers of checks and responsibilities. From the initial screening to peer review, editorial decisions, associate editor oversight, and finally the publication team preparing the galley proofs, multiple people and processes are involved before a paper is published.
If a manuscript contains tortured phrases, irrelevant citations, or evidence of citation coercion by reviewers or editors, there are numerous opportunities for those issues to be identified and addressed. Such papers can be rejected at any stage — during screening, peer review, editorial evaluation, or even before final publication. When these problems repeatedly slip through, it points not just to individual mistakes, but to broader weaknesses in the system itself.
What is rarely discussed is the imbalance in accountability. Authors are often publicly scrutinized and penalized, while the journals and publishers that enabled these practices face little or no real consequence. If citation manipulation, peer-review rings, or low-quality publications continue to thrive, it is because the editorial and publishing infrastructure failed to stop them. Journals benefit from the visibility, citations, and metrics generated by these papers, yet when concerns emerge, responsibility is quickly shifted almost entirely onto individual researchers.
At the same time, investigations by publishers often move slowly, and the reforms introduced afterward can feel more symbolic than substantive. This creates the impression that the system is more interested in protecting institutional reputation than addressing the root causes.
There is a serious accountability gap in the current academic publishing landscape. If the same level of attention directed toward blaming authors were also directed toward improving journal practices, editorial oversight, and publisher accountability, the research ecosystem would likely become far healthier and more trustworthy. Until that happens, individual researchers risk becoming convenient scapegoats for a system that has long prioritized publication volume and citation metrics over careful scrutiny and research integrity.
Perhaps the authors mentioned in this article, or the critics of the article, could pick one of the specific papers discussed on PubPeer and provide a detailed rebuttal of the concerns. I think it will be difficult to explain the extensive problems as innocent or innocuous errors, but perhaps you can prove me wrong. How about this one: https://pubpeer.com/publications/2D38B608E87A762508E67856223576 ?
https://academic.oup.com/rev/article/30/3/405/6348133?searchresult=1
Journal citation reports and the definition of a predatory journal: The case of the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) Open Access
published by Research evaluation journal . Oxford academic
Dude successfully scammed academia. Review paper scammers, citation scammers, paying for authorship, getting paid for authorship… too many of them.
Total clown. Generates LLM review papers on topics he never worked on and have no clue about. Most of his collaborators are the same way.
Thippa Reddy Gadekallu Deactivated his Google Scholar Profile.
Here is the scopus profile
https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=57217062630
https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=57217062630
This is Thippa Reddy Gadekallu Scopus Profile since he deactivated his Google scholar. Publication list can be found here.
Bro is Unstoppable. Having College degrees from third tier colleges like
Sasurie College of Engineering
Master’s Degree, Computer Science
2008 – 2011
SVH COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
Bachelor’s Degree, Computer Science in India
Bro is now conquering Academic World through citations and publications.
His Co-author Maddikunta, Praveen Kumar Reddy published about 100 papers with him and both of them are Clarivate Top Scientists
https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=57219858463&origin=AuthorProfile
Bro after publishing 500 papers, still worrying about rejection
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/thippa-reddy-gadekallu-0b6139120_people-see-only-the-successno-one-knows-activity-7453105282337120258-LqWk?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAEdH8MYB1mCXSzPCCF2jQp9_mJCqJuS9y0c
Bro is taking motivation class also for achieving 10k citations in a year
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/thippa-reddy-gadekallu-0b6139120_dear-colleagues-and-friends-i-am-extremely-activity-7061663590348439552-7Ldx?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAEdH8MYB1mCXSzPCCF2jQp9_mJCqJuS9y0c
Bro Just Created an ecosystem for himself.
Within next 2 years bro will overtake all AI Scientists in world and will do Podcasts and TED Talks.
Kudos to VIT University for producing such great scientists to the world. Previously Gunasekaran Manogaran, Arun Kumar Sangaiah, Priyan Malarvizhi Kumar (Now in UAEU), Praveen Kumar Reddy Maddikunta, Vijayakumar Varadharajan
Bro, Publishing in All IEEE Transaction Special Issues
This article raises important questions, but perhaps the discussion should extend beyond individual researchers and examine the incentives and structures that make such outcomes possible in the first place.
If unusual citation patterns, reviewer-suggested citations, special-issue practices, and interconnected publication networks are indeed widespread concerns, then focusing on a single researcher risks overlooking a systemic problem. Similar patterns have been reported across multiple disciplines and involving many individuals, institutions, journals, and publishers. The more important question is why the system allows such practices to develop and persist.
Publishers and journals often present themselves as guardians of research integrity. If so, they should bear substantial responsibility for ensuring that editorial workflows, peer-review systems, reviewer selection processes, and citation-monitoring mechanisms are robust enough to detect and prevent abuse before publication. Academic publishing has become a multi-billion-dollar industry that relies heavily on the voluntary efforts of researchers as authors, reviewers, and editors. It is reasonable to expect a greater investment in quality-control systems rather than placing the overwhelming burden of accountability on individual academics after the fact.
This does not mean that authors have no responsibility. Researchers should certainly exercise judgment regarding citations, collaborations, and publication practices. However, when authors operate within the procedures established by journals and publishers, it seems overly simplistic to assign blame exclusively to them while overlooking the institutions that designed, managed, and benefited from those processes.
The discussion should also recognize that review articles naturally attract more citations than regular research papers. This is a well-known characteristic of scholarly communication. If excessive concentration of citations in certain review papers is viewed as problematic, journals might consider developing clearer policies regarding invited reviews, special issues, and publication volumes within specific research areas.
Another concern is proportionality of corrective actions. In some cases, articles are retracted many years after publication, with most of the reputational damage falling on authors while journals and publishers face comparatively limited consequences. Where the underlying issue involves citation practices, editorial oversights, or limited numbers of inappropriate references rather than invalid science, corrections or corrigenda may sometimes be more appropriate than full retractions. Retraction should remain a serious remedy for serious problems.
There is also a broader issue regarding how concerns are communicated publicly. In recent years, naming and shaming individual researchers has sometimes become the default response to suspected irregularities. While transparency is important, public accusations based largely on patterns, associations, or circumstantial indicators should be handled with caution. Academic careers, professional reputations, and livelihoods can be affected long before any formal investigation reaches a conclusion.
Where concerns arise, institutions, journals, and publishers should be given the opportunity to conduct thorough and evidence-based investigations. Public accountability is necessary when there is strong evidence of misconduct, particularly in cases involving repeated or deliberate violations. However, it is equally important to recognize that researchers are human, mistakes can occur, and not every irregularity necessarily reflects intentional wrongdoing. Due process, proportionality, and fairness should remain central principles of research integrity.
Finally, we should acknowledge the broader ecosystem that drives these behaviors. The “publish or perish” culture, institutional KPIs, university rankings, citation-based evaluations, highly cited researcher lists, and metric-driven funding decisions all contribute to creating incentives that can distort scholarly behavior. If we are serious about improving research integrity, reforms should address not only individual conduct but also the structures that reward quantity, visibility, and citation counts above all else.
The challenge is not merely identifying individuals with unusual metrics; it is understanding why the academic system continues to reward those metrics so heavily and what changes are needed to make research assessment more meaningful, fair, and less vulnerable to manipulation.