C N R Rao apologises to science journal

New Delhi, Feb 20 (PTI) India's top scientist and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's advisor C N R Rao had to apologise to a leading scientific journal for reproducing text of other scientists in his research paper. "The corresponding authors sincerely apologise to the readers, reviewers, and editors for this oversight and for any miscommunication," Rao and his co-author S B Krupanidhi said in an apology to 'Advanced Materials', a peer-reviewed journal covering materials science. The July issue of the journal had carried a research paper titled 'Infrared Photodetectors Based on Reduced Graphene Oxide and Graphene Nanoribbons' authored by Rao, Krupanidhi, Basant Chitara and L S Panchakarla. The scientists belong to Indian Institute of Science and the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. The authors admitted that some part of the research paper was reproduced from an article that had appeared in Applied Physics Letters written by S Ghosh, B K Sarker, A Chunder, Lei Zhai and S I Khondaker. "The corresponding authors regret the reproduction of text from an article that appeared in Applied Physics Letters in their paper," Rao and Krupanidhi said. The apology was published in the online edition on November 29 last year and was carried in the December 1, 2011 print edition of the weekly. Rao was unavailable for comment as he was out of the country.