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The October 4, 2013 issue of the journal 'Science' featured a "sting" titled "Who's afraid of peer review?" by John Bohannon.1 Bohannon is to be commended for his "investigative scientific journalism", conducting a "sting" and exposing the "murky" world of scientific publishing. I have deliberately used the word "murky", fully aware of the fact that how the scientific publishing happens nowadays, more so in the developing world, as referred by him. He has "overtly" expressed what is "covertly" known among scientific community. The rise of Open Access Publishing, to some extent, is desirable, as it would provide an opportunity to those researchers whose work is commendable, but cannot pay high charges for publishing in the leading scientific journals. The only recourse to these hardworking, technically sound and scientifically strong researchers is to publish in open access journals. To discount all open access journals and publishing houses as a "farce" would be to belittle their contribution in scientific publishing. Although there would always be some black sheep, it is inappropriate to label all open access journals as "black sheep."
The peer review helps in accepting good quality work for publishing, but, on the other side, it is also a known fact that many a times the "peer review" is biased, with rivalry among various scientists and their scientific groups. The peer review, hence, is not a foolproof solution to avoid bias and value judgment for accepting or rejecting a manuscript. As the well-known adage says "To err is human," peer reviewers are also humans and many a times they are bound to make errors in their judgment. The fact that Bohannon has mentioned, most of the journals, which have accepted his "fake manuscript," belong to developing countries, is undeniable. However, these journals do serve a specific community whose "interests" are served by publishing in these journals. These points are also raised elsewhere.2 Most of these scientific...