Journal policies

Publication Ethics & Malpractice Statement

ARJST follows the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Last reviewed: October 2026 · ARJST · ISSN 3048-9644 (Online)

Duties of editors

Evaluate manuscripts solely on intellectual merit, without regard to authors’ race, gender, religion, nationality, institution or political views.
Keep all information about submissions confidential.
Declare conflicts of interest and withdraw from handling affected manuscripts.
Ensure every research article receives independent peer review by at least two reviewers.
Act promptly on complaints and allegations of misconduct, following COPE guidance.

Duties of reviewers

Review objectively, constructively and within the agreed time.
Treat manuscripts as confidential and never use unpublished material for their own research.
Declare any conflict of interest and decline if necessary.
Point out relevant uncited work and alert the editor to suspected misconduct.
Not upload manuscripts to generative AI tools or use them to write reports.

Duties of authors

Submit only original work that has not been published or submitted elsewhere.
Cite all sources properly and obtain permission for third-party material.
Report data accurately and keep the underlying data available for scrutiny.
Include as authors only those who meet authorship criteria, and acknowledge other contributors.
Disclose funding, conflicts of interest and any use of generative AI.
Notify the editor promptly of any significant error discovered after submission or publication.

Authorship and contributorship

Authors are expected to have made a substantial contribution to the conception, design, data, analysis or interpretation of the work; to have drafted or critically revised it; and to approve the final version. Contributions should be described using the CRediT taxonomy. Changes to the author list after submission require the written agreement of all authors.

Conflicts of interest

Authors, reviewers and editors must disclose any financial or personal relationship that could be seen to influence their work. Authors include a competing-interests statement on the title page; “none” must be stated explicitly.

Research ethics and consent

Research involving human participants must have approval from an Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) or equivalent body and the informed consent of participants; the approval reference is given in the methods section. Personal data must be anonymised. Research involving animals must comply with applicable national guidelines.

Data and reproducibility

Authors include a data availability statement and are encouraged to deposit data and code in a public repository. Editors may request raw data during review.

Allegations of misconduct

Plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, image manipulation, duplicate submission, citation manipulation and authorship disputes are investigated following the COPE flowcharts. Authors are given the opportunity to respond. Where necessary the journal may contact the authors’ institution.

Corrections, retractions and expressions of concern

Errors that affect the record are corrected by a published, linked correction notice. Articles with seriously unreliable findings or misconduct are retracted in line with the COPE Retraction Guidelines; the original article remains online, clearly watermarked as retracted. An expression of concern may be issued while an investigation is ongoing.

Complaints and appeals

Complaints about the journal’s processes, editors or published content should be sent to editor@ngmc.ac.in. They are acknowledged within five working days and handled by an editor not involved in the matter; complaints about the Editor-in-Chief are referred to the publisher. Appeals against editorial decisions follow the peer review policy.

Post-publication discussion

Readers may raise comments or concerns about a published article with the editorial office. Substantive comments may be published as a letter, with a reply from the authors.

Intellectual property

Copyright and licensing are described in the copyright & licensing policy. Suspected infringement of intellectual property should be reported to the editorial office.

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