1. Submission Policies

When author(s) submit(s) a manuscript to the PRAMA Journal, it implies that the manuscript has not been published or submitted elsewhere. Author(s) should not submit the same manuscript elsewhere while it is under consideration at PRAMA.

The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may also be stated.

We reserve the right to reject a paper even after it has been accepted, if it becomes apparent that there are serious problems with its content, or our publishing policies have been violated.

2. Article Processing Fees or Publication Fee: Nil (No fee is charged for publication in PRAMA)
3. Peer Review:

“PRAMA” Journal follows blind peer-review process. It makes full confidentiality among author(s) and reviewers and does not take biased decision. PRAMA editorial team takes comments/opinions of minimum two Reviewers on a manuscript before taking any decision.

4. Author responsibilities

The sole responsibility of the content lies with the author(s). Submission of the manuscript implies that the author(s) are agreed to all terms & conditions of PRAMA. The corresponding (submitting) author is responsible for all communication.

5. Author contributions statements

Corresponding Author is required to include a statement of responsibility in the manuscript that specifies the contribution of every author.  

6. Correcting the record

Corresponding Author is responsible to inform PRAMA promptly for any correction, if required in the published material.

7. A confidential process 

PRAMA maintains strict confidentiality in all its communication in relation to the submitted manuscript with authors and referees and expect the same from the author and reviewer side. Correspondence with PRAMA, referee reports and other confidential material must not be posted on any website or otherwise publicized without prior permission from the PRAMA publishing team, regardless of whether or not the submission is eventually published.  

8. License agreement and author copyright

PRAMA requires authors to assign copyright of their published original research papers to the journal. Digital copies of articles are published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/in (Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derives 2.5 India).

9. You are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

Under the following terms:

• Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
• Non-Commercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
• No-Derivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.

10. Availability of materials and data

An inherent principle of publication is that others should be able to replicate and build upon the authors' published claims. Supporting data must be made available to Editorial Board Members and referees at the time of submission for the purposes of evaluating the manuscript. Referees may be asked to comment on the terms of access to materials, methods and/or data sets; PRAMA reserves the right to refuse publication in cases where authors do not provide adequate assurances that they can comply with the publication's requirements for sharing materials.

11. Rejections, complaints and corrections

Correction and retraction policy

PRAMA operates the following policy for making corrections to its peer-reviewed content.

Publishable amendments must be represented by a formal online notice because they affect the publication record and/or the scientific accuracy of published information. Where these amendments concern peer-reviewed material, they fall into one of three categories: erratum, corrigendum or retraction.

• Erratum - Notification of an important error made by the journal that affects the publication record or the scientific integrity of the paper, or the reputation of the authors or the journal.
• Corrigendum - Notification of an important error made by the author(s) that affects the publication record or the scientific integrity of the paper, or the reputation of the authors or the journal.
• Retraction - Notification of invalid results. All co-authors must sign a retraction specifying the error and stating briefly how the conclusions are affected, and submit it for publication. In cases where co-authors disagree, the publishing team will seek advice from independent referees and impose the type of amendment that seems most appropriate, noting the dissenting author(s) in the text of the published version.

Editorial decision-making

Decisions about types of correction are made by the journal's publishing team, with the advice of the Referees, Editorial Advisory Panel or Editorial Board Members.

When an amendment is published, it is linked bi-directionally to and from the article being corrected.

Author(s) sometimes requests a correction to their published contribution that does not affect the contribution in a significant way or impair the reader's understanding of the contribution (e.g. a spelling mistake or grammatical error). PRAMA will not publish such corrections. The online article is part of the published record and hence its original published version is preserved. PRAMA will, however, correct the online version of a contribution if the wording in the html version does not make sense when compared with the PDF version (e.g. 'see left' for a figure that is an appropriate phrase for the PDF but not for the html version). In these cases, the fact that a correction has been made is stated in a footnote so that readers are aware that the originally published text has been amended.

Duplicate publication

Material submitted to PRAMA must be original and not published or submitted for publication elsewhere. This instruction applies to material submitted elsewhere while the PRAMA contribution is under consideration.

Author(s) has to furnish the following certificate at the time of submission of manuscript along with covering letter.

[This is to certify that the reported work in the paper entitled “..........” submitted for publication in the PRAMA is an original one and has not been submitted for publication elsewhere. I/we certify that citations to the previously reported works have been given and no data/tables/figures have been quoted verbatim from the other publications without giving due acknowledgement and without permission of the author(s). The consent of all the authors of this paper has been obtained before submitting.

[Signatures and names of all the authors]

Authors submitting a contribution to PRAMA who have related material under consideration or in press elsewhere should upload a clearly marked copy at the time of submission, and draw the Editorial Board Members' attention to it in their cover letter. Authors must disclose any such information while their contributions are under consideration by PRAMA – for example, if they submit a related manuscript elsewhere that was not written at the time of the original PRAMA submission.

If part of a contribution that an author wishes to submit to PRAMA has appeared or will appear elsewhere, the author must specify the details in the covering letter accompanying the submission. Consideration by PRAMA is possible if the main result, conclusion, or implications are not apparent from the other work, or if there are other factors, for example if the other work is published in a language other than English.

If an author of a submission is re-using a figure or figures published elsewhere, or that is copyrighted, the author must provide documentation that the previous publisher or copyright holder has given permission for the figure to be re-published. PRAMA Editorial Board Members consider all material in good faith that the publication has full permission to publish every part of the submitted material, including illustrations.

12. Confidentiality and pre-publicity

Confidentiality

PRAMA keeps all details about a submitted manuscript confidential and does not comment to any outside organization about manuscripts that are either under consideration or that have been rejected. After a manuscript is submitted, correspondence with PRAMA, referees' reports and other confidential material, regardless of whether or not the submission is eventually published, must not be posted on any website or otherwise publicized without prior permission. Referees of manuscripts submitted to PRAMA undertake in advance to maintain confidentiality of manuscripts and any associated supplementary data.

Pre-publicity

PRAMA authors must not discuss contributions with the media (including other scientific journals) except in the case of accepted contributions, which can be discussed with the media once an embargo date has been set. Presentation and discussion of material submitted to PRAMA at scientific meetings is encouraged. Authors are free to publish abstracts in conference proceedings and to distribute preprints of submitted or 'in press' papers to professional colleagues, but not to the media.

Plagiarism, and fabrication

UGC guidelines are to be followed for plagiarism.

Plagiarism is when an author attempts to pass off someone else's work as his or her own. Duplicate publication, sometimes called self-plagiarism, occurs when an author re-uses substantial parts of his or her own published work without providing the appropriate references. This can range from getting an identical paper published in multiple journals, to 'salami-slicing', where authors add small amounts of new data to a previous paper.

Plagiarism can be said to have clearly occurred when large chunks of text have been cut-and-pasted. Such manuscripts would not be considered for publication in PRAMA. However, minor plagiarism without dishonest intent is relatively frequent, for example, when an author re-uses parts of an introduction from an earlier paper. 

Due credit for others' work

Discussion of unpublished work: Manuscripts are sent out for review on the condition that any unpublished data cited within are properly credited and the appropriate permission has been sought. Where licensed data are cited, authors must include at submission a written assurance that they are complying with originators' data-licensing agreements.

Referees are encouraged to be alert to the use of appropriate unpublished data from databases or from any other source, and to inform PRAMA of any concern they may have.

Discussion of published work: When discussing the published work of others, authors must properly describe the contribution of the earlier work. Both intellectual contributions and technical developments must be acknowledged as such and appropriately cited.

Court of Jurisdiction

In case of any dispute, litigation arising between the Author and Publisher, the court of District Court Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) alone will have the jurisdiction to resolve the any matter of publication.