MUMBAI: Centre is rewriting the rulebook for India’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), in what could be the sharpest overhaul of the country’s higher education rankings since their inception in 2015. For the first time, penalties are being formally stitched into the ranking methodology, signalling a tougher stance on research malpractice and misrepresentation of data. The negative marking system will soon be declared. This year, the framework docked some marks from an institute’s overall score if published papers were retracted by academic journals. From the coming year, though, the consequences will be deeper and wider. Not only will universities be penalised for retracted work, but even citations of such tainted papers will draw heavy deductions in the research score —

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