Big news about Current Science

Divya Gandhi reports on an interesting new development for Current Science, India's premier science journal:

The country’s premier science journal, Current Science, will, in all likelihood, soon bear on its cover the logo of the Nature Publishing Group (NPG), publishers of Nature magazine. The U.K.-based NPG and Current Science Association are set to get into a unique publishing partnership, the proposal for which is in the initial stages.

What does this partnership mean for Current Science? To begin with, the journal will receive international exposure once it finds a place on Nature’s popular website, G. Madhavan, executive secretary, Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS), a co-publisher of Current Science, said. Nature.com will also display a list of titles published in Current Science along with abstracts of the articles. N ature has granted permission to have pages from its news sections reprinted in the journal.

I heard people in our Institute talk about the possibility of this partnership, and one of my concerns was about the wonderfully open-access nature of Current Science; it currently allows complete and free access -- all the way back to the very first issue! What would happen to open access under Nature -- a journal that's notorious for keeping stuff behind its paywall?

I needn't have worried; the Indian Academy of Sciences, the publisher of Current Science, has ensured that the journal will remain open-access.

One of the “pre-requisites” the IAS insisted upon for the future tie-up was that Current Science, which has open-source access online, must be allowed to retain it, said Mr. Madhavan. The title links for the article will direct the user to the IAS server, where the full text can be viewed.