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new and out-of-the-box explanation for these observations. We were clearly attempting to give
wide visibility to our novel observations, as also to our explanations that invoked slowing down
of the kinetics of the first order transition. We argued that the kinetics was getting hindered,
and finally arrested, as in the formation of a structural glass. In one of these papers (ibid.), we
stated in the abstract that our observations, “can be understood in terms of kinetic arrest of a
first-order transition”. Our dissemination through these journals also indicated acceptance
in respected peer review channels. In our paper in 2001 (Manekar, et al., 2001, op. cit.), we
highlighted, while summarizing our unusual findings, the novel observation of, “butterfly
R-H and M-H hysteresis loops (that) have an anomalous virgin curve at low temperatures, in
that the virgin curve lies outside the envelope hysteresis curve in both measurements.” Thus,
butterfly loops, along with virgin curves lying outside the envelope hysteresis curves, were
new observations that we clearly brought out in 2001 and discussed also in our papers in 2002
(Manekar, et al., 2001, 2002, op. cit.).
It was with some shock that we noted, in the following year, a paper (Zhang, et al., 2004) in
the same journal, Physical Review B, where we had published two papers in 2001 and 2002
highlighting our observation of butterfly hysteresis loops and anomalous virgin curve, stating
in the abstract itself that, “We also observe that the magnetization versus field butterfly loops
occurs, while the virgin curve lies outside the envelope magnetization curve.” There was no
obvious acknowledgement of our earlier observations reported in the same journal (in fact,
these two papers in the same journal were not even cited), or of our explanation thereof. A
close look at this “errant paper” revealed a lot of ethical problems, and this is summarized in the
slightly detailed erratum that the journal made them publish after about six months (Zhang, et
al., 2005). In contrast to the episode of 1975–1977, here the authors did express regret. But, as
we shall argue, there was no remorse from the authors and the journal did not ensure complete
closure; we had to be satisfied with this partial closure. As a supporting statistic, the original
errant paper published in 2004 is shown on the PRB site as having been cited 28 times, whereas
the erratum in 2005 is shown as cited only three times. We cannot expect a victim of plagiarism
to give up active research when pursuing novel ideas, and continue a relentless battle for
complete closure. I propose for UGC to undertake this task of helping Indian researchers who
have become unfortunate victims of idea-plagiarism.
• The third episode corresponds to the time period 2009–2011. In 2005 we published our concept,
supported by a lot of experiments, that the kinetic arrest of this first-order magnetic transition
causes the formation of a nonergodic state, that we called a magnetic-glass (Chattopadhyay,
et al., 2005). In a paper published in 2006 we established that the magnetic-glass could be
devitrified to the low-temperature phase on heating in a different field, and then transformed
to the high-temperature phase on further heating (Banerjee, et al., 2006). We could show re-
entrant magnetic transitions in two contrasting materials if we chose suitable different magnetic
fields for cooling and subsequent heating. The data was visually drastic.

Over the next few years, we published papers on various materials using this CHUF protocol,
an acronym we created following a general suggestion of Nobel Laureate Kurt Wuthrich (see
Chaddah, 2018) to show a re-entrant transition on using appropriately chosen cooling fields and
heating fields (Banerjee and Chaddah, 2009, Dash, et al., 2009, Kushwaha, et al., 2009, Sathe,
et al., 2010.) A few other groups did the same, referring to our initial work and giving us due
credit (Roy and Chattopadhyay, 2009). In the middle of 2011, over two years after our claim of
CHUF was published, we again got a shock. We were amazed to see a paper from Prof Raveau’s
group (Sarkar, et al., 2011a), where “kinetic arrest”, “magnetic glass” and “CHUF” were used
extensively, a whole section was devoted to introduce, utilize, and applaud the CHUF protocol.

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