The awareness might still be hampered for the Indian researchers but there have been various initiatives by the Indian institutes, journals as well as publishers to make research content open. Some of these initiatives according to Joshi A. et al in “OA initiatives, boon to academic libraries” and Sahu D. et al in “OA: Key strategic,technical and economic aspects” are:
Indian Medlars Centre
The Indian Medlars Centre (IMC), set up jointly by the National Informatics Centre and the Indian Council of Medical Research, has taken the pioneering step of putting Indian biomedical journals accessible from a single platform. IMC’s first bibliographic database IndMed, established in 1998, provides abstract level information from more than 70 journals. Each of the articles in the database is tagged with Medical Subject Headings. In 2003, IMC launched its full-text database, MedInd, which now hosts full text version of 38 journals in PDF format. The understanding between the journals and the IMC ensures that the digitised work hosted by IMC will continue to be accessible even if the journal discontinues providing newer issues. One point resource of peer reviewed Indian biomedical literature covering full text of IndMED journals. It has been designed to provide quick and easy access through searching or browsing.
Indian Academy of Sciences
The Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS), founded in 1934, publishes 11 journals with the basic philosophy that no journal published by the Academy is in competition with another journal published in the country. Current Science, published by the Current Science Association in collaboration with the IAS, has entire back volumes from 1932 online in PDF format and has been online since 1999. Many other journals including the Journal of Biosciences, Sadhana, and Pramana also have the entire back volumes online. Major activities include publication of scientific journals and special volumes, organizing meetings of the Fellowship and discussions on important topics, recognizing scientific talent, improvement of science education, and taking up other issues of concern to the scientific community.
Indian National Science Academy
The Indian National Science Academy (INSA), established in 1935, publishes four journalsincluding the Proceedings of INSA. Under the project ‘Building Digital Resources: CreatingFacilities at INSA for hosting S & T Journals on Online’, INSA launched the Open Access version of these journals in December 2003. Indian National Science Academy, a premier Science Academy in the country, plays crucial role in promoting, recognizing and rewarding excellence. Another important task is to publish journals, organize scientific discussions and bring out proceedings and monographs.
The National Academy of Sciences, India
Founded in the year 1930, the National Academy of Sciences, India is the oldest Science Academy of the country. The main objective of the Academy was to provide a national forum for the publication of research work carried out by Indian scientists and to provide opportunities for exchange of views among them.
Bioline International
Bioline International is a not-for-profit collaborative effort of the University of Toronto Libraries, Canada, the Reference Center on Environmental Information, Brazil, and Bioline, UK. It provides electronic publishing services to journals published in developing countries. Bioline provides access to 14 Indian journals on their primary site as well as archives these journals at the Bioline EPrints Archive.
Medknow Publications
Medknow Publications is a commercial publisher providing publishing services to over 30 biomedical journals. These journals provide immediate free access and do not charge the author or author’s institution for publication of the articles. The journals also permit authors’ self-archiving. Most of the journals published are archived at multiple places including interoperable repositories, Bioline International and MedInd, ensuring the long-term archiving and accessibility of the published content.
Directory of Open Access Journal
Free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals, covering all subjects and many languages. India is contributing journals to this initiative since 2003.
Indian Journals .com
IndianJournals.com is a vast collection of interdisciplinary Indian Journals and Research Publications, providing: A pan-global web exposure for your Journals, A chance to preserve your research online, an international door
to knowledge-sharing, a mode to generate interest in your field.
ePrints@IISc
ePrints@IISc repository collects, preserves and disseminates in digital format the research output created by the IISc research community.
Indian Statistical institute
The ISI Bangalore centre library was established in the year 1976 to meet the academic and research interests of the students, scholar, teachers and others. It has one of the best collections of literature on Statistics, Mathematics, Quality Engineering/ Management and Library & Information Science in India.
Open J-Gate Informatics (India) Limited
Open J-Gate is a free database of open access journals, launched in February 2006, hosted by Informatics (India) Ltd. Open J-Gate currently aggregates metadata from more than 4,000 OA journals published in the English language around the globe.
Open DOAR
Open DOAR is an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories. Each Open-DOAR repository has been visited by project staff to check the information that is recorded here. This in-depth approach does not rely on automated analysis and gives a quality-controlled list of repositories.
Open Access Initiatives: India 