Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics/Archive 2

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Wikipedia talk:WikiProject India/Archive 1Wikipedia talk:WikiProject India/Archive 2

Enlisting support for Indian Collaboration of the week.

Please indicate support by adding your name. We need atleast 15 supporters to get started.

  1. Arunram 08:07, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  2. Sundar 08:17, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
  3. Soman 09:38, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  4. utcursch 09:58, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
  5. Sanjeeth 12:31, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  6. Nichalp 10:07, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
  7. Matthewmayer 17:57, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  8. Brhaspati 22:01, 2005 Jan 21 (UTC)
  9. iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 01:19, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
  10. Amar 04:23, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
  11. kunjan1029 05:25, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
  12. Jam2k 09:19, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
  13. Ramashray 2:05, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)
  14. pamri 15:12, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  15. AnjaliSinha 15:12, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  16. albertindian2001 12:37, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  17. Jishacj 11:36, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  18. Varunrebel 07:42, 01 Feb 2005 (IST)
  19. Amahabal 01:58, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  20. Prashanthns 07:14, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  21. kaal 19:13, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  22. Rajsekar 07:19, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  23. Patnaik 01:46, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  24. ashwatha 04:38, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  25. Shreekant
  26. Abhishek 22:28, 15 March 2005 (UTC)
  27. Aakkshay 04:44, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  28. Girish 12:35, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

Enlisting support for Indian current events.

Currently updated primarily by Hemanshu and Arunram. We need some more editors for the Indian current events page. Please indicate support by adding your name. We need atleast 5 active supporters /editors on an ongoing basis.

  1. Arunram 04:29, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  2. Nichalp 19:02, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)
  3. Alren 21:43, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC): Great stuff. I'll pitch in whenever I can. Also I'm moving January 2005 in India and February 2005 in India to Category:Indian current events
  4. Abhishek 22:27, 15 March 2005 (UTC)

Category:India structure - request for comment

I have been restructuring sub categories under Category:India over the last few week and I belive that the current sub categorizes that remain would adequately cover all India topics. I would like a review and comments from you all in this regard. If we collectively approve this, we can ensure that all future articles get slotted in the correct Category structure going forward. Would greatly appreciate feedback in this regard. I would also like to mention that the root categories under Category:India are displayed in Wikiportal India. Arunram 02:01, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It would really help if people do not just blindly put Category:India on all the Indian pages they feel like. It is just frustrating to clean it up every so often ... Alren 17:33, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I cant agree more. It takes quite a bit of effort to keep refactoring the categories. I seem to be doing it every day and it is an endless task. It would be great to create more awareness in other wikipedians who contribute Indian content here. We need a categorization guideline. Let us come up with one. The root level categories are already in place. We also need to create awareness in the need to use categories, there are many articles without categorization. I have also be pushing for Category Adoptions. Need all your support in gaining greater adoption of this. Regards Arunram 05:14, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Let's make a page that lists all the India categories as well as its subcategories. In this way it would be easier to find the suitable category instead of searching all over for one. What should we name this page? Nichalp 18:21, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)
There already exists one that publishes the root level categories. Please see Wikiportal India. There is a list of root level categories. Regards Arunram 05:14, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Root level is fine, but what about those hidden deep inside sub categories? How about /List of India categories as the title? Nichalp 19:13, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)
I agree. Is there a query that can be ran in Wikipedia to bring up the list. Alren 21:41, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps your new category structure accommodates this, Arunram, but I've been noticing a number of articles on jatis (like Yadavs, Chettiars, Jats, and everything listed in Demographics of Nepal and Caste) that seem like they should be in a category together. Any objection to such a category? QuartierLatin1968 15:36, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)


QuartierLatin1968, please do not create another category, we already have many. Currently these groups are listed under the following:

I would like to seek expert opinion on this and wider opinion. Please list these articles under Category:Social groups of India. Hope that clarifies. Arunram 04:04, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)


As you wish. I suppose I was imagining that Jatis would be a sub-category of Caste, so as to avoid that category getting swamped with jati articles – but I can certainly understand wanting to avoid category proliferation! QuartierLatin1968 17:31, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Help for COTW

The current COTW is History of science and technology history of science. One of the prominent sections is about Indian contributions. I am wondering if someone here has the expertise to look at the section and correct/expand it. It looks very poorly written and not comprehensive (remember, this is a history of science, not merely Western science), especially considering according to it there have been no contributions in the last millenium.--Dmcdevit 05:26, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

My mistake, the article has since been moved to History of science, where there is absolutely no text in the India section. PS: last week's COTW, the so-called history of music, turened into an almost solely Western music article, with a token section on India, China, and Persia. I hope someone can make sure that doesn't happen again.--Dmcdevit 17:37, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Use of Indian Government Images

Does anyone know what the rules are for using Images produced by the Government of India? There are a number of useful images on India-related (maps of districts from the Census of India, for example) which come from indian government sites, but I don't know whether they are public domain, fair use, etc. Anybody know the answer? Tom Radulovich 09:51, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Interesting query. User:Cyrius says that all Indian government publications are covered by a copyright act. I don't know if this applies to websites et al. An interesting point to be noted though is that 90% of all Indian govt. sites lack a copyright notice on their page. Nichalp 18:36, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)
I have send emails to the feedback people on some of the govt websites trying to get clarification on copyright, but i have never gotten any reply. Will keep trying. kaal 03:52, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Suggested move: CalcuttaKolkata

I have just proposed that the Calcutta article be moved to Kolkata. Feel free to add your discussion and/or votes for or against this proposal. — Knowledge Seeker দ (talk) 08:32, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The discussion and voting are at Talk:Calcutta#Straw poll on the move of Calcutta to Kolkata. — Knowledge Seeker দ (talk) 08:35, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Mumbai city

I've just finished an exhaustive article on Mumbai. I would like it proofread as I plan to submit it as an FAC later this week. If possible please fill in the red links. Comments and feedback (and images if any) would be appreciated. Note: if editing, please ensure that the page size is <30KB. Nichalp 20:25, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

I was just browsing through the article skipping large portions of it. It seems to be a well-written article at first sight. The tone of the language can be made more encyclopedic though. For example, "Mumbai is the _______ engine" etc can be reworded although it's not a serious issue. I'll try copyediting whenever I find time. -- Sundar 06:51, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)
I will try to have a look at the article in a day or two. it would be great if you could leave it till the weekend as more people will have time then to go through it. kaal 07:20, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I'll leave it for some more time. Meanwhile I'll submit it for Peer Review
The text is very informative, but as Sundar mentioned the tone could be more encyclopedic. The tone's not sufficiently detached (I tend to have this same problem in my writing). Oh yes, it needs minor formatting work with table and paragraph alignment. The page renders a little weirdly both in Firefox and in IE. In Firefox, the "City officials" table appears in the center of the page (with text flowing around it), and in IE there are large gaps between paragraphs in the History and Geography section. Will copyedit over today & tomorrow. -- Brhaspati (talkcontribs) 07:29, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)
I tested it in Opera 7.54 and Firefox; I don't have any problems. What do others say about the alignment? Nichalp 19:23, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)
Just FYI, my font size is usually 10 point or smaller. The table aligns correctly when I increase font size, but I don't know why the rendering issue is specific to this page. Ignore this for now - I'll use the Sandbox to see if I can make it go away without changing font sizes. -- Brhaspati (talkcontribs) 21:54, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)
Update: This problem has been eliminated by Kaal's changes to the image layout. -- Brhaspati (talkcontribs) 01:36, 2005 Mar 10 (UTC)
Its difficult to find out whats wrong in the tone myself, so it would be great if you could point out the flaws. Thanks. Nichalp 19:23, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)
The Economy section needs some minor tweaks. For instance, A colossal figure of rupees 40,000 crore (9 billion US $) is contributed to the national exchequer as annual corporate tax; the highest in the country. could be rephrased as Mumbai contributes the highest corporate tax to the national exchequer, rupees 40,000 crore (9 billion US $) per annum. The active voice packs more punch, and it also lets the figure speak for itself. Comments? -- Brhaspati (talkcontribs) 21:54, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)
Thanks for the copyedit, but there's one thing I've noticed is that a few sentences seem detatched and stuttered rather than in a flow. Good work so far! Nichalp 20:25, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

Submitted the article for Featured Article Candidates. Nichalp 19:04, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for the help in making the city a FA.  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 20:00, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

India cleanup?

Ought someone start a subcategory of Wikipedia: Cleanup that is India-specific? quite a few India-related articles need cleanup, but the Cleanup category is so vast that, when given a cleanup tag, the India-related articles then become hard to sort out.

Sikh Community Pages

Some of the sikh pages, including the ones about the Golden Temple, are very small,
also most of them are pro-khalistan ( Operation Blue Star , Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, it needs a whole lot of cleaning and a whole lot of attention.
--Girish 12:51, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)+

Need for conventions?

I've been feeling the need lately for a few new India-related conventions (although my Indian contributions are relatively modest till now). I'd like to hear what the veteran and more active Indian wikipedians have to say.

  • Lakhs and crores vs. millions. I can't see any obvious reason why India-related articles should not count in lakhs – apart from the danger that Western wikipedians might learn something – however I don't want to insist on this point if millions have become more common in Indian usage in recent years.
  • Naming 1: titles and honorifics. Now personally, I'm strongly against titles in general, but I know wikipedia tends to be indulgent of them – albeit selectively. Indian titles present certain issues all their own. For example, it may well be that the most common way of referring to M.K. Gandhi in India is as "Gandhiji". Until recently, the article on Chakravarti Rajagopalachari was actually listed under Rajaji. Besides the honorific -ji, we have a host of titles such as Pandit, Acharya, Shri, Sardar, and Maulana, not to mention Netaji, Mahatma, titles of rank and nobility, or noms-de-guerre like Periyar. I'd like to see clear guidelines for dealing with each of these cases. My initial suggestion is:- to omit -ji as well as religious titles and nicknames, to use royal and noble titles sparingly, and to use pseudonyms and noms-de-guerre where they are more recognizable than the original names (as in the case of V.I. Lenin). Does this sound sensible?
  • Naming 2: initials. So many Indians go by their initials, especially in South India: In article headings, should wikipedia use initials or write out names in full? What about cases where a person is practially unknown except by their initials? And if we do use initials, how should we format them: X.Y. Surname, X. Y. Surname, XY Surname, X Y Surname? What about actors and politicians most commonly known as X.Y.Z. (without the surname written out)?

Best, QuartierLatin1968 20:11, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Good suggestion, I too was contemplating Indian coventions (numbers) for the past week. Here's what I feel.
  1. For plain numerals use lakhs and crores. But it is necessary to give the relative figure in millions and billions in brackets so that one does not have to click the lakh and crore links to learn about it. (Just like the SI and imperial units.)
  2. For numerals involving monetary figures (eg Rs 1 lakh crores) we also write it as it is and but put the equivalent figure in US$ in brackets. (I personally don't like comparing anything to another country, but the $ is kind of a de facto global currency).
  3. I don't support the -ji honorific, but certain honorifics are more popular than their actual names and should be used. Mahatma Gandhi, Netaji SCB, Lokmanaya Tilak were freedom fighters whose honorific titles are mentioned in every textbook and so should be the default here.
  4. I can't tell about south Indian names, usually it is the initial first and then the name. You'll need to confirm this.

Nichalp 18:06, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

No comments on the numbers, but as far as South Indian names go, the best format is probably to use "X. Y. Name" or "Xxxx Yyyy Name", with redirects/disambigs from XYF and other logical places. (BTW, "Name" is usually the the first name. The surname is replaced by the initials). Examples in these two formats are M. G. Ramachandran and Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, both disambigged from MGR and NTR. An article that currently does not follow this format is Abdul Kalam, which eliminates the initials completely. As far as Periyar goes, E. V. Ramasami Periyar may be a better choice for the article name, with redirects from EVR and other places. The reason for this is that while it is probably OK to list the person's honorific *along* with his name, it's stretching it if we use *only* the honorific and delete the real name! It would be like listing SC Bose under Netaji (bound to be POV). A good non-Indian analogy of (real name + honorific) is Kemal Atatürk. -- Brhaspati (talkcontribs) 03:27, 2005 Mar 24 (UTC)


URGENT -- INDIA Page

The India article is in danger of losing its FA status. I would call on all editors to take care of the objections raised. See Talk:India; Featured article removal candidates.

What is needed is:

  1. A good copyedit.
  2. References to facts and figures
  3. Non copyright images to replace images of the Taj, history and infosys. Nichalp 18:45, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)
The point about "$EVENT was not mentioned" seems to be somewhat bogus. It's all been covered in History of India anyway. But I'm more concerned about some subjective statements (eg Living in a pluralist, multilingual and multicultural society, Indians are largely tolerant and peaceful). Also, I too was under the distinct impression this was the second fastest growing economy (behind China), but Factbook lists it 16th (admittedly this particular list gives no useful information, but was there some hidden constraint behind that "second fastest" statistic? Growth in real monetary terms as opposed to percentage maybe?). Will edit this later today for references and statistics. -- Brhaspati (talkcontribs) 19:58, 2005 Mar 28 (UTC)
I have a few pictures I might be able to supply. I think I have one of the Taj Mahal we could use, although it is not as good as the one in the article. What type of pictures do you want for history? I have one on Image:Mehrangarh Fort.jpg and maybe some others that might work; when I get home I can look through and upload some of them. — Knowledge Seeker 20:03, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I just went through most of the article and did minor copyedits. I dont think there needs to be anything added in terms of content to the article. Its fairly comprehensive and its a matter of personel opinion as to what needs to be further mentioned. I removed the 2nd largest economy from the article and replaced it with one of the fastest growing economies, unless we find some really authoritative ref. about the 2nd largest economy. The things that the article lacks according to new FA is references, which according to the talk page of articles for removal, should first have been noted on the talk page of this article before being nominated for removal. The images with dubious CP can be removed for now, until better images are found. kaal 22:10, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Heads up

{{Music of India (sidebar)}} and {{indianclassicalmusic}} should be made complementary so that only one is ever needed o a single page. When both are on a page (see Hindustani classical music (and shouldn't that be Classical Hindustani music??) ), it looks way cluttered (though better now that one has clear:both, preventing them from displaying side-by-side). Circeus 15:50, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

Attention: controversy!

I've recently put up two articles on rather vexed topics, the Indian Emergency (which is currently the name for Indira's State of Emergency; would people like to move it elsewhere?) and the Mandal Commission. Because these are matters of such controversy, I'd like to encourage as many people as possible to have a look at them and edit them where they see fit. I've tried to strive for balance, but somehow you're never quite as NPOV as you try to be! (In particular, the points of view described in Mandal Commission need attribution; I'll do some sniffing around, but I'd appreciate help.) Thanks! QuartierLatin1968 15:26, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Requested articles

If anyone is interested in writing articles on Amber Fort or Jaigarh Fort (both in Amber, India), I have some photographs I could add (I've started posting some at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/India). I don't know enough to write them although I'll try to do some research. — Knowledge Seeker 04:38, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Goa

I've worked on the Goa article, I've listed it on Peer Review. What do you think?  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 20:29, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

There is an article about the Inquisition in Goa, but I guess that requires some cleanup and NPOV. If possible, can you cleanup that as well since this article could have references to that? Calvinkrishy 05:07, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the page. I'll try and include some info, and if I have the time will cleanup the page.  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 20:51, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)
I have done some clean-up on the page, but more information could be added (still a stub).--IMpbt 18:24, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

INCOTW

Is it still alive? People are voting, but nobody seems to be monitoring for switching current COTW. I wouldn't dare since I just happen to monitor for WP:GO, which now include a listing of current COTW. Circeus 01:47, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

alas, the contributions have trickled down to almost nothing. There are barely six regular contributors and we are contemplating the future of the collaboration. See: [Wikipedia talk:Notice board for India-related topics/INCOTW]  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 18:16, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)