Some of them may just be alternate spellings, such as Dev Prayag being spelt in EB as Deo Prayag etc., hence some care needed to avoid later-day merges. --Gurubrahma10:09, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
True, I managed to weed out some of the ones I knew of. Topics which I had little knowledge of were kept there to be corrected/filled/redirected by our regional experts. =Nichalp«Talk»=13:19, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Such criticisms as the auspiciously poor condition of health care may stem from cultural misunderstanding. Among some in India there is a conception of karma - the idea that people deserve their pain on the basis of the previous life, and there is no need to help them. The Misionaries of Charity on the other hand strive to help these "poorest of the poor" - people who otherwise die alone on the streets. The Sisters bring not only basic medical treatment, but much more importantly love and care. Opponents for critics of Theresa argue that such critics do so from the comfort of their Western opulence without serving the world's poor with nearly the selflessness that characterized her life.
My understanding of the Indan conception of Karma and Indians in general suggest this is a very unfair characterisation to say that some Indians feel that people deserve their pain on the basis of their previous life so there is no need to help them. Perhaps there are a few Indians who think like this but my understanding is that generally speaking, if anything for most Indians who believe in karma this would mean they should help people in pain not ignore them. But I'm not an Indian and this appears to be the best place to get the opinion of whether this text in it current form is fair, NPOV and accurate. You are welcome to discuss it here, but the talk page of the missionaries of charity will probably be the best place to do so. Also, I probably won't be taking any further part in this discussionNil Einne14:05, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
New category
I just created a new category, Category:Indian plays. I believe that this category should contain plays from all vernacular languages of India apart from English plays written by Indians. Old plays such as those by Kalidasa and new plays such as those by Girish Karnad, apart from several plays from the rich tradition of Marathi Theatre are notable and hence should fit well in this category. Hence, I request you to populate this category. --Gurubrahma08:45, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Is there any clear policy regarding when to use which? Some editors are fast replacing all "India"s and "Indian subcontinent"s with "South Asia", even if it looks crazy, e.g. something like "Alexander invaded northwestern South Asia", etc. Would be great if we could evolve some formal guidelines. deeptrivia (talk) 04:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
South Asia: "South Asia, in the limited sense of the term, consists of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, peninsular India, and Sri Lanka. The Indo-Gangetic Plain is formed from the combined alluvial plains of the Indus, Ganges (Ganga), and Brahmaputra rivers, which lie in a deep marginal depression running north of and parallel to the main range of the Himalayas..."
Indo-Gangetic Plain: "also called North Indian Plain, extensive north-central section of the Indian subcontinent, stretching westward from (and including) the Brahmaputra River valley and the Ganges Delta to the Indus River valley. The region contains the subcontinent's richest and most densely populated areas. The greater part of the plain is made up of alluvial soil, deposited by the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers..."
In other words, "South Asia" is not equal to "Indian Subcontinent" but there is an overlap. It may be a politically correct term of recent times (presumably coined by merica). However, "Indian Subcontinent" continues its historical [2], geographical [3][4], geological [5], anthropological [6], genealogical (Genealogical_DNA_test#Biogeographical_ancestry) and cultural [7][8] relevance, and is used for the correctness of references. --ΜιĿːtalk09:38, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
It would be great if we all editors from this region (and elsewhere) decide once and for all, about usage of these terms, possibly somewhere on a WP:MoS related page. deeptrivia (talk) 18:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
My understanding is that we use the term South Asia when we speak in political terms. For geographical, historical etc, we use the Indian subcontinent. =Nichalp«Talk»=05:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and I have accordingly requested one of the users to use the term as per the context of the contents - my message to Siddique. Moreover, I find a requirement that there should be an independent page for Indian subcontinent as this is a geographical and historical reality. A redirection link from there to South Asia looks highly unusual and unreal. --Bhadani11:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Siddiqui (talk·contribs) has even changed the terms inside quotations, and sometimes the sentences have become grammatically incorrect. I don't care if South Asia or India/Indian sucontinent is used, but maybe they should both be used equally to keep the text diversified? But Siddiqui (talk·contribs) has also in various articles deleted text and references without any explanation on the talk page or in the edit summary, which I think is bad behaviour. For example [9][10][11][12][13] and other examples. --Kefalonia14:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I've been watching this user myself, and he does seem to have a policy of deleting things that he doesn't agree with - even if they are appropriate for the article. I have been meaning to change some of his changes made to the Punjab (Pakistan) article. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk15:56, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Wow, some of the edits are hilarious. Like he replaced the sentence about enslavement of women with "Some of the Maratha women chose to marry the handsome Afghan soldiers. " LOL. deeptrivia (talk) 16:35, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Khalistan and Operation Blue Star
I'd just like to bring to everyone's attention the very very very long running revert wars on Operation Blue Star and Khalistan. Can anyone do something about this? As we all know, both these issues are quite 'explosive' and everyone has their own opinion as to what happened and why.
It's at the stage now when both articles are a load of POV crap no matter which version they are reverted to. They need serious collaborative work to sift through all the inaccuracies not only in the articles, but also inaccuracies reported in the media (or more commonly, little concrete information at all reported in the media).
This might interest you. Magicalsaumy is standing for Arbcom elction. Do add other Indian wikipedians candidates you might know. - 21:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Currently above page takes one to History of India, which is perhaps not correct. I would like to share my thoughts with the editors interested in the above topic. On the talk page [14]of Ancient India, I had given my comments. We must strive to create a proper page for Ancient India. This is a challenging task, but not impossible. I invite further comments. Thanks. --Bhadani15:43, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
There certainly are many issues to resolve first, regarding both temporal and geographical scope of the article. An article like that would definitely mention places like Taxila, which might attract people to rename it as Ancient South Asia :). A common "end" of the ancient period is considered to be the end of Harsha's empire. deeptrivia (talk) 19:03, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
India related Bot ideas
Do India related Bots exist? I am trying to learn the Python framework for writing Bots. I already learnt how to touch a category. Touching involves making no edits to an article, but opening and saving it. If you guys need a new category that was recently added to a template touched, do let me know. I have some ideas for India related bots. Would like your ideas too. Please list below your ideas and comments.
Census Bot: A bot that looks at Census (2001) website and creates non-existent city articles as stubs. This will help create thousands of Indian city/town stubs and reduce a lot of manual work. The bot could create a sentence in the lines of "This <town> is part of the state of <state> in [[India]]" and add a [[<state>-geo-stub]] category to it.
I thought about this one too, since they've done a similar thing with US towns. The only thing is, I have no clue how to write a bot. deeptrivia (talk) 17:49, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Wictionary Bot: A bot that looks up page titles from the wictionary, and searches Indian language dictionaries like http://www.shabdkosh.com/, and adds the meaning at an appropriate place (alphabetical order among other language entries). deeptrivia (talk) 15:16, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Please see User:Rambot. This bot does the same thing for US towns and cities. It would be great if someone could modify the source code of this bot to make it work Indian towns and cities. deeptrivia (talk) 19:12, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
A user named user:Deepakkamboj has created a page called Deepak Kamboj which is an exact copy of Udham Singh. While he says in one place in the article that Kamboj was known as Udham Singh, that is not very unconvincing. The google hits that I get when I give both "Deepak Kamboj" and "Udham Singh" is from a Kamboj society. Does anyone know whether Udham Singh was also known as Kamboj, or if it is a vanity page ?
I doubt if this is true. None of the links provided in the article use the word "Deepak Kamboj." Most probably a hoax. --Gurubrahma00:38, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Happy and prosperous Pongal to everyone from me also -- just discovering this page; will participate more in future. ImpuMozhi01:20, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Useless custom?
This is a question that I have been wanting to raise with other Indian Wikipedians in general and now I have found the place for it: In most English-language page dealing with some 'Indian' subject (place/person/deity/whatever), it is the custom to translate the 1-or-2 word page heading into an appropriate Indian language. Note, the whole page is purely in English, just the name is translated. What is the point in this?? What purpose is served? Whom does it help, and in exactly what way? Any argument of "clarifying pronounciation" falls flat because:
it does not help anyone (Indian or foreign) who cannot read that language;
people who can read that language surely already know the pronounciation? Because nothing new is being translated: just the name.
I know that a few other cultures (Arab, for instance) do the same thing, but perhaps we could take a step towards eliminating this futile custom. The Europeans (incl. the Americas) and Africans seem to have no interest in this kind of thing. What do the other Indian WP's think on this point? ImpuMozhi18:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I think they're purely just an extra bit of information. It has a novelty value too I suppose. If a subject relates to India, then I'm of the opinion that there should always be a translation into the appropriate language. In regards to Europeans and Afrian translations - these are done already. See Addis Ababa and Munich for example. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk18:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that "there should always be a translation into the appropriate language", ie., all articles in English WP should be translated into the WP's of other Indian languages; all strength to that effort. However, my point is not about such translations. Secondly, regarding the examples cited above: the Munich page tells us that the German name of that city is "Munchen"; Roman script is of course used. This is like having a page titled "Bombay" and letting people know in the first line, and in the Roman script, that the Marathi name for the city is "Mumbai". Entirely a different scenario. In any case, as I myself said above, the Arabs seem to have an abnormal fondness for imposing their script on their pages, and there is never, never any trouble finding precedent for any imaginable folly. My point is that the thing is useless. ImpuMozhi02:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
It's done on the English wikipedia with names in Chinese, Russian, Japanese, virtually every other language. I am skeptical on how many people it helps, but there's no harm adding that extra bit of information (at least people would know how the name looks like i the Indian script ^_^) By the way, it surely helps me sometimes with some names/sanskrit words I've never seen before. The Roman script is completely ambiguous when pronounciation of a new word comes into the picture. In fact, as a result of studying history in English at school, I ended up pronouncing most names incorrectly, like Mauryaa (मौर्य), Guptaa (गुप्त), Yogaa (योग), Rashtraakutaa (रष्ट्रकूट). deeptrivia (talk) 03:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Not that I mind your having gained some further knowledge, but what about other people? Also, I am wondering whether you actually got the correct pronounciations: It is not Yogaa but it is not Yog either; the correct pronounciation is Yoga (Not "योगा" or "योग्" but "योग"). Even if you were fluent in Hindi and Devanagari, you would still be reading the word as "Yog". Similarly for the other words; this serves to highlight the futility of the whole thing. ImpuMozhi04:15, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
This is an interesting question indeed (and some interesting answers as well). If I could share a small self experience before putting forward my point: When I went to Chennai for the first time (was still called Madras at that time) I was totally clueless about Tamil script - let alone the language. And you can imagine how difficult it could get to find your way on your own in this condition (it is fairly manageable in Chennai with English, but thats a different matter). Fortunately, before we reached Chennai, a co-passenger - an elderly gentlemen - did something to help that was both ingenious as well as interesting. He scribbled a few names of the places/areas/phrases in Tamil for me (with English equivalents) that I was interested in. These glyphs, like some kind of design or symbols, though I was not having any linguistic understanding of any of them, help me so much that I was truly amazed. Perhaps, that also goes to explain people carrying "phrase books"...
So, 1) I think it is helpful to mention the local script on English articles - irrespective of the level of understanding of the language on the audience's part. 2) Use of local script can help eliminate any "distortion" (if you like) that may have creped in the anglicised version. 3) The local people (who could contribute a lot on the subject), more often than not, have the inclination toward mentioning the names/phrases in the local language, which is fair and valid (its just a word or two, not the whole article!), and it should be respected. --ΜιĿːtalk06:23, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, basically my point was, first, it's harmless, and second, as is our common experience, Yoga, for example, is highly prone to be mispronounced "योगा" , and so on. Also think of sounds like ड़, ळ, ण, ञ, ढ़. The difference between "योग्" and "योग" is pretty clear in the devanagari script, although most people choose to pronounce them similarly for convenience, but that's a different issue than people getting confused on seeing the written word (which would happen with a word in Roman script (unless you learn and use IAST conventions)). So why not make it clear for the benefit for those who can understand? deeptrivia (talk) 00:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Purple I think is a hideous colour for this - it's just way too much. However, I do suggest we pick a standard width used by other templates such as the Language info boxes. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk00:31, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually, that purple is exactly the same color the current infobox uses. But still, I changed it to a shade of royal blue grayish teal (a touch lighter than that used in Template:British Columbia municipality infobox). As for "standard" width, there is none. Look at Template:Taxobox, for example — it is only 200px wide and is used in far more articles than Template:Language (and is far less controversial, due to WP:AUM). Slimming down the template was one of the main reasons I'm suggesting a redesign. Saravask00:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that colour is easier on the eyes. Also, it might be good to have the footnotes cell vanish if there are no footnotes.
In regards to size, maybe that's a policy Wikipedia should have to standard info box sizes. Just a thought! Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk12:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I had that same thought, and would myself just as soon get rid of it. But since time zone was also in the old infobox design, I thought I should keep it in, just so I don't upset people when we make the switch. I'll go ahead and remove it from the new design if there are no objections. Saravask06:15, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
A good effort Saravask... If at all time-zone is retained, suggest you move it under co-ordinates, where it could make more sense than along with # of districts. You may also would want to consider (M:F) ratio along with population density in the same line, and the vehicle licence plate acronym that is used for that state e.g. KA, MH, etc. --ΜιĿːtalk06:29, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't know where to find M:F info, and we should probably just make that an optional parameter via Template:qif (i.e., states where M:F ratio is important can use it, while those whose contributors don't want it don't need to use it). I looked at the licence plate acronyms — they seem redundant with the ISO abbreviations. But since the extra two letters wouldn't take up much extra room, we can try adding them in. Saravask06:48, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
The new template looks much better. Some points I came up with.
Font size - The font could be be equal size as the rest of the article. Right now it looks smaller.
Formation - Could be in a seperate row.
Can add postal service (TN, KL etc) to the ISO section under Abbreviations. (California)
Districts and timezone should be on a seperate row. Don't see why they are put together with area.
I personally would prefer to have the timezone box as it gives a non-Indian reader an idea on the time in the state relative to his location. But if it is felt that it is redundant, I don't have any strondg feelings on its removal. I also don't think postal service and licence code should be added. It is almost the same as the ISO section. (Chhattisgarh is the only exception). M:F ratio goes too much into demographics. Suggest we leave it out of the infobox. 15:26, 18 January 2006 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nichalp (talk • contribs)
I agree with this. I've reinserted time zone. The box should pretty much stay as it was originally designed by Nichalp — my only intention was to slim down and reorganize slightly while keeping the same general fields, format, and color, not to massively expand. I'm not planning on doing any other edits; others are free to keep the discussion going here and seek consensus support if they really feel other changes are necessary. Saravask17:05, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Just wanted to let everybody know that is a India Potal In Wikinews, a sister project of wikipedia. I invite you to Develop this potal. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by219.65.123.54 (talk • contribs) .
Indian Businesses
There seem to be a lack of good articles on Indian businesses. Why not start a special collabration for that. Examples of bad articles ar maruti, wipro. amul just got nominated for incotw. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Salim87 (talk • contribs)
Good to see that this article has been nominated for the INCOTW. But why does the page Wikipedia:Notice board for India-related topics/INCOTW still say that the collabration of the week is Amul. Can someone please fix it. - Aksi great06:53, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Minimum requirements to vote/nominate for INCOTW
I am moving the discussion on INCOTW here. Here is what Shreshth91 had to say on the Uttarayan nomination,
"I am very concerned by the fact that all the users who have voted for this article have very few edits (12, 1 and 3 respectively). Shouldn't we have some sort of minimum requirements to vote to remove the possibility of sockpuppets.--<span class="user-sig user-Shreshth91">May the Force be with you! Shreshth91($ |-| r 3 $ |-| t |-|) 15:25, 19 anuary 2006 (UTC)"
Need some guidelines on the following,
How do we deal with Anon nominations? Do we be harsh and move the nomination to the failed ones? Sometimes when registered users vote for it, the nomination gets some credit. I kind of get hesitant to move it the failed ones.
What is the minimum requirement to vote? We could start with a 100 edit requirement.
I guess we can allow anyone to nominate an article, but have some criteria on who can vote (to avoid sockpuppets). A person totally new to wikipedia might actually come up with a good idea. I remember I hardly had any edits when I nominated History of India for INCOTW. deeptrivia (talk) 17:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
It is perfectly in order to make comments such as those made by Shreshth91. While it is very difficult to establish sockpuppetry, it is amazing to see three new users figuring out about INCOTW very fast and then voting for the same topic. Each topic would get its chance, so do not fret. Personally, I do not make any nominations for INCOTW when the pipeline has 4+ articles - no article is undesirable for INCOTW, all are welcome. Similarly all editors are welcome, but sockpuppetry is not welcome. moved my talk from INCOTW page
I believe that the nomination must be made by a registered user; registration doesn't take much time, right? Anyways, if I see that a good nomination is rejected because it was nominated by an anon, I'll re-nominate it the next tme round. I guess other editors would also do that. --Gurubrahma17:37, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
They certainly won't accept images of this size (They have size issues with much larger images too.) But at any rate, we should start trying, to gain more experience on the issues involved. deeptrivia (talk) 23:09, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi All - I hope you will check out this article, which is an FA nominee. After much work, we've created a brilliant article on the most important series of events in modern India's history. I hope you will enjoy it, and I ask for your vote to make it an FA. Jai Sri Rama! Rama's Arrow04:11, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi All - I request your help in raising this article to FA standards. I feel it would be great to have an FA status for India's most important archaeological site, and a great wonder of its ancient civilization. Please check it out. Jai Sri Rama! Rama's Arrow21:09, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Did any of you know this project existed? I came to know about it only when I planned to start one! But I think it is a very important one, and I request all of you to sign up and contribute! deeptrivia (talk) 01:56, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi All - I've inaugurated an effort to make this article a great FA. I request your much-needed advice and help. Jai Sri Rama! Rama's Arrow07:46, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Naming convention for districts
Are there any naming conventions for districts and towns with the same name. Most districts in India has a town with the same name in it. For example there are two articles in wikipedia called Kottayam and Kottayam District. There is a lot of redundant information in these two pages. Is it necessary? I believe we should discuss and implement wikipedia guidelines for indian town and district articles. If this discussion has already taken place please direct me to the same. --DuKot20:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
You could take a look at Vadodara and Vadodara district for an idea on how it has been dealt with. These used to be the same article, but some work went into separating what belonged in the city page and what in the district while reducing redundancy. DevanJedi21:30, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
