Talk:India/Archive 8

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Still errors on the map

There are still errors on the map. Somebody should check it more closely. I would do it myself but i have no time right now.

Nominal GDP figure

Shouldn't this be updated with the 2006 estimate?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_future_GDP_estimates_%28nominal%29

At least it will be a more up-to-date estimate than the 2005 figure.

My tags and a note to F n f

Why no section on religion? Athana 00:22, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of credible sources that F'n'f so sanctimonously talks about(above), I'd like to see some credible sources to support the following characterisations and commentary:

• that bollywood is the 'most recognisable face' of Indian cinema (what on earth is 'most recognisable face'? is it one of those esoteric(and spurious) concepts like 'brand recollect' that was bandied around some time ago on another debate?)
• that state level politics in India is dominated by 'regional' parties (so horribly inaccurate and uninformed that I dont know why I even added a {cn} tag to it).
• that BJP is 'right-wing', 'nationalist'; that UF was 'left-leaning' etc.,. (Note: please do not point me to POV laden characterisations by partisan political commentators or some write up of some columnist voicing his own opinions. In other words, neither am I inclined to accept say, a Mani Shanker Aiyar's characterisations of the BJP nor say, an Advani's characterisation of the Congress).
• that '...hindi enjoys de jure priority...'.

I agree with Point2,3. I also expressed my opinions on point2 and indicated how it has to be modified. I agree that we should not resort to name calling of Indian political parties,instead we should use neutral terms.

Don't you think Bollywood is more recognizable compared to Kollywood or Tollywood? Hindi films have market all over India and it is also popular even among non indians in many foreign countries.It should be verifiable. I think we should be able to collect statistics based on collection,no of prints taken etc.Probably we can use different adjectives.

I will check whether Hindi enjoys priority as per law.--Indianstar 11:51, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Article 343 declares Hindi as official language.Article 344 says use of Hindi to be increased progressively and use of English to be reduced progressively.(Which in my opinion is De-jure priority). You can also check Indian constitution in this website[1].This website has exact words for Hindi as De jure[2].Please suggest how you want above words to be modified. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Indianstar (talk • contribs) 13:15, 23 January 2007 (UTC).

And just to gently warn F n f - while I usually use a long leash with people, you'd still be better advised to turn off your snobbery and not do away with legitimate {cn} tags that others add. Either satisfy the editor with relevant citations or at the very least, have the courtesy to explain on talk as to why the tags are uncalled for. Also mind your language when you accuse others of creating 'problems'(especially when u dont have a freakin' clue what the 'problem' is). Its not everyday that I, or anyone for that matter, will ignore your troll and care to respond. Sarvagnya 22:59, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I did read that you made a couple of completely unrelated remarks concerning Bollywood or the BJP. Let's stay on topic. Also, if the BJP isn't right-wing nationalist, I couldn't name any party that is. dab (𒁳) 10:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Just coz you cant think of another that fits the bill isnt reason enough to brand BJP as 'right-wing nationalist'. Using such and other characterisations on WP to brand political parties or people is uncalled for. Did the BJP ever describe itself as RWN? Or did JD describe itself as 'left-leaning'? Or is it something that its political rivals coined? In any case, a summary article that India is, is hardly the place to delve into such things. If anything, take such characterisations into the BJP article and discuss it under, say, ===Characterisation by rivals/press/media=== or something like that. WP is not the place to pass of a POV, however widely held, so very 'matter-of-factly' as if it was the undisputed truth. Doing so may even amount to introducing systemic bias into WP and we should take care not to do that. Sarvagnya 18:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

section break

F&f's behaviour is impeccable, and he is addressing the issue directly, in spite of any number of ad hominem attacks and attempts at muddying the water. You are just side-stepping the issue at this point. Bring on your references or drop it, Wikipedia is really as simple as that. And while a detailed discussion on who has characterized British rule in what terms may belong on British Raj, we are just looking for a brief reference to the event on this article. F&f has provided ample evidence to back up his position. His opponent has just tried to create a lot of smoke about what is, at the end of the day, his opinion. If you people do not finally and succinctly adhere to WP:CITE, I do not see F&f has any further point to make. dab (𒁳) 00:06, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

The "impeccable" behaviour was well exhibited when he treatened to "edit war" anyone who writes contrary to him.

Nor are his references credible, nor is he addressing the issue directly. He lost the debate on argument, thus began mudslinging and demanding Books!!!

Additionally, (though not my point of discussion) no issue is side stepped. Sarvagnya has only pointed out some of the classic examples of the "impeccable" behaviour (by using inappropriate language.AJ-India 00:13, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Dear dab, did u even bother to read what I've written? Whatever it is that you're talking about, it doesnt answer my questions. Just in case you failed to notice, I am not a part of the raj/colony/occupation/annexation blah blah blah that's consumed this page. My concerns have nothing to do with that debate and I am not a part of it. Not yet. You'd do well to read before u write. Thanks. Sarvagnya 01:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Dear Dab, Just to reply to your claim, about f&f's "ample citation vs his opponents Opinion. J L Nehru is a cite. So are the links I have cited (NYT, is sufficiently reputed, being No 2 English Broad sheet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadsheet). Neither of these are "opinions, any more than those cited by f&f.AJ-India 03:06, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

indeed, I accept that the term "occupation" sees some use, and you are welcome to discuss the matter on British Raj. For brief reference in this article, we need some neutral term, perhaps "expansion", since the "occupation" wasn't anything like a military strike, but a gradual inheritance of bits and pieces of the failing Moghul Empire. Per doctrine of lapse, the British annexed any princely state that was left without an heir. Note that they annexed individual states, not "India", that's a simple matter of precision. Just like the Nazis (we've been Godwined before, so wth) annexed individual European states (Poland, Belgium, France), but they didn't annex or occupy "Europe". dab (𒁳) 10:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Dab, thanks for the acknowledgment (alas). That was all I was saying. it is used.AJ-India 16:20, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Himalayanashoka Permanently Banned

user:Himalayanashoka and all his sockpuppets are now permanently banned from Wikipedia. Since he is likely to appear again as a sockpuppet, please keep on the lookout for further disruptions and please report to an administrator. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

just report the socks to WP:AIV as they come in. I doubt he'll have the tenacity of "the Great Rajput vandal" (who kept going for the best part of a year). dab (𒁳) 16:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Lets move forward

I believe enough has been written on a narrow subject of "Occupation" (which has got a colonial editor worked up). I have made my points, and frankly have no time to waste with a f&f. I enjoy a constructive discussion, but not one bent snobbery and stuborness. To the other editors (am sure we have many out here:) lets rework the lead please. I cite the reference of United Kingdom. It doesnt contain, for example the Roman rule. SImilarly, I had suggested (in Lead) that given the fact that British rule (occupation, end to end) was 190 years, in a history of 3000 years (or more), I dont see much of a logic giving them (only) a special mention. We have had other Pan Indian rulers, who ruled for a longer period. Besides, the Lead isnt about British Rule. It is about the article on India.AJ-India 00:38, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your point. Let us try to close issue by agreeing to words Gradual annexation and colonisation and move forward on improving other parts of the article. --Indianstar 12:18, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

No references required to support Britishness. Any references will not be considered and Indic views will be imposed.

As AJ has said the page should now be unlocked and restored to the last version by Cambridgebayweather. Basically British mentions will be denigrated/removed regardless of howsoever many references.

Also I may say that this article is about India since 5000 years and not just some new suddenly arrived 1947 republic. If this is not the case then all pictures such as Ajanta Caves, TajMahal, mentions about Indus Valley should be removed. Alternately this page should include India from 5000 years to present 2007 India.

HimalayanAshoka (Writing with the help of Licensed WikiAide Userics380005 03:01, 23 January 2007 (UTC))

We can take it forward,but before taking forward we should keep following points in mind so that our discussions will be healthy.

Wikipedia's one of the content policy is Neutral point of view.WP:NPOV.This is not the place to write Indic view or British view.Wikipedia is not a place to show our patriotism.Wikia offers separate wikis where articles can be written in Indic or British views. So let us not challenge that Indic views will be imposed.Country articles are not owned by respective country people.

Let us discuss contents and not attribute any bad motives to content writers.WP:FAITH.Content is important,content editors nationality is not important.

Let us maintain civility.Talk pages are not battleground WP:Not#Battleground.Any body can edit does not mean any body can write anything in Talk pages. WP:Not#Anarchy.

--Indianstar 06:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

as I understand it, the idea is that people would like to phrase the brief reference to British rule in India so as to imply illegality. If "colonisation of Inda" doesn't do that for you, I would suggest "gardual annexation of India". The "gradual" is necessary because the entities annexed were individual princely states, which were indeed "annexed", and I put it to you that this term should have sufficient connotations of illegal military conquest to satisfy your patriotic feelings. I put it to you that a unified India would not have been possible without the British, and that your very pan-Indian patriotism ultimately owes its existence to said "annexation", without which the subcontinent would as likely as not still be fragmented into so many princely states, but this isn't for us to establish here. dab (𒁳) 10:44, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to persist with this (though the underlying issue is seemingly resolved with concencus), but because you didwrite beyond, please be informed, that the presumption that the present state of India is the outcome of the "annexation", is not only as far fetched as the supposed "war on terrorism", it is frivolous. Not only is the present India not identical to the occupied imperial India (it includes states who joined the union post independence), the fact that post Independence the "Princely states" had the choice to remain "independent", and still chose to go either way (not annexed by force, like the British, except Hyderabad and probably Kashmir), speaks for itself. Dab, let’s cut out this futile British POV out here, ok? We have agreed on a reworked lead, let’s get goingAJ-India 16:10, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Gradual Annexation in the first part of the sentence and Colonisation in the second part of sentence of lead was agreed by many.Only chanakya did not express his opinion explicitly. We can check with him,if he also agrees then it can be used. Current issues are not restricted only w.r.t "Occupation". Sarvagnya wanted citations for few sentences which was reverted. I feel some of his points are valid.We need to address his concerns. Himalayan Ashoka has edited few more paragraphs along with Lead and many of those edits are valid. I think those issues can be addressed once we resolve these issues. I also request Himalayan Ashoka to not to edit using different names. These kind of behavious will only complicate issues instead of resolving them.Let us try to address all issues through mutual consensus.--Indianstar 11:37, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

that's reasonable. "gradual annexation" followed by "colonization" is more than enough ot characterize the development of British rule, which really isn't the issue here. As long as we agree that fecal and hate speech as well as sockpuppetry are unacceptable (I blocked 'Asok' for 48 hours. returning sockpuppets should lead to escalating block lengths), we can unprotect the article and beat out a compromise amicably and in best faith. Requesting citations is fair enough, but excessive use of {{fact}} just to make a point (asking citations for nudisputed truisms like Bollywood is notable to Indian cinema, BJP is right-wing nationalist) can be disruptive. dab (𒁳) 12:04, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

"Gradually annexed" is exactly what we say in the current version of the lead; however, the annexation within "India" was done by the East India Company and not by the Crown (during direct rule). There were campaigns, to be sure, like the Afghan Wars and the Chitral and Tirah campaigns, but no new princely state (within the British Indian empire) was annexed after 1857. The root problem, as I see it, is that (as I said somewhere):

“ ... because they (our interlocutors) think the British were "occupiers," they are justified in not mentioning the British at all on the India page; instead they would like to use general words like "foreign occupation" and "non-native expulsion." They see any mention of the British as an implicit acknowledgment of "colonisation," a word they seem to hate. And apparently words like "overthrow," "expulsion," or "ejected" are also important to them. ”

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see Indianstar's and Dab's post, when I posted this. Maybe the issues will be resolved. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:21, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I suggest Dab to edit lead and proceed to address Sarvagnya's concerns.I have expressed my opinions.Let him revert back.We can come back on other issues later.--Indianstar 12:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I've unprotected the article. I think there can be reasonable progress (among the "grownups" at least) along the lines set out above. dab (𒁳) 14:45, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

user:Himalayanashoka was banned for two months in early January, so he likely won't make an appearance before early March. His sockpuppet, user user:Userics380005 has now been permanently banned. Thanks, Dab, for all your efforts on this page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

My concurrence on Indianstar's version. Just to add, the version just before being protected, using basically what Indian star had earlier suggested, was done by me. And thus seems most acceptable. However, any further improvements, by anyone else, can be worked on too.AJ-India 15:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Please don't claim credit, where no credit is due. "annexed" was suggested by Nichalp, "gradual" was my contribution. See our discussion in the occupation section of January 8 above where we say:

How about ... initially annexed by the British Raj, and later becoming a part of the British Empire...? =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see, you mean "annexed" will hint at military force and will perhaps satisfy our interlocutors as a substitute for "occupy." Sure. Since the annexation was gradual, a more accurate rewording would be:"Gradually annexed by the British East India Company starting the early 18th century and directly administered by Great Britain from the mid-19th century, India became a modern nation-state in 1947 after a struggle for independence marked by widespread use of nonviolent resistance as a means of social protest." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC))

As for "colonised," it has been an on-again off-again part of the lead for a number of years. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:07, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

f&f, will you cut it out, I mean, I have really had enough, I am not as credit hungry, as you seem (this is the second time you have indulged in this). Please read what I write, and read carefully. I said I had edited the last version, borrowing from the discussion going on, on which Indianstar had suggest this. You are free to check the history to see who last edited it. But again, the credit isnt mine, (never claimed any) for any part of the text. It is a combined effort, worked up on concencus.AJ-India 16:18, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake. Please accept my sincere apologies. Hope we can work out an amicable consensus. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure:)

AJ-India 19:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Foreign Rule

I deleted the undiscussed addition of "against foreign rule" at the end of paragraph 2 (lead). The addition is redundant. The struggle for independence is never against domestic rule. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

On vacation

Sorry, I won't be able to contribute to the ripe discussions above till 4 Feb. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:45, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

redundant, Rodent, Capybara, Phoberomy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodent

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capybara

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoberomys

vkvora 03:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Strange sentence

"A multi-lingual, multi-ethnic society, India is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats."

I have always found this to be an awkward sentence. The first part really does not have much to do with the second part. I suggest that the first part should maybe refer to the diverse geography of India which would fit well with the second part. Multi-Lingual etc. can be moved somewhere else. --Blacksun 09:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I too found the sentence a bit odd. I guess it is a left over of multiple edits.

But (f&f) regarding mentioning nuclear power. Sorry I put it there (had forgotten to log on, hence the IP), without "discussing". I presumed it states a piece of information, for which I drawing analogy with the United Kingdom page which also mentions it. But if there is something I am missing here, Please do share it. But the last paragraph in general is a bit awkward, it could do with some restructuring to disentangles independent pieces of informationAJ-India 14:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's my handiwork—the result of trying to pare down the lead and compress "diversity" into one meaningful statement—and then not having the requisite "objective distance." Yeah, the sentence is choppy for sure, but let me say a few things, so that we don't replicate previous versions. The quote below has the original diversity statement (that I edited) in italics followed by my comments at that time:

“ The country has one of the most diverse populations, wildlife, geographical terrain and climate systems found anywhere in the world. This is problematic. Biological and geophysical diversity are complicated concepts: best not to mention them. For example, India may not have any more biological diversity than Costa Rica. Diversity after all is not only about "charismatic mega fauna." The statement could be made about scores of countries--Madagascar, Papua and New Guinea, and Chile, to name three. Human diversity is similarly problematic. Are we talking about genetic diversity or linguistic diversity? Since all human lineages trace back to Africa, most countries of Africa (especially East Africa) will in general have more genetic diversity than countries in other continents. ”

My point was that diversity statements should not be comparative in the lead, where there is not enough room for them to be both accurate and meaningful. We do make a meaningful comparative diversity statement in the Flora and fauna section, but it is too nuanced for a lead. One partial fix would be to change the sentence to: "A multi-lingual multi-ethnic society, India is also home to ...," which would subordinate the main clause a little; however, I agree that "multi-lingual" and "multi-ethnic" could be either deleted altogether or moved somewhere else. Please suggest a diversity statement. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:37, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

PS I didn't see A-J India's comment. Am in a rush; will reply later. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:39, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I tend to thing "A multi-lingual multi-ethnic society, India is also home to ...," seems pretty ok, thereby separating the seemilly unrelated parts of one sentence. Anyone with a better suggestion, can improve on it if he so desires.

Nuclear power, its not a burning issue, can be discussed, and worked on (if atall it's mention is agreeable).AJ-India 17:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks AV-India, I've added the "also" (for now until we hear from Blacksun). As for nuclear power, we have had a number of discussions about it and other such terms and the general outcome has been to not add "unnecessary gloat" (in Nichalp's felicitous phrase). See Great Power for a similar discussion. What I have observed in the last few months is that if you add "nuclear power," then someone soon adds "space power," and someone else "conventional-forces power" and so forth and before long, it begins to sound like chest thumping, which alienates the average reader, who is reading the lead in order to infer credibility and in turn to decide whether to read on (or not). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:25, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. The only reason I thought of adding it was because the United Kingdom page had it, so just as an imformative piece. I too dont want to make it a show of might (I personally subscribe to the belief that the world is better off being non-nuclear). But just as food for thought, while "great power" "space power" and "conventional power" are all rather subjective, and not really a matter-of-fact like phrases, nuclear power is more or less a well defined club, or rather acknowledged nuclear power (implying declared /known officially, can use another word, I borrowed it from the UK page). By the way, if you refer to the United Kingdom"s article's lead, I do find it rather chest thumping (stuff like "highly developed" and "major power"). But again, it has its own set of editors, to take care of it, not really my focus area.AJ-India 23:56, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the United Kingdom lead does have some chest thumping, but then it is also not a featured article. Australia is one of the best written country pages (and FA) and it has a very matter of fact tone. I agree that "nuclear power" is a factual term, but as I said above, I have noticed that its addition to the text usually leads to the addition of other factual (and not-so-factual) terms like "space power" etc. Also, since India is not a member of the "official" group of five nuclear powers, people on both sides of the issue start adding qualifiers like "legitimate" or "which is not a signatory of NPT" and the lead begins to sound clunky. Anyway, that's my two cents worth. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Fine lets leave it. And as it is already mentioned in the other sections, the information is already there.AJ-India 15:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm running out of virtual ink

I would like to let other editors know that I do not intend to expend any more virtual ink debating the Ayyavazhi issue. I have not changed my position. I believe that listing Ayyavazhi in the religions of India gives undue weight to this faiths at the expense of the many other faiths that are not listed. However, I no longer have the patience to discuss with the editor who has insistently added Ayyavazhi. If anyone wants to take over monitoring this, I will thank them in advance. If anyone cares, I can copy the latest discussion, which took place on my talk page, to this page. Sincerely, --BostonMA ^talk 13:51, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

He is going against consensus. I would suggest taking the next step. --Blacksun 14:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I second Blacksun. Paul R. needs to be reprimanded (at the very least for trolling). Do you think this should be listed on WP:ANI by some admin? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Semi-Protection

I suggest we can request semi-protection for this page to bring some stability and avoid edit wars.--Indianstar 16:51, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

What a wonderful thing people you are planning here for? Proceed on your own way. I shall face it. Good luck! Also what conscience. Also I appreciate all your determination! But just look beyond a bit before the action.

Ayyavazhi was not individually created as somebody. Then the notability 8000 worship centers from one book, thousands of worship centers from another, and as thousands across the nation from another book; All are university papers which are cited is the most valid third party sources. Then the LMS. Nothing to tell more on their case of Notability. Then a set of historian views.

Ayyavazhi is definitely notable than zorosatrians and few thousand jews. Midst, inspite of all thease valid third party citations, I don't understand on what ground these set of users here in wikipedia are assuming as being neutral, acting aginst something merely because of the reason of lack of official accredition. It is something to be wondered!

I'd never seen a three-eyed person; But its existence is proved by valid citations by some one. Iam going on arguing it never exists, merely because I'd never seen it!!! It's like so the things are going here.

Valid citations, patient (series of) discussions all are thrown to air! - _Д|Ж|_Д 18:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

(To Indian Star) Yes, semi-protection is a great idea! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I request admins that please don't semi-protect section demographics at the moment when Ayyavazhi is removed by some undiscussed users. Repeatedly Iam telling, I've cited with the most valid third party valid citations; now also inline. So pls don't remove. - _Д|Ж|_Д 20:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Semi-Protection is nothing to do with Ayyavazhi controversy.Semi-Protection is requested only because stability is getting lost due to edits by new user accounts/IP addresses.I suggested semi-protection because regular contributors had to spend time on reverting trivial updates. It does not prevent established registered users to make edits.Regarding Ayyavazhi issue in India article,I suggest you to go by community consensus. You have contributed very well in Ayyavazhi related articles.Keep up your good work.--Indianstar 03:11, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Charts for demographic section

---

I have prepared pie charts for demography section.(Linguistic & Religious breakup). You can find charts here. I suggest that these charts should be put in demography section to represent India's multi-ethnic characteristics.It fits well on left side of demography section without removing current featured picture.(At 175 pixels).--Indianstar 13:47, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Look goodAJ-India 15:23, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The pie chart geometry is great. Your colors probably need more brightness as in HSV color space; in other words, the colors should be in the top of the inverted HSV cone rather than the bottom. It should probably also have some pastels (i.e. colors towards the center (and top) of the HSV cone, which have less saturation). Also, it seems there is a preponderance of BIV colors (as in the spectrum ROYGBIV) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:41, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks. Let me see how it can be improved. --Indianstar 14:50, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Charts and colour

Please, change the colour for Red colour and black writing as the same is difficult to read.vkvora 17:28, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Fowler's high handed reverts

Note: The section title was originally History Section, and was retroactively changed to the current title by user:Sarvagnya.

Hi IndianStar and others, Thanks for removing the expanded British History text. Since the text used words like "non-native," it was likely the handwork of user:Himalayanashoka, certainly not a part of the original section. I noticed that other unexplained changes have been made in the history section by unknown editors.

As, for the integration of princely states, it had been decided in an earlier discussion last year to limit the discussion to only the very big picture and mention only Mahatma Gandhi by name. So, I'm afraid Patel will have to go, as will the Goa, Daman, Diu, Sikkim text. I mean, they will have to go for now and we can have a discussion on their future inclusion. Also, the overall size is already 45kb, which is quite a bit more than the ideal size of 35kb (see user:Nichalp's answer to my question about overall size Talk:India/archive_17#Poor_quality).

So, if you don't mind, I will be rolling back the History section to Nichalp's original version of mid-November 2006, and we can then discuss all proposed additions or deletions. Thanks! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with you. I hope inclusion of Sardar patel's name is required or not in lead could have been discussed. Political integration of India with addition of Goa,Pondichery etc etc is definitely major event in Indian history which is notable enough to be mentioned in History section of India article. It is pure fact and not chest thumbing statements. I have removed excessive mention of British rule to compensate addition of other important event to balance total article size.(So article size has not gone up because of that). I will write political integration of India with out Sardar patel's name since you say issue of mentioning others names have been discussed. If I am able to establish community consensus then probably his name can be added. By the way Political integration of India was never added by Himalayan Ashoka.I just want to validate contents objectively without verifying who has added it. If original version has to be retained then there is no need for wiki concept.I don't feel any disputable text in history section. If size has to be reduced then we can discuss and shorten other parts of history section.--Indianstar 17:05, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The History section is a very compressed version of the Wikipedia page "History of India," and, sadly, only a bare outline can be added on the India page. I understand that you disagree with what I said. However, that is something we need to discuss here before we begin to tamper with the History section. Otherwise, tomorrow someone else will come along and say, "Nehru's non-alignment and panchsheel was more important, and needs to be mentioned in more detail;" another editor will say that the Azad Hind Army's liberation of India needs to be mentioned; another will want Govind Ballabh Pant and the national language question discussed. It is a Pandora's box that shouldn't be opened without discussion. The reason why I rolled-back to the "stable" version is that, it was the last version that had been agreed upon with consensus; it is also close to the version of the original featured article. All later additions need to be discussed first. There is no way charged words like "ethnic cleansing" in the history section (whether correct or not) can be added without discussion. BTW, I didn't say that the political integration text was added by Himalayanashoka; I could clearly see it was added by you. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:44, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Your act is wrong. If you think some objectionable content is available in History section then you could have removed it instead of reverting to version as old as November. Your argument that it has to be reverted to November version since it is close to featured article version is strange. It defeats total wiki concept. Whether featured article version is ideal one? If that is the case then why do we allow editing after that, we could have locked page once it reaches featured article state. Contents are getting added on daily basis. Current version may have lot of valuable additions and some invalid additions. Removing invalid addition is the right way to address the issue. You are opening pandora box. Tomorrow if somebody does not like some text in Geography section then they will revert back to October version and will say it is the version close to featured article state. If you feel Sardar Vallabhai patel name should not be there due to earlier consensu, you could have removed it instead of reverting total contents. I totally disagree with way in which you have reverted to November version. Suggest to revert your entry. --Indianstar 18:18, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I just looked at the history of the India page. The current version is not just the version of mid-November, but also that of late December/early January. In fact it was the version of the history section in the graphics related edit you yourself made on January 1 at 13:36 (see: here). As you probably remember, the following 2 or 3 days brought constant edit-warring until the page was locked on January 4. It was during those 2 or 3 days, that some undiscussed changes were made. From January 4 to January 20, the page remained locked. When it was unlocked, there was edit-warring again. The page was again locked from January 21 until January 23. Once unlocked, there was edit-warring once again, this time with Himalayashoka. The first day of calm was January 25. Today (on the weekend) is January 27. There has been no opportunity to discuss anything yet. These discussions are needed before changes can be made; otherwise, we'll be back to the edit-warring scene of a few days ago.

Speaking of changes, I noticed that you made significant changes to many sections on January 26. In one case, your edit summary said adding brief details, but you added two paragraphs. You have to understand, that this talk page has had extended discussions lasting 2 to 3 days for the addition of the name of just one festival in the culture section. Unfortunately, those edits of yours will have to go as well. You should have discussed those on the talk page first. Sorry, but that's the way it works here. For example, user:Blacksun was unhappy about the wording of the last sentence in the lead. He made a posting on this talk page; we had a discussion that lasted a day, and it was finally decided to change it by adding one word: "also." So, again, I am sorry, not only will the changes in the history section be need to be discussed, but also all the other changes you are making in other sections. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:03, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

You were totally selective in reverts. You have reverted my edits to other sections, but you have not reverted myself changing words like "Since Independence". (Now you can say that you want to revert that also). You reverted some of my History section edits. Since you agree with my reverts about British History, you seem to have reverted to version which suits you. You reverted blatant error corrections done by me like not mentioning about North east monsoon which brings rainfall to many major states, not mentioning some Indian based dresses,Sunderban as archipelago.(Original word was not written to say that Sunderban as Archipelago,sentence was phrased wrongly to give impression that Sunderban is archipelago. You have started discussions by showing irrelevant books). You were successful in reducing the spirit of useful contributors like AJIndia, Sarvagyna, Chanakya through your indiscriminate reverts. Some of them have obstained in recent days from editing India article. I will also withdraw from editing India article. If I start argument then you will ensure that discussion lasts for weeks together by quoting lot of irrelevant books, irrelevant web links etc. I don't have time and energy.--Indianstar 05:34, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry that you are upset, but believe me, I am not reverting to anything "I agree with." I had nothing to do with the history section. It was written by others. As for Sundarbans, as you will see in the section below, I posted a question about "archipelago" right after I made the revert. I happen to agree with you on that, but since it is a term that is used for Sundarbans (mistakenly, I think, as a result of its use in Amitav Ghosh's book), I want to make sure that 54 alluvial islands cannot be called an archipelago. Please see the section below. As for Indian based clothes, I would love to see them in, especially since I contributed photographs and created the history sections for salwar, pajamas, and churidar. But, for better or worse, for the India page, we discuss the edits first on Talk. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:57, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

To the admins concerned and other editors: Indianstar couldnt have spoken sooner. I also take serious exception to Fnf's editing practices. He seems to be new here but seems hell bent on presenting himself as a 'know-it-all' of wiki policies. His comments like

"Unfortunately, those edits of yours will have to go as well. You should have discussed those on the talk page first. Sorry, but that's the way it works here".

"It was during those 2 or 3 days, that some undiscussed changes were made."

make it clear that he doesnt have much of a clue how WP or any wiki works for that matter. Will someone do me a favour by drilling it into his skull that

a) it is NOT mandatory that changes to an article(big or small regardless of whether the article is an FA or not) have to be 'discussed' and consensus 'arrived at'. If there is anybody who disagrees with content and reverts it, it is up to the 'remover' to explain on talk why he/she removed content. No 'explanation' needs to be given or permission 'taken' to add content.

b) neither he nor anybody can 'own' an article on WP, irrespective of how much they may have contributed to the article or what their standing in the wiki community is.

c) hiding behind an admin to justify juvenile editing practices like this is most 'unprofessional'

and further, he has the gall to say,

"...You have to understand, that this talk page has had extended discussions lasting 2 to 3 days for the addition of the name of just one festival in the culture section..."

I remember that episode well and again it was Fnf who was guilty of trolling and filibustering the proposed changes. It was a 'common sense, common knowledge' change(that eventually did make it into the article) but Fnf was successful in reducing the article into utter chaos for almost a week.

This kind of filibustering has to stop and Fnf should stop acting like he's some kind of watchdog who's been appointed to guard this article against edits of any kind. Most of the time his excuses for reverting are

a) undiscussed' edits -- Like I said, no edit needs to be 'discussed'. Dont revert it unless it is patent nonsense or vandalism. If you have a 'content issue' with the edit, you raise it on the talk page and see what others say. Or if the edit is unsourced make use of the {fact} or {cn} tags.

b) bad english' in the edit -- Bad english? Just improve it. Dammit. Dont REVERT it.

c) stylistic compulsions and such other specious and frivolous charges. -- same as above. dammit.

d) article size. word count(!!) -- start a discussion on the talk page about it and see what others say. Reverting any and all additions of content to the article is NOT the way to go! The article probably needs trimming and that will have to be done 'article-wide', not simply by deleting content that was added after the article became an FA!!

Every time he reverts any change, he is merely filibustering the changes by taking the discussions on the talk page down a semantic spiral. That is what he did a month or two ago when he fought the addition of a couple of festivals and that is what he has been doing all along while offering the edits of users like Himalayanashoka as an excuse. Fnf's editing practices are now reaching almost a point of disruption and I request admins to take an impartial look into the matter. And infact, it may even be time to review this article's featured status - if for nothing else, atleast to make sure that people as uninformed of wiki policies as Fnf do not start using the FA status as a fig leaf to hold the article hostage against constructive editing done in good faith by several editors. Sarvagnya 23:25, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Dear Sarvagyna, In the discussion we had on this page in late November about Indian festivals (see here), I was hardly the anomaly. Both user:Saravask and user:Nichalp had the same perspective as mine. Nichalp, in his succinct language, said: "The current list is ok, we don't want bloat. Please do something about the quality of articles instead of unnecessary rants."

In your remarks above, some words directed at me, like the ones listed below, constitute violation of WP:CIVIL:

1. "Will someone do me a favour by drilling it into his skull ..."
2. "hiding behind an admin to justify juvenile editing practices ..."
3. "Just improve it. Dammit."

If user:Indianstar's edits were simple corrections or "common sense edits" with minor mistakes, I would obviously have either let them stand or corrected them myself. However, this was not the case, as I will demonstrate in postings on this page. I have already made one post below about her/his change to the "Sundarbans archipelago." I know that user Indianstar is upset, but my reversals were not directed at her/him or at her/his point of view, but rather at the nature of the edits themselves.

Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:33, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to extend this discussions in this Talk page and instead focus on productive discussions about how to improve article contents. Let me take up the selective reverts done by F&F and how he has spoiled spirit of useful contributors with proper evidences of diffs in user talk pages of admins. I suggest F&F to refrain from treating all useful contributors like Vandals. I feel due to constant revert war of F&F, no useful contributions could be made in the last 1 month. --Indianstar 15:19, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Once again, dont hide behind Nichalp or Saravask on this. Whatever he/they said, however 'succintly', you all were WRONG! The edit did eventually make it into the article, but not before you frustrated and filibustered attempts to include it. And do I need to remind you that even on that revert, you blanked content without any explanation and started 'discussing'(read as 'filibustering') only once I brought that content back!

And talking of 'succintly', all I remember is that you guys had to resort to lies and misrepresentation of Sundar's stand to gain a 'bargaining' advantage. Hardly 'succint'.

And again, all that is besides the point. The point is that you 'revert at sight' without offering any explanation whatsoever. And furthermore, you have the cheek to leave misleading edit summaries saying "rv undiscussed edit"(as if WP rules require that every edit be 'discussed') or "rv edit not mentioned in edit summary"(as if an edit summary was mandatory!!).

Your 'discussion' of your recent "Sundarban" revert is only one of very few of your reverts that you've bothered to explain(and semantic cruft at that). And you've dozens of reverts to your name over the past couple of months.

And talking of 'discussion', pardon me if I am wrong, but I couldnt find any explanations offered by you for your recent unilateral 'rollback'. Unless I see some explanation that justifies the 'rollback', be adviced that I will be rv your rollback.

And also, just so you know, 'content issues' or 'edit warring' is not an excuse for a rollback and certainly not 'undiscussed' rollbacks. Unlike you, I edit a whole range of articles and many of them have content issues and edit wars(with admins keeping a close watch), but I havent ever seen a 'rollback' on any other article except this one. Sarvagnya 16:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

No, what you said about the festivals is not correct. What you agreed to was this:

“ I support Arvind's writeup with some minor changes(I've bolded my changes). This version I think, is more concise, NPOV and doesnt rely on such esoteric concepts as 'brand recollect' that lesser mortals dont understand. - Festivals and celebrations are an important part of Indian culture. Major Hindu, Christian and Muslim festivals, such as Diwali, Christmas, and Eid-ul-Fitr, are celebrated nationwide by the respective religions, as are the more secular midwinter harvest festivals. Each region of India has celebrations unique to it, some of which - such as Kerala's Onam and the various New Year's days - are secular, whilst others are religious. India also has three national celebrations, marking the anniversaries of independence, the republic, and the birth of Mahatma Gandhi. Sarvagnya 22:35, 23 November 2006 (UTC) ”

No explicit mention of Ugadi was agreed to. Instead, you later changed the text to: "The most popular holidays are Diwali, Holi,Onam Sankranti/Pongal, Gudi Padwa/Ugadi, the two Eids, Christmas, and Vaisakhi." Although there was never any agreement about the explicit mention of Ugadi, I let bygones be bygones. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

PS As for Indianstar's assertion that no productive edits have been made in the last month because of my "constant reverts," let me point to her/his own additions of graphics or contributions to the economy section. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:43, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

What you agreed to was this - No. Not exactly. What I proposed was that. Clearly we were trying to hammer out a consensus-NPOV piece of prose and I merely put forward my version. No consensus was reached on that and it was left hanging in mid air because by then you had tired the participants with your characteristic semantic cruft. Arvind walked off not long after that. In the absence of any consensus prose of the nature you see above, what we have now(unless its changed again and I havent noticed) is next best. Even now, if prose on those lines(that u've quoted above) were to be hammered out, I'd support it. And then again, not that I expected you to do much better than resort to half truths like you've done above. Sarvagnya 16:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I was responding to your mysterious boast above: "Once again, dont hide behind Nichalp or Saravask on this. Whatever he/they said, however 'succintly', you all were WRONG! The edit did eventually make it into the article, but not before you frustrated and filibustered attempts to include it." If according to you there was no consensus about the inclusion of "Ugadi," and if also (according to you) its current inclusion is proof of your correct position, then how was that proof created? Perhaps by an innocuous correction you made on November 30, here, where the edit summary said, "why was Sankranti/Pongal removed? adding them back." However, what was added back was, "Ugadi, Sankranti/Pongal." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:06, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Coming back to more civil discourse, I would certainly support some version of your/Arvind's proposal quoted above. No matter how it is crafted, it will be preferable to the current laundry list. Perhaps we can take that up next week. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Moving Forward

I wish to add following major info which are missing in this article

1) Political integration of India needs mention in History section. I feel without that action India would have been 1 big country surrounded by dozens of small countries. Kashmir problem is classic example which shows how slip up in that stage could have created more problems for India. So I favour inclusion of the same in History section

2) We need to mention about India's space research programme and its actions to secure permanent membership of UN in Military and Foreign relations. India is one of the 6 countries to achieve launching satellites in Geostationery orbits. It is one of the four countries to establish capability to bring back satellite to earth which is useful technology for manned missions.

3) We need to add more Indian dresses in culture section like Salwar,Kurta,Pyjama etc. Most of these dresses originated and widely used in India. Currently article says Dhoti and Lungi are Indian dresses used by men which is commonly used only in South India.

4) All over the world people connect Yoga with India. It is gaining popularity everwhere. It is preferable to add 1 sentence about Yoga in culture section.

5) Geography section mentions only about South west monsoon whereas North East monsoon brings major rainfall to all states in East coast. I will wait for F&F to give his judgement on whether Sunderban is Archipelago...

Addition of all these info brings up 1KB extra size which could be easily managed by cleaning up Economy and History sections. --Indianstar 15:19, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

First of all, as I understood it, the extra info was 2KB; it went down from 45KB to 43.

I don't have any problems discussing any of these issues, but they can't be discussed en masse as you do here. They need to be discussed individually; otherwise, as I have said above, another user will come along and say that the Nehru years—1950-1964—need more discussion, especially since both Britannica and Encarta spend a great deal of space on them (in contrast, say to "political integration"), that Indian food gets almost no mention, that Indian literature barely gets a mention, etc. and then proceed to add their version and simultaneously subtract from other sections.

I am starting a discussion on "Indian dress" and "political integration of India" below?

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:09, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Let us not take issues to lengthy discussions like Occupation/Ayyavazhi issue,after sometime everybody gets disconnected about the total subject. Most of the contributors who share views here knows what is Political integration/significance of yoga/India's role in space research etc. No need to elaborate.No need to quote books.. web links etc. Simple Yes/No answer is sufficient. Above contents is hardly 8-10 sentences which is less than 1 KB. Selective reverts of History section has caused another 1KB.If you want to seek others opinions on Panchsheel inclusion you seek opinion. It is nothing to do with mentioning Political Integration of India. I don't feel need for starting separate discussions.--Indianstar 16:27, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with all the additions that Indianstar proposes to make to the article. Each of the additions surely comes across as very significant bits of info about India. Especially the one about India's space program and attempts to get a permanent seat. I request Indianstart to please go ahead and add all the content back. You dont need anybody's permission to edit an article. If any vandal vandalises your additions, we can certainly deal with such vandals. Once again, I request Indianstar to make all the edits. Sarvagnya 18:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

If you want a simple yes/no to your questions, here are my answers:

1. Political Integration: NO
2. Space YES, but only two sentence. UN stuff: NO. Geostationary etc. NO
3. Dress: NO, but the current description should advertise the page Indian dress more effectively.
4. Yoga: YES, one sentence (without the philosophy part)
5. Monsoon: YES, but briefly.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:58, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Please don't fix no.of sentences. We can decide based on contents.Let others react then we can decide.Political integration is definitely /India's bid for UN is more prominent. We don't have quota for specific periods. I don't understand why you are against the subjects which put India's image favourably. --Indianstar 10:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Indianstar, I request you to please add all the information. Optimisation for style, grammar, NPOV, article size, no of lines(bah!) etc., has to be done after the addition of content. That is the commonsense way to do it. It will do neither the article nor the project any great harm if the article was to have a little 'bloat' for a couple of weeks when there is 'WIP'. Sarvagnya 16:18, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia's mandate is to describe India factually and reliably (sourced), not favourably. For example, among the other G4 nations pages on Wikipedia, Brazil and Germany make no mention of either G4 or permanent membership. Japan has one brief sentence: "It (i.e. Japan) is also one of the "G4 nations" seeking permanent membership in the Security Council." In contrast, your planned addition was, "India has formed alliance with Brazil, Japan and Germany in the name of G4 nations to support each other's bid for permanent member seats on the United Nations Security Council. India's bid for permanent membership in UN Security council was supported by many countries." If we agree to the inclusion, all it will need is one short matter-of-fact sentence (like Japan). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:13, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

If it is a 'matter of fact' sentence that you want, then just reword/cpedit/improve it. Dont blank content. dammit. Sarvagnya 16:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Dear Sarvagnya, My exact words above were, "If we agree to the inclusion, all it will need is one short matter-of-fact sentence ..." Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I was emphasising only content not exact words. You could have modified sentence instead of reverting it. --Indianstar 13:35, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

F & F is wrong. Germany FA article in lead describes that it is part of G4. Japan article states that it is part of G4 and seeking UN permanent membership along with other G4 nations. Brazil article does not say anything about it. But Brazil article does not have separate section for mentioning about foreign relations like other country articles. Brazil article is not FA article it is currently rated as B class. --Indianstar 16:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

We were talking about adding to the "Foreign Relations" section. Neither Germany nor Brazil have any mention of G4 in their Foreign relations section. See Germany:Foreign Relations and Japan has the brief sentence I quoted above. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:53, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

United states ,Soviet union/Russia, People republic of China, France and Japan are some of the countries which has achieved success in space research. All these countries mention few lines about their space research programme. Most of these countries has photos for their space research. (Of course India is definitely lagging behind these countries in space research.)--Indianstar 16:37, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Is there anybody who is still opposed to mentioning about India's role in Space research.(When it is mentioned in articles of other space powers) and its role in G4 nations(when it is mentioned even in lead of Germany FA and Japan articles).If no opposition I will add few sentences which can be trimmed/modified by others.--Indianstar 13:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Concern over citations

PLS Listen

Regarding Ayyavazhi issue,

So, citations and third party sources are not valid here. But some thing is valid if the majority belives it. Then it is better to conduct polls, and instead of sub-heading 'reference', we can keep the result of the polls. Then in the article, the sentence 'India is a democracy' may be cited inline some thing as, out of 100, 65 people yes; 25 no; and 10 neutral. If some body attempt to give any citations, all the other users should ride away him!!!

That is the way things are going here. Friends see the above discussion. Some people are opinioning that a futhur step to be taken against me. For what? For editing based on third party sources? Iam right from the begining discuss for every my reverts or edits. Some people not even go to the discussion area. When ever they see 'Ayyavazhi' here. They simply revert, and in the edit summary just a note that, 'remove non-notable sect', ' reverted vandalism' or some other personal attacks. This even is comparebely, good. Some people not even do this. They simply revert without a word as reason.

Regular users might have note; In every my edits I ask to discuss. Most of them don't care about. They usually two or three people unitedly revert without discussion, when I revert, then in 5 to 10 minutes, I found the tool bar in the edit section missing following by a message. When I refer I foung there that ' I was temporaliry blocked for 24 hrs. I experience such blocks two such times. Mostly people come with the issues that it was not officially recognised or not even (he) heared of that. Inspite of my lack of time, I even answered to it elobrately. One user is asking that, "Do you have much free time?" If some one is finding way to discuss elobrately (the disputes) than making personal attacks, he is considered as 'a person with no other works to do'. What to say?

Then the notability; Even Jews and Zoroastrians are noted here, But Ayyavazhi with comparitively a large followers in India, on 'their conscience', a non sense! One more thing even administrator reverted with out discussion!

They also say that he is the 'single person' to edit here (in the article) supporting Ayyavazhi. Solidly to say, See three districts are declared holiday for an Ayyavazhi festival. Immedietly don't say that Ayyavazhi followers are confined to these three dists. Ayyavazhi followers are present across south India (apart from citations I personally know). But these three dists, Ayyavazhi are densly populated. Officially delaring three dists as holiday is ever knew in Tamil Nadu, apart from some local holidays for some temple festivals. The report on declaration on Daily Thanthi clearly states that "these three districts are densly populated with Ayyavazhi followers. Inspite of such a large number of people, No ones is here at present to write about Ayyavazhi. That is the situation of the social and economical infrastructure of Ayyavazhi society. I even explined it elobrately in Talk:India/Ayyavazhi.

Apart from all these, what about the Third party citations? I've many historical books (independent to Ayyavazhi) telling about Ayya Vaikundar and Ayyavazhi. But I know that all those books may be said as POVs here. And so only I cited with only University papers. I hope that people understand that a lot of factual things in India is beyond the reach of Internet. But the result I experienced here in unexpected. I travel across many book dealers to find university books for several days. I strongly hope that experts here don't oppose those valid sources. But now they are even rejecting those sources. It's wonderful! Presently, some 5 to 10 University publications (old and new) are not with me (which I know they exists). Iam in serching of those books. But here, if people out put such short-sided activites, as opposing even a book from such a credible university, 'University of Madras', then what to do? It's pathetic. They srongly holding themselves that "They not even heared about it".

Also as a recent incident, pls take a look here, an user removed Ayyavazhi from the article and as a reason for the removal, in the edit summary he noted that, "removing the edits of Paul Raj who is on the edge of 3RR". Is this a reason for removing Ayyavazhi? Then what is the use of the discussion page and the valid citations? - _Д|Ж|_Д 18:04, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

No, writing extremely long essays that go nowhere and using arguments that have all been shown to be wrong and misleading by mutliple users on multiple different discussion and user pages will not get you nowhere. I refuse to spend any energy on you as you will just ignore it and keep harping the same mute arguments over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over... and over again. --Blacksun 19:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Rightly saying, I don't understand what you are telling. - _Д=|Ж|=_{Д Paul}| 20:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Sundarbans Archipelago?

user:Indianstar made a reasonable change in the geography section, which I have temporarily reverted in order to get consensus. The geography section lists the Sundarbans among India's archipelagos (along with Andamans and Lakshadweep). I had always assumed that the word archipelago was used for islands formed either by volcanic processes (like "hot spots") or as a result of (uneven) crustal plate movement (like Lakshadweep?). The, Sundarbans, of course, is neither, but it is a delta with 50+ alluvial islands. Do these form a real archipelago? A quick search on the internet reveals that the usage "archipelago" for Sundarbans seems linked entirely to Amitav Ghosh's book, "Rising Tide," which apparently does refer to Sundarbans as an archipelago. Ghosh, needless to say is a fiction writer. Does anyone have a reliable source for Sundarbans as an "archipelago" that pre-dates Mr. Ghosh's brief foray into science? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I hope by now you would have come to know that Sunderban is not archipelago.!!. Also you mentioned info about North east monsoon can be mentioned briefly??. Can you add info briefly.(I don't understand how to add info briefly when I have added only one sentence.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Indianstar (talk • contribs) 13:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC).

ombudsman for Insurance, Banking, Telephone, Income Tax, Sales Tax, etc.

Generally Ombudsman provide a check under Redressal of Public Grievances and in last 5-7 years good work is done. There is no reference on ombudsman in India on wikipedia and will anybody add these information on ombudsman.vkvora 15:16, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Regional ambiguity

"Millions of protesters would engage in mass campaigns of civil disobedience with a commitment to ahimsa or non-violence." - Should millions be replaced with hundreds of thousands or something more universal? Otherwise, it should be wikilinked atleast because large number of people have no idea what a million is. --Blacksun 11:43, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, I noticed that it pops up at some other places in the article too and atleast one of the other case is not so easy to rephrase (20 million years). So, maybe we just wikilink to the first occurance of million in the article unless someone has a clever suggestion. --Blacksun 11:49, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Talk page title indicates that we will have to use Indian English... I presume Lacs/Crores are Indian English and Million is not used widely in India. I will prefer to use International language... since lot of International readers does not understand Lacs/Crores.--Indianstar 15:24, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I am a little confused. I should imagine most people do know what a million is, unless you mean, as user Indianstar indicated in his post, that users in India would use lacs instead of millions. (Oh, I see, that explains the title "Regional Ambiguity") Sure, wikilinking the first "million" would make sense. I seem to remember an earlier discussion on billion on this talk page. See here. In light of that discussion perhaps you should wikilink the first occurrence of "billion" (in demography?) as well. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:55, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I know a lot of pretty educated and english speaking people in some parts of the world who get confused with millions and billions. --Blacksun 08:12, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's true, come to think of it. Sure, please go ahead and wikilink the first occurrence of "million" and "billion". Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry that I didn't read this discussion when I was editing the article earlier today and therefore de-wikilinked "million". I don't think the term needs to be wikilinked because (1) million, unlike billion, has a unique universal definition, (2) it is a common English non-technical word (unlike lakh, crore, dime, nickle etc. which are used only regionally). However, having stated my personal preference, I wouldn't really object if other editors thought wikilinking million was worthwhile. Abecedare 11:18, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Indian Dress

User Indianstar would like to change the current sentence on dress in the Culture section, which currently reads:

“ Traditional Indian dress greatly varies across the regions in its colours and styles, and depend on various factors, including climate. Popular styles of dress include the Sari for women and the Lungi or Dhoti for men. ”

She/he would like to add pyjama, churidar, salwar, kurta and sherwani to the apparel already mentioned.

Although this would seem like a minor addition, it is part of the general problem of listing specific examples on a country page. My understanding is that we keep the lists short (per previous discussions), usually no more than three. There is another problem of what is traditional and whether to only list traditional. Encyclopedia Encarta, which doesn't have our constraints on space, has this to say on Indian dress:

“ The basic traditional clothing for most Indians, men and women, is a simple draped cloth. For women this is the sari, which is wrapped as an ankle-length skirt and draped over one shoulder, with a fitted shirt underneath. Styles of tying the sari vary among regions and communities. Except for widows, who wear plain white, saris are generally colorful and can be made of cotton or the finest embroidered silks. Village men and men in some urban areas such as Kerala wear a cloth called a dhoti in its full-length form. In north India it is typically tied with one or both ends brought between the legs and tucked in, to form loose “pant” legs. In the south, the full cloth or a half-sized one is wrapped as a cylinder, an ankle-length skirt that can be pulled up and tucked in itself to form a short skirt when work requiring movement is done. Muslims tend to wear the half-cloth in colored cottons rather than the white with thin colored border favored by Hindus. ”

Only then does Encarta go into the regional dresses: and mentions salwar-kameez (for Punjab). It also says "long skirts and bodices are worn. This is also a common dress among young girls throughout the country." It mentions pajama-kurta, Nehru jacket (and Sherwani) for North India. And it mentions turbans. Finally, Encarta spends another half-paragraph on Western-style dress, which is increasingly worn in cities.

The problem with lists is that all kinds of problems can arise. Here are a few:

• Why should sherwani be mentioned, when many more people in India wear band-gale-ka-coat (similar to a Nehru jacket)?
• What about turbans, which are not only worn by Sikhs, but also widely in rural India?
• What about lahengas (long-skirts) which are worn both in Rajasthan and much of South India by girls (more often than salwars)? Are we focusing more on North India in this list?
• What about the traditional dresses of the East and Northeast?

Since I have added both content and images to the Wikipedia pages on pyjama, salwar, and churidar, I certainly wouldn't mind these apparel mentioned, but the question still remains: how long should the lists be and how representative are they really? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:49, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

You have successfully started topic to blow up small issue as very big topic for discussion. You are saying representative sample. Do you know most of the Indians don't know about Lungi or Dhoti which is used only in some south indian states. --Indianstar 17:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Adding pyjama, churidar, salwar, kurta and sherwani I think should be ok, as they are pretty much comparable to the other dresses mentioned. Also, if one looks at the current sentence, the mentioned three dresses are not really all inclusive. I mean, (as I understand it) the use of an encyclopedia is not for editors to refer, but for people who want to know (what he doesnt) about a certain topic. Now think of it: One such person (hypothetical) who wishes to know broadly about India, reads this, and then tries to relate to what he sees, say in movies, or even the prominent people (say Nehru, as you mention). Can he figure out what he (Nehru) was wearing in say the movie "Gandhi"? A Dhoti, a Lungi? This is just one example. Personally, in addition to what Indianstar wishes to be added, I would like to add what our current Prime Ministers wear, because, it too is traditional. Though probably not a written rule, but it is a fact, that no Indian PM wears a suit does he? Never. it is not their personal atire, but a tradition for that position. As we can find ample pics of say Manmohan Singh, or IK Gujaral, who while not being PM were shot wearing a suit, but converse isnt true. Point being, agreed the size might be an issue, but if the article is totally uneditable, lets lock it for ever. But if atall we wish to work on it, I would like to say, that even if certain parts are just shortened sections of a bigger article, they should be shorted such that they dont become imbalanced, and thus useless to a real user of the page.

Thus, I agree to Indianstars additions, but would like to also add the band-gale-ka-coat (or any suitable name for it), as it's use is wide and prominant (as mentioned, by non other than the Prime Minister).AJ-India 17:19, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Phew!! Like Indianstar says, Fowler has only managed to make a mountain out of a molehill. His concerns about article size are as spurious as his reverts. And oh, btw, just for the record, I find Indianstar's edits justified. Sarvagnya 17:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

There already is a page, Indian dress mentioned in the current-version of the text, which, while poorly written, has a more comprehensive discussion of dress including all the terms we are debating. Indianstar's remarks that most people in India haven't heard of a dhoti, or that Dhoti or lungi is a South Indian dress, don't seem factual to me. India is still primarily a rural country. Dhoti is very much in evidence in villages of the Hindi-belt states. Atal Behari Vajpayee, for example, wore a dhoti (North Indian style). I am not trying to blow up the problem, but these decisions are more complicated than they appear at first sight, and they already have been the subject of much discussion.

As for A-J India's comments, I don't really have any disagreements other than the problem of lists (and what is representative, i.e whether Indianstar's list is North-India-centric). Perhaps someone more experienced like Nichalp, when he returns from his vacation, should weigh in on the general problem. The current solution is to only mention sari and dhoti/lungi and refer the reader to Indian dress page, where they can look up all the styles. The Indian dress page, surely, needs a lot of work! I think we would be better off improving that page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

PS. For the record, if I had to make a list, it would be (in this order): sari, dhoti/lungi, pavada/pattu (lahenga/choli), kurta-pyjama, salwar-kameez, turban, churidar-sherwani, band-gale-ka-coat/Nehru jacket, etc. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:27, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

My addition is India centric not North India centric. Current content is south india centric and i want to make it as India centric.(By the way I am also from south india,it does not mean that I have to make article contents as south india centric). Dhoti is used only in south india. Salwar kameez and churidar are used extensively all over India. --Indianstar 10:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Dear Indianstar, OK, let's wait to get others opinions. As I said earlier, having contributed to pyjama, salwar and churidar pages, I (personally) don't mind their inclusion in the India page, but my choice not to include them is driven by imperatives of space and style that have been discussed numerous times on this page before, and also by comparison with other tertiary sources like Britannica and Encarta. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

PS BTW, I have no idea where you got the notion that dhoti is worn only in South India. Just to double check, I just talked to some anthropologist friends who recently (December 2006) visited villages in both UP and Bihar, and according to them dhoti is still very much the adult male attire in villages in North India, worn in UP, Haryana, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra, especially in villages that are traditional (i.e. not semi-urban). The North Indian dhoti is of course brought up between the legs to form loose billowy pants. For example, leaders like Lal Bahadur Shastri, Govind Ballabh Pant, Atal Behari Vajpayee (all from UP) all wore dhoti. As my Encarta quote at the top of this section says, "In north India it (dhoti) is typically tied with one or both ends brought between the legs and tucked in, to form loose “pant” legs. In the south, the full cloth or a half-sized one is wrapped as a cylinder, an ankle-length skirt that can be pulled up and tucked in itself to form a short skirt when work requiring movement is done." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

f&f, wrt this (dress) and the other insertions being talked about (done by Indianstar), correct me if I am wrong, but isnt it true then, that given the "size" problem, and the fact that virtually everything has been discussed before, that none of this is editable, and now we can only work on comas and fullstops on this article?

I mean, personally, the dress for example, I see nothing wrong in writing up what indianstar says, and if you want to add a couple more, let that be so. Trust me, heavens will notĖ fall if we add an extra:). Order, I would propose alphabetic, not any other, to manitain neutrality. But looks like we have a situation where any edit ends up being "discussed". Britannica, no doubt a marvalous source, can not form the basis for what we write here, in terms of structure of article, or its content. For if that was so, we dont need another encyclopedia, we might as well start working for the pubishers of Britanicca isnt it? The inherent characteristcs of Wikipedia are (among others) its free editability. If we curtail that, and restrict that to a select few, we defeat its intended purpose. I believe discussion is the best way, but only when there is a dispute, or disagreement.AJ-India 16:12, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Dear AJ-India. No, that's not true at all. Many additions have been made by Indianstar her/him-self to the economy section (as well as graphics). The problem in general is with lists. A country page like India needs to give an overall picture for a average international reader, and it needs to point to more specialized links for readers who have further interest. Consequently, on this page, we describe things in a qualitative manner, then give an example or two, and also refer to the specialized link. Replacing this approach with long lists doesn't serve any purpose, other than the turning off the average international reader. Here is an example: The section on Indian dance use to simply say:

“ Many classical dance forms exist, including the Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, Kathak and Manipuri. They often have a narrative form and are usually infused with devotional and spiritual elements. ”

This, in my opinion, was reasonable, it gave a qualitative description, it had a few examples, and it provided the link classical dance forms for more interested readers. However, in November, in consequence of Sarvagyna's efforts, it was changed to,

“ Many classical dance forms exist, including Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, Kathak, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Odissi and Yakshagana. They often have a narrative form and are usually infused with devotional and spiritual elements. ”

I have no doubt that tomorrow other readers will want to expand the list further. The problem is that average international reader, gets turned off with these extended lists of names they have never heard of, their eyes begin to glaze over, and they stop reading the section, if not the page itself. Nichalp, who has more experience in India-related articles than almost any other Wikipedian, has seen this over and over again, and his approach of "qualitative statement, very few examples, further links" is rooted in that experience. Indian readers don't mind the lists because they are familiar with the names, but try imagining reading the Finland page and coming across the sentence:

“ Nightwish, Amorphis, Waltari, Stratovarius, Kotipelto, Sentenced, Sonata Arctica, Children of Bodom, Charon, HIM, and The 69 Eyes have had success in European and Japanese heavy metal and hard rock scenes since the 1990s ”

If you didn't already know about the hard-rock heavy-metal scene in Finland, what useful information would this provide? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

f&f, I draw from your concusion, that"

1. An international reader comes to this page to read what he knows (familiar with), and conversely not to read what he doesnt.

2. Sari, Dhoti and Lungi are the only known Indian dresses internationally. Thus Nehru jacket (sported by the Beatles, by Steven Seagal, and non other than the Prime Ministers of India, who are pretty visible internationally), isnt yet known to the world.

3. Salvar Kameez, seen in every India movie, worn on average by Indian women all over, isnt also of international fame yet?

I mean, I dont really get all this. Haggling on contentious issues like say the Demolition of the Babri mosque, or the parition, makes sense. But this is so subtle a thing.

And if our intent is to just write up a page, to suite the well established image if India (a rural, poverty striken country), we are getting no where. I have nothing against Dhoti, or Lungi, but as far as my international exposure goes (having lived in Kenya, Tanzania, Canada for a substatial period of time, and non other than India itself), these, by no means are the flag bearers of Indian dresses. Yes, they figure in the "artistic" representation of rural India. But an average non Indian recognises a lot more. Indian movies are viewed by many non Indians. the dresses thus featured are also known.

Lets simplify all this, and not haggle on useless issues. We all have better work to do. I repeat my proposition. We add all the dresses discussed/mentioned above, in alphabetic order. And finish this. Two days have past, no one has objected. If someone does drop by to do so, we will deal with it then, simple.AJ-India 18:02, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The more Fnf speaks, the more its becoming clear that s/he has no clue what WP is. Articles on WP or any encylcl., are not written to be pleasing to the eye of the'average international reader' or any reader for that matter. Articles are written to educate people and provide information. This is an encyclopedia. Not a painting. If somebody gets 'turned off' by what he sees here, I'd suggest he find something else he might find pleasant. Playboy magazine maybe.

And not surprisingly again, s/he hides behind Nichalp. With all due respects to Nichalp and his invaluable contributions to WP, I must point out to Fowler that, at the end of the day, Nichalp is just another editor on WP. He may have certain special powers by virtue of being an admin, but that certainly doesnt mean he is blessed with supernatural wisdom and judgement. Stop piggybacking on his fair name. Sarvagnya 19:55, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Political Integration of Princely States and other territories

User Indianstar would like to add some text on the Political integration of princely states etc. to the history section. His original addition, which I reverted, was:

“ Political integration of India was successfully completed by Sardar Vallabhai Patel when 565 princeley states merged with India. Three years later, on 26 January, 1950, India chose to be a republic, and a new Constitution came into effect. French territories like Pondichery, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanaon were ceded to India through diplomatic efforts in 1954. Portugese colonies,Goa, Daman and Diu were liberated and annexed in 1961 through military force when diplomatic efforts failed. Sikkim chose to join India as its 22nd state when local referendum conducted in 1975 overwhelmingly favoured to abolish monarchy and join with Indian union. ”

The main problem in the history section is space. Right now only three sentences are devoted to the entire Nehru era 1947-64. Political integration, while obviously important, is only one of the many important events of the Nehru era. (Actually most of it happened before independence, with the joint efforts of both Mountbatten and Patel.) Britannica, for example, devotes 5 pages (200 lines) to the Nehru years and only 10 lines to political integration. Here is the list of topics covered in Britannica for the Nehru era in increasing order of years.

1. Gandhi and communal violence after independence. (1947)
2. The accession of princely states by Patel and Mountbatten. i.e. Political integration. (1947)
3. Nehru's stress on secularism. 1948-
4. The republic 1950. The constitution.
5. States Reorganization Act (The linguistic division into states.) 1950s
6. Kashmir 1948-
7. Panchsheel, Non-alignment and International Relations. 1950s
8. India-China war. 1962.
9. Industrial progress during Nehru era. ("India had become the world's 10th most advanced industrial nation in terms of absolute value of output ...") (1950s)
10. Bhoodan and Gramdan movement (1950s)

Political integration gets about 10 out of 200 lines. Goa gets one line. Pondicherry etc are not mentioned. Most of the other topics get more lines. The problem is that in the History section of the India page, we have only 3 sentences devoted to the Nehru years (on the basis of available space). How do we propose to add content about political integration, when we don't mention anything about the other topics? BTW, almost all the major history texts, have a similar distribution of focus. I am happy to provide a list of texts, if needed. The history section provides the link to History of India page at the outset. All these topics are treated in more detail there. I don't see any need for adding political integration or any other topic—that would be getting into specifics—which are treated in the History of India page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:59, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Extended Additions by user:Afghan Historian to History Section

User Afghan Historian had made extended additions to the description of the Indus Valley Civilization in the History section of the India page. The text added by her/him is:

“ The Indus region dried up around 1900-1800 BCE and the civilization gradually disappeared, with aspects of it drifting eastwards. Around 1500 BCE, some centuries following the collapse of the Indus civilization, nomadic tribes called the Aryans (Indo-Iranians) migrated into the Indus valley from the steppes of Central Asia. They came into conflict with the various indigenous groups of the region. Over time, they adopted many aspects of the previous civilization and cultures, forming the Vedic Civilization which would lay the foundations of Hinduism, the Caste System and other cultural aspects of early Indian society. From 1500 BCE onwards, they began to spread from the Indus valley to the Gangetic valley and other areas of the subcontinent, establishing their new culture and civilization, as well as spreading their language, Vedic Sanskrit ”

The current version simply reads: "The first known permanent settlements appeared over 9,000 years ago, and gradually developed into the Indus Valley Civilization, dating back to 3300 BCE in western India. It was followed by the Vedic Civilization which laid the foundations of Hinduism and other cultural aspects of early Indian society." Since the addition is significant (i.e. one large paragraph has been added to a description that only has two sentences in the history section), I have reverted the edits. I feel that the current description is adequate and that user Afghan Historian should explain why such detail is needed in the India page, when the Pakistan page, and indeed even the Indus Valley Civilization pages don't have it! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Talking of the Pakistan page, (an FA), read the last line in the lead "Pakistan is a declared nuclear weapons state". If we draw analogy for the indus valley civilisation from that, this line can, and I feel should be replicated here (to be consistant, and informative).AJ-India 17:24, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I gave the Pakistan page example because Pakistan has most of the famous Indus Valley Civilization sites. (Obviously India has IVC sites too, but Pakistan has more, certainly the more well-known, like Mohenjo-daro and Harappa.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:19, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not questioning your giving the Pakistan example. I agree (by and large) with this particluar revert. My only point was that we can add the Nuclear line, as it is there on an FA article (Pakistan), as you cided it aws an exammple (thus probably agree with it).AJ-India 16:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Adding new material to the India page history section

The India page is a featured article, which currently stands at 43 KB. A persistent problem is the following: What criteria should be used for accepting new material into the article? The history section, for example, has a highly compressed narrative that at the outset points the reader to the History of India page for more details. However, every so often, editors want to add new material, feeling (rightly from their point of view) that more details are needed in a certain sub-area. A number of approaches have been tried:

1. Revert the new addition, take the discussion to the talk page. (This often upsets the editor who has added the text.)
2. Revert the material and mention in the edit summary that the History of India page already has the details they seek to add. (This upsets them even more.)
3. Accept the material and—with more copy editing—integrate it into the article. (However, the article soon begins to burgeon and requires expeditious pruning.)
4. Accept the material and remove other topics deemed less important by the editors of the moment, thereby keeping the size the same. (However, the many editors who over the years have optimized the narrative, and who may not be paying close attention just then, get shortchanged.)
5. Another perennial problem is "lists." For the topic on hand,

1. should we (a) give a qualitative explanation, (b) illustrate with an example or two, and (c) refer to a more detailed link, or
2. should we do all of the above, but, in addition, provide a more detailed list of examples in the text itself? (The rationale for the detailed list is often that readers might prefer to see the details on the page itself rather than in the link.)

Although the history section is the example, the problem applies to the entire article. All comments are welcome. 00:33, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Comments

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• Phew! Another mish-mash of half truths again. I'd like to know where and in which of her numerous reverts Fowler has followed even one of the above listed approaches. On the contrary, her reverts have been more on the lines of "Revert the new addition. Leave a cheeky edit summary that's more like - "hey u didnt 'discuss' this.. so buzz off.. I've blanked out your edit". And then, forget about it. Until an editor puts his foot down and takes her to task.

That said, lets examine some of the sublime points she's made -

• The India page is a featured article, which currently stands at 43 KB..... What criteria should be used for accepting new material into the article? - You still dont get it. Do you? An article, even if it is a FA, is governed by exactly the same policies that govern other non-FA articles. What criteria should be followed in accepting content is the oldest of policies on WP and is well laid out. The problem arises only when someone decides that for some weird reason, she will fight tooth and nail every single edit regardless of the merit of the edit. That she will stoop to even blanking content if that is what it takes. Talking of WP practices and policies, this is what WP:SIZE has to say -

"....Sometimes an article simply needs to be big to give the subject adequate coverage; certainly, size is no reason to remove valid and useful information....."

• So does that mean we continue to add content indiscriminately? No. Certainly not. But trimming and pruning should be 'article-wide'. Even on content that's supposedly been 'optimised' over the years by 'experienced' editors. It shouldnt be confined only to content added after the article became featured or content added by newbies.

• If this is not possible and if new editors have no hope or chance of adding content to the article, just pack up and lock the article forever. That way, newbies will be spared of the agony of adding content only for it to be blanked the next moment by self styled watchdogs. Sarvagnya 03:09, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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• Comment - The limit on article size is important, otherwise, the tendency to add each and every bit of information makes articles grow beyond limits. The FA guidelines are strict, and adding more and more tidbits will create grounds for de-listing an article from FA status. Per WP:SUMMARY, article sections should be summaries of content described in detail in sub-articles. So, I suggest adding new content ONLY to the sub articles and putting a brief, concise mention of it in the main article. The history section is already quite elaborate, and I don't see any scope of further lengthening the section. Please add the content to History of India, which is the correct place to place details, per summary style. Thank you. --Ragib 04:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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Reply: Are you trying to say that we will have to add any additional contents only to sub articles without looking whether it will fit into brief summary of main article?. Why "add only to sub article rule" is applicable only for India article? Why this rule is not applicable to other featured country articles?. History section is elaborate but contents does not represent brief summary of Indian History. Right way to address the issue is shorten existing contents if you are trying to add some important points. For example,I added 3 sentences which represents Indian history at summary level and removed 4 sentences which can be moved to sub article. --Indianstar 14:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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• Reply: Given the state of affairs, I feel the best way is to lock the page, and declare it complete, no further edits required, simple. I mean, one can discuss the history section, but something as petty as dress, or Nuclear power (which figures right where I put it in our page, in the Pakistan page, which is an FA too), if such things are going to be dragged like this, and essentially denied entry on some logic or the other, the implication is clear. Dont edit. Its done. Its already reached its limit, and has already been seen by experts. But is that what Wikipedia was supposed to be? Restricted to a select few, without whose permission, no alphabet gets added? My thus far experience with other articles has been that improvement is a continuous process, people work more on the article, not on the talk page.

All said, the primary answer to the above hinges on the premise that the article is FA, it is reviewed, discussed and thus more or less complete. In which scenario, I see no point in leaving it open.AJ-India 04:24, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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• Comment-The section seems fine as it is, BUT it could use some references. Just a few like: Thapar, Romila. Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300 (2004) and Smith, Vincent. The Oxford History of India (1981). I've read these two before, but don't own them and they are together a very good and complete history of India. Also, the US Library of Congress is also an excellent rendition of the history of India. Ragib makes a good point that size in this case matters because most readers who are looking for a quick overview are not interested in details as they can click on the link to the History of India for that. It is probably a good idea to revert proposed changes as they will most likely not add anything as the section already covers everything that is relevant. Tombseye 04:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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• comment --- see WP:SS and Wikipedia:Main article fixation: If we allow people to add bits and pieces on the grounds of "hey, this is important too", the article will fall apart. At this stage, we are not looking for random contributions in random corners, but for editors who have an overview of the entire text (or at least an entire section), and polish its prose. It's not trivial, not everyone can do it, I am afraid, "editing" isn't just about clicking an edit tag, it needs skills. Be nice and don't blow a fuse if your addition is reverted on such grounds, it doesn't mean it was unimportant, it means it didn't sit well with the article flow. The article can easily go up to 60k, but it should be 60k of polished flowing prose, not 60k of random unconnected tidbits. Everybody here wants a good, pleasant, readable India article, no? So be nice, respect editorial sensitivities of other people, and be prepared for a complicated process if you want to insist on inserting some factoid, especially if you are not a master wordsmith in proficient English yourself. dab (𒁳) 09:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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• Comment-Nobody says that article size is not important. But you cannot say article size has reached so don't add contents and add contents only to sub article. Contents being added needs to be evaluated to see whether it is worth enough to be mentioned in Main article or sub article. If content is worth enough then we will have to see how sentences has to be reworded to maintain article size. Current article does not have main contents about India (In overall perspective) like its role in space research, how India became politically integrated after Independence etc. But has some generic words like India maintains cordial relationship with many countries.(It may be a fact but these kind of words can be put in any country's article.) History & Economy section has many words which may be shifted to sub articles. So there cannot be outright ban for edits. As long as information added by editors fits "Bird's eye view" of India it has to be allowed. Let master wordsmits of english edit language of ordinary English editors instead of quoting that as a reason for reverting contents. India's article size is much more less than other featured country articles and its size is within prescribed limit. This is the only page where adding each single word requires permission of an Individual.--Indianstar 12:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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• CommentI think what Dab implies is that the current dispute (Dress, Nuclear, and History section edits) were "random unconnected tidbits", and the editors insisting on it, are not "master wordsmiths" are thus not "respecting editorial sensitivities" of f&f. Am sorry to say this, but would have been nice if, upon being solicited to provide comments, Dab had been more specific to the current issue, instead of generalizing it like this. Doesn’t help one bit. Only ends up looking like all those who added stuff are useless buggers fighting with the Chief editor of this page.

I think enough patience has been shown, and frankly, I think everyone here is appreciating the concerns (I did so ample of times), but the simple point is, one person can not (and should not) be reverting every single edit. I mean, here is a person who spends his time making charts (Indian star), for example, and just tries to improve the existing article, and we reward him by exasperating him (by denying whatever he adds, on some pretext or the other). And the article, to me as an ordinary mortal, not a "master wordsmith" is far from perfect, with tit bits thrown in here and there like: India has maintained cordial relations, or the Congress formed the government "supported by left-leaning and other parties opposed to the BJP", as if you have governments which are supported by guys who actually support the opposition!! I didn’t raise these, mainly because of the prevailing situation, where nothing goes past. If we don’t have faith in others, and want to make this an elitist club of few, who (only) can edit it, please feel free (notice, that I don’t edit the page, except for minor grammar). But the end looser is the reader, who expects what Wikipedia was meant to provide.AJ-India 16:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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Comment: dear dab,

nobody wants a bloated article with tidbits thrown in everywhere. Nobody suggested that. Not me. Not Indianstar. Not AJ India. So please stop trivialising the argument by talking about hypothetical situations. there are no kids here and everyone knows what they're doing. Except ofcourse, Fnf.

While Fnf has more or less succeeded in shifting focus to this futile exercise, I'd like to take the focus back to what this RfC was really meant to be.

Rama's Arrow suggested that a RfC may be the way to go in the dispute between me and Fnf. My dispute with Fnf is NOT about what this RfC is focusing on. It is not like we're disagreeing on what approach to follow from those listed above. I have only taken exception to the 'approach' Fnf has taken over the last couple of months. It is simply about Fnf's high handed reverts and impertinence. Fnf has been 'reverting at sight' for the last two months and in almost all the cases hasnt even shown the basic courtesy and manners to explain why she blanked content.

Blanking content when it is not patent nonsense or vandalism is a serious issue. Even this noise about article size, word count etc., that she is making now, wasnt forthcoming when she blanked content. Her reverting/blanking has almost always been accompanied by edit summaries(and nothing else) that range from the ridiculous to the preposterous. She's been making these noises and offering weak and nonsensical justifications for her blanking only since the last three four days - ie since Indianstar and I pulled her up and took her to task.

She has shown scant regard for the efforts and sensitivities of other editors. If things have come to such a pass, it is thanks mainly to Fnf. Her editing has been most unprofessional and sickening. You dont blank content because it was not discussed!! You dont roll back pages even without letting people know!!

And talking of condensed prose, I condensed some prose by removing POV characterisations of the BJP and other parties. But Fnf brought it back!! For someone who seems to have a fetish for word count and article size, does she not think that spending 'x' alphabets in characterising the BJP as "extreme right fundamentalist nationalist bla bla bla..." is unnecessary. Why cant we just say... "BJP formed the government... United Front formed the govt..." and finish it. why should we spend almost a whole sentence on characterisations? Just this example shows that her specious concerns about article size are just bogus. Like Indianstar has also pointed out, her blanking of content(vandalism??) has always been 'selective'. She owes the community an apology for her disruptive editing. Sarvagnya 17:38, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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I am not defending every edit of F&f, just so this is clear. Nobody wants a bloated article, to be sure, yet this is where articles, and India related topics in particular, are invariably headed, and we need a conscious effort countering that. "Blanking content when it is not patent nonsense or vandalism is a serious issue"? no. it may be a valid editorial decision. Blanking sourced, pertinent (relevant to the topic) material which is not already treated (or would better be treated) in a sub-article is a serious issue. Blanking material that would be just as much at home in a sub-article to avoid clutter is commendable. My approach to major articles like this is: reduce, polish, tighten, rinse, repeat. Take out at least two idle turns of phrase for every succinct statement you insert. Otherwise, the article just falls apart. You cannot leave the editorial care to others and concentrate on inserting your pet factoid, whatever your gist and party colour. Your BJP example might be a little disingenious, but fwiiw, I agree we shouldn't waste space on heaping up adjectives. BJP is notable for being nationalist far-right. That's 21 characters, and if we're going to mention BJP at all, these 21 characters are well invested for pointing out why we do. As it is, the politics section doesn't make clear the nature of the BJP intermezzo. dab (𒁳) 18:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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"...commendable editorial decision..."?? - well, it may have been 'editorial decision' but in the absence of any explanation or justification on the talk page other than a measly edit summary that 'talks down' to fellow editors, this 'editorial decision' surely comes across as uncouth and unrefined if not rank bad vandalism. And surely, rolling back months together with scant regard for other editors efforts and 'editorial sensitivities' is far from 'commendable'. Sarvagnya 20:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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• Comment -- Agree 100% with Dbachmann, Fowler, and Ragib. A RFARB may be needed if this continues. Saravask 19:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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And what will this 'oh-so-scary' RFARB be about. You say you agree 100% with the above three. Can you point out who doesnt agree with atleast two of the three you named. Or where all three have the same views. Do you understand that we need atleast two parties involved in a dispute for a RFARB? Or do you think you talking about RFARB when its totally uncalled for is going to intimidate someone? Did you even read all thats gone on here since the last few days before you dumped a hurried "I agree 100% with x, y and z" on this page??

And when you say, you agree 100% with Fnf, should I take it that you also condone his undiscussed, high handed, unilateral and impertinent blanking and roll backs? If so, I am sure folks on your RFARB would like to know. Sarvagnya 20:22, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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you should cut down on the repetitive adjectives. Repetition doesn't make you any more right, you know. Your behaviour is unconstructive, apparently you have decided that if you can't turn this into the article you'd like it to be, nor should anyone else [insert villainous cackle]. This is not what I would call a bona fide search for compromise, and indeed a form of disruption. An RfAr may be tedious and a huge waste of time for everyone, but you'll not enter it looking good, I can see. dab (𒁳) 20:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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Ya.. but I'll come out looking better. And pardon me for repeating adjectives. I'll try to find a new one next time round. As for you, I can only say that playing the ostrich and denying that there's been unacceptable behaviour from an editor simply because the editor(Fowler) happens to have maintained cordial relations with you in the past doesnt make you look very good either. Sarvagnya 21:27, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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• Comment -Because we currently have a featured article, I feel that all major edits regarding content should be discussed and agreed upon before insertion. It would be prefereable for lengthy edits regarding history to be added to the History of the Republic of India article, which needs expansion anyways. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 21:59, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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• Comment: Guys, instead of generalising, if we could address the problem head on (instead of expressing solidarity with a section of editors), would be useful, to end this. On my part, would like to suggest:

The issue of reverts: It is not forbidden, surely, if you see the history section, it is done ever so often. But the underlying problem here is, reverting to a version much before the past few. I believe such reverts should cerrtainly be discussed, before execution. This is because it would be in complete disregard for the various intermediate editors, who contributed. And seeking confidence of other editors wouldnt hurt.

Editing Protocol: This is a tough one. But I think it can be dealt with in an environment of trust. One has to really understand that there are good editors (not a select few who are blessed with the merit of being "master wordsmiths") and leave room for concensus. If we begin every discussion with a negative, indicating it cant be done, it surely does little to satisfy the other editor. Only helps annoy him/her.AJ-India 00:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

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Can someone list exactly what sections are being debated?Bakaman 01:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, History, Military and Foreign Relations, and Culture for now; however, the problem (as cast in the "Request" at the top, really applies to the whole article (i.e. for future edits). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

To Baka, Little bit of background about this RFC. I added following contents to article which in my opinion suits main summary level of article. Political integration of India, Info about Yoga in culture section. Info about India's space research, Info about North east monsoon which brings rainfall to major parts of the India.Info about India's effort for Permanent membership. All these content contributes to around 9-10 sentences. i suggested other sections can be reworded to bring down article size. Fowler & Fowler most of the time does reverts of others contributions and engage in lengthy discussions.Due to these reasons no useful contributions have been made to this article for the last 1 month. Rajib who regularly adds useful contents to FA Bangladesh article (which stands at 45 KB) feels that all contents to India article to be added only to sub articles since article size is around 43 KB. I argued that contents definitely suits main summary level. So F&F started general discussions.--Indianstar 10:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

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• Comment: Their can be no universal rule applied. Their is a very good reason why FA articles are not locked for editing even for unregistered users. We cannot say that all new additions will be reverted as a rule of thumb unless Wikipedia changes fundamentally in its nature. I know it can be frustrating but usually I tend to make a comment in the discussion page if someone adds something that does not quite fit. It is better not to remove things without discussion unless their are solid reasons to do so. Not every user who uses Wikipedia knows or has the time to learn the way Wikipedia works. However, this does not mean that their changes can be automatically rejected. For instance, someone added a line about Yoga in the culture section which was reverted by F&F on the grounds that it was not discussed on the talk pages. I appreciate all the work F&F puts into guarding the page but such kind of reverts go against what Wikipedia is about. Responsible editors should always build consensus before adding or removing content from a page unless it is vandalism. We cannot expect casual users to follow the proper procedures and that is not grounds for speedy deletion of any content added by casual users. I am sure we can all agree on this and move on without making it personal and speculating on motives. --Blacksun 12:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
• Reply: I perfectly agree with you. It is not correct to remove contents when there is no solid reason behind it. I am sorry to say that Dab, Rajib, Sarvas have supported F & F without verifying whether contents reverted by F&F deserves such treatment. After reverting for trivial reasons he has started finding reasons.(Like Sunderban is quoted as Archipelago in Fictions!!!). He has also started dictating terms like "you can add 1 sentence only". I added words "Yoga is part of Hindu philosophy" just to show that it has long history but he has started telling that Yoga can be added without mention to Hindu philosophy. If that word is problem he could have removed it and retained info about Yoga. I supported F & F when others opposed him. I don't maintain personal animosity with anybody. He could have handled the issue in cordial way. --Indianstar 16:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

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Clarification This RfC is about the set of statements in the request itself (at the very top of the section), written with a view to finding consensus for future editing decisions. It is not about whether my decision to reverse the addition of Yoga etc was justified or not. That is a separate question. You are welcome to discuss that in a another section. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Postscript I have created a new section What exactly I (Fowler&fowler) did below that explains some of the history that led to this RfC, as I saw it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Yoga was just an example. Anyways my point is that it has to be taken case by case. Their is no way you can make strict guidelines for this without breaking how wikipedia works. The RFC is therefore futile in my opinion. --Blacksun 03:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

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• Comment:Every section in the India article has a related subarticle. There is no reason why any additional information cannot go into these subarticles. All additions to any FA will need to be discussed and agreed before adding to the main article. This RFC is not on User:Fowler&fowler's behaviour. User:Sarvagnya and others should start another RFC in an appropriate forum if they feel compelled to discuss that. This is not the place for it. Thanks Parthi ^{talk/contribs} 23:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
• Agreed. Additional information should go in the subarticles only unless strong consensus is achieved first for the need to add it to the main article. Summaries of thousands of years of history are very difficult to write and that hard work has already been done. While it may be able to be improved, it won't be easy. The least that is fair to do is discuss first before adding anything. Yes, I don't know that there is a better way to get that accross other than very polite edit summaries like "please get consensus on the talk page first". - Taxman ^Talk 17:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

• Question - A Q to the above two, Ragib and anybody else with similar views - Are those views of yours just about the History section or do you have the same views about the whole article? Sarvagnya 18:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know which "views" you are talking about, don't have time to read through all the text above. But my position is clear; a featured article *MUST* maintain summary style, and detailed text should always be sent to sub articles rather than over-stuffing the main article. And yes, *this* comment of mine, about the need for summary style, applies to the whole article, or any such featured articles. Thanks. --Ragib 18:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, guess I needed to be more clear. Let me try again.

As for the view that this is and should be a 'Summary article', I dont think there are two views about that. I think everyone agrees to that.

However, in your earlier response and in the responses of Parthi and Taxman(that is right above), you people seem to be saying(correct me if I am wrong)...

1. This article has subarticles for every section
2. All sections, especially the history section(??) have been 'optimised' for content, summary style, grammar, etc.,.
3. Any further addition of content, therefore, has to, as a rule go into the sub-articles.
4. If anybody wants to add content to the main article, they should first discuss the proposal on the talk page, obtain consensus and then add the content to the main page.

If I've interpreted correctly, my question now is,

on #2, #3 and #4, did you mean it for the whole article or just for the history section? Sarvagnya 20:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

For an article on such a broad topic with so much work that has gone into it to make it a FA, I would submit that that would be the best practice in order to improve the article with the least fuss. Has to is too strong, but it should certainly be the over-riding principle, especially in the case of a dispute. And yes, that would apply to the whole article. - Taxman ^Talk 20:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Ragib and Taxman. This policy should apply to the entire article. Parthi ^{talk/contribs} 03:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Just a question for those advocating the policy of nochange without "discussion" for an FA, kindly explain why this isnt hard coded in the wikipedia itself, whereby it wouldnt require anyone to police and enforce. AJ-India 03:43, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

See this: Can German engineering fix Wikipedia?. I'm eagerly awaiting it. Saravask 04:12, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Politics

Have reverted undiscussed/unresolved edits by Dab. Others may pour in their views. My personal view is, to maintain neutrality, we should not use adjectives which are POV, either of the news channels, or their (the party's) opponents. INC or BJP are both fedral parties in India, and not that distinctively "center left or right". the policies are more dependant on the leader, and the period of time we refer too. "Nationalist", another POV, as if to say others are actually anti-nationals? Essentially these adjectives are more suitable for non encyclopedic publications.

To address Dab's point, of making ti evident, in the short Politics section, well, for one, there isnt enough evidence to attach a "right" or "left" tag to either of these. Both worked on the libralisation. Both have similar policies on defence, space. it is only with regard to the BJP's RSS leanings, that it distinguishes itself. That can, (if agreed) be mentioned.AJ-India 19:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I've said this before. There is no need for this article, a summary article that it is, to use uncalled for adjectives to characterise the BJP or any party or any individual for that matter.

Even if somebody can demonstrate with valid sources(I'd be very interested) that BJP is indeed 'right wing nationalist' and all that, there is no need to use that in this article. That description and those adjectives can go into the BJP article.

"21 letters" as dab counts above, I am sure will be better spent on say, letting the reader know of a couple more dresses or festivals or dance forms. An encycl., should just give information, not try and engineer opinion. Sarvagnya 19:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

alright, I begin to see the problem. This article is in a deadlock. you'd mention another couple of dances or festivals rather than characterize the main political powers in India? Dances and festivals?? Why not flora and fauna, common diseases and cuisine, and popular expletives? (and I note this is always about BJP, no objection to labelling the INC as left-center? BJP is your standard, run-of-the-mill nationalist party, just like FN in France). If you mention one fact about Indian politics, it will be the fundamental divide between these two blocks. I can see where this is going. Groping for any argument that is handy instead of coming clear with your agenda is not a very clever trick, and it is not good faith editing. You will find that until you decide to enter a bona fide discussion with F&f et al., all you will acheive is just freezing this article. dab (𒁳) 20:44, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

No. I am against any characterisations(in this article ie.,. I've already said, take it to the sub articles if u want). Read what I've written before on this talk page itself(in the "My tags and Fnf" section). Not just BJP. I did away with the adjectives used for the United Front too. And if something's been used to describe Congress, it should be removed too. I have no agenda especially the kind that I feel you've begun to suspect.

I for one dont mind one bit if the article talks of India's negatives(poverty etc.,). At the same time it will also surely have to talk about things like space, nuclear research/capability etc., coz these are things that only countries of a very very exclusive club posess. If you're starting to suspect that I'm a part of what you once dubbed '...the continuum..', let me tell you, you're very sadly mistaken. I for one, have been the target of virulent campaigns against me by the very same 'continuum' - atleast from a certain Mr. Baka.

As for freezing the article, you would do well to take a look at the history and see how many reverts or blankings I have(if any at all) to the dozens by Fowler over the last couple of months. Infact, even in the last couple of days, I fought off an irresistible urge to undo Fowler's ill advised rollback only because I'm sensitive to other editors' 'editorial sensitivities'.

Also btw, I gave the examples of 'dances and festivals' simply because it was in recent memory. I certainly have no problem adding another sentence about flora and fauna instead of spending it on POV laden characterisations. As for spending a sentence or two on expletives and such, well, show me a precedent or atleast get community consensus and go ahead and add it. Good luck. Sarvagnya 21:19, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I request that people stop responding to Sarvagnya's Lir-trolling. Between the sly suppositions and facile pleonasms, I see little evidence of a sincere effort to engage in informed dialogue. One example: "somebody can demonstrate with valid sources" dab's addition. He knows we could post links to dozens of news articles and other sources. Saravask 21:31, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

He knows we could post links to dozens of news articles and other sources. -- ..and I could post links to hundreds of articles that elevate Tendulkar to Godhood. So? What is your point? Sarvagnya 17:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

btw, a slight correction. The supposed fundamental divide, between the INC / BJP isnt a fact of life. It is more of a retoric, as is there even in US. As an example, refer the 1991 INC government, lead by PV Narasimha Rao. It was a minority government, not a coalition, thus didnt enjoy a majority in the parliament. Thus, the passage of the crucial "vote of confidence" was acheived primarily on the support of the BJP. Citing this example to exemplify the falacy in the presumed "divide", which in my opinion isnt any more than that between any other regular political parties contesting to gain control. Their ecomonic policies are similar (when viewed in similar time frames), defense is same (Nuclear test first done by I Gandhi, second was planned by PVN, but he failed to do so, was followed up by Vajpayee). The difference really is in their support bases (which is a statistical fact, not a POV like right wing), where INC has certain traditional voters, and BJP has its own set, and there are a lot of "overlapping" or fence sitting voters. The voters themselves, are not cent percent mutually exclusive. Point is, using labels mostly used by western media (these adjectives are never used in India), isnt really helping the article. One can phase sentences to indicate particular differences (if any). But using POV prefixes wouldnt help in maintaining neutrality.AJ-India 21:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

People can merely read wikilinks to Bharatiya Janata Party and Indian National Congress to make the decisions for themselves. Conservative for BJP and "liberal" for Congress, and Populist for CPI(M).Bakaman 01:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Dab, you can go through these talk pages. Almost all of us have opposed characterisation of any political party. How did you come to the conclusion that characterisation of BJP alone is being opposed. --Indianstar 11:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

that's a stupid proposition, sorry. If I was to summarize party politics of Switzerland to you, what good is it throwing a couple of acromyms at you? We have the FDP, CVP, SVP, GP, then there's the PNOS, the SD, the FPS and the PdA. Brilliant summary of Swiss politics, ain't it. Compare it to saying "the bulk of influence is distributed between left-wing SP and GP, center to center-right FDP and CVP and the right-wing conservative SVP, then there are a few minor far-right parties like SD, FPS and the extremist but uninfluential PNOS, as well as the far-left PdA." Does that clarify things a little bit would you say? No? Would you prefer I listed a few random Swiss dances and festivals to go with that? If the BJP is merely "conservative", I would venture, George W. Bush is a renaissance humanist. dab (𒁳) 12:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

:) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Aah.. there you have it. I call the BJP "conservative" and you dub Bush 'renaissance humanist'. So we now would have two opinions infiltrating into WP. How about both of us doing away with the adjectives and help WP maintain its NPOV. Sarvagnya 17:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is wrong about saying BJP is a Hindu nationalist party? Does it not describe exactly what their core philosophy is about? I go to Nationalism and read the definition of religious nationalism and what I read pretty much defines my understanding of BJP. Feel free to enlighten me. On the other hand, right-wing does not necessarily apply to BJP. --Blacksun 13:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

PS How about injecting some humour: "The Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian Peoples Party), formerly the Jana Sangh (People's Union), more formerly The Hindu Mahasabha (The Great Hindu Public Meeting), was founded in 1915 by V. D. Savarkar in the Central Jail, Andaman Islands. The party changed its name in 1951 in an effort to distance itself from its close kin, The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (Indian Selfserving Uniion) or RSS, which now had the murder of Mahatma Gandhi on its hands. In spite of the name change, the party had pariah status until the early 1980s, when it began to appeal to a new middle class confused by modern threats to traditional values." Just kidding! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha... Uh... whew! cant stop laughing. uh. And hey Fowler, never mind your sense of humour but if you can find NPOV and 'notable' sources for your 'joke', please go ahead and do the world a favour by publishing it on WP. Sarvagnya 17:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

PPS (Sorry, I didn't see Blacksun's post before I replied. My reply is not a response to his post. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC))

Agree with Blacksun. However, still feel, such things are best confimed to their detailed pages. As I said earlier too, Right Wing is a falacy. More of a tag it picked up in the western press, post the demolition of the disputed structure, not neccesarily representing it's policies as a whole. INC too isnt left or right strictly. AJ-India 15:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Dab you seem to have displayed a wild ignorance of reality. The BJP is universally regarded as the most conservative major party in India. Your poor-thought out analogy serves little purpose, it waddles in its own irrelevance, like a baby in dirty bath water. You have ventured into the bounds of fantasy. In the realm of fantasy, those opposed to the BJP use all sorts of adjectives in their arsenal like "far-right" and "communal" as scare terms. This is hardly switzerland with 7 or so parties, this is a place with at most 3 major news-earning parties.Bakaman 03:54, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is Encyclopaedia Britannica on Indian politics:

“ ... even more vulnerable to opposition parties, including the right-wing Bharatiya Janata (“Indian People's”) Party (BJP), headed by L.K. (Lal Kishanchand) Advani, ... ”

In addition, both Britannica and Encarta describe it as "Hindu nationalist." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Quite frankly, I have to disagree with Brtannica. Thank god we have Wikipedia and don't need to copy and paste the crap they usually tend to have on proprietary enyclopedias. I agree with "Hindu nationalist" tag but right-wing is extremely naive. Then again, I am just going by wikipedia articles on what religious nationalist and right-wing mean.--Blacksun 09:31, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, if Wikipedia is what you are looking at here is what their article on Left-Right politics says:

• innovation is left; conservatism is right (so "right" can be used to describe "conservative," either economic (which BJP is not) or social (which BJP is).
• A secular government is left; a religious government is right (Although BJP is officially secular, it certainly has flirted with religious agendas, Hindutva, Babri Masjid, Ram Janmabhoomi etc
• Here is Wikipedia's article on Hindutva: "This right-wing ideology has existed since the early 20th century, forged by freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar popularly known as Veer Savarkar, but came to prominence in Indian politics in the late 1980s, when two events attracted a large number of mainstream Hindus to the movement."

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

If religious government is Right wing then parties which support separate civil laws based on religions,parties which oppose alimony rights for muslim women should be classified as Right wing.(Which are allowed even in some Muslim countries). Economic liberalisation was supported by Congress and BJP whenever they were in power and opposed whenever they were in opposition. Even communists support economic liberalisation in west bengal and oppose in other states. So it cannot be the criteria for categorising parties.--Indianstar 15:30, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

f&f, the wikipedia articles you cite, and not FA, and hence can not be considered NPOV. As I have said, and say so again, all these adjectives are opinions of many publications, mostly western, and at best can be used in editorials in news papers, not in encyclopedia. I have said this earlier too, these adjectives are not used in the Indian press and that is a point. The western media writes on various issues, and thus not as well informed (probably). Given this, it is best to refrain from tagging an informative text with POV

Another thing, as you your self BJP is officially secular, then that is what it is. Being secular is a state of being, not an opinion. As far as flirting with religion goes, even INC leader Sardar Valabhai Patel was involved in the building of Somnath temple. It doesnt make him less secular. One can debate these things at length, the outcome will not be beyond opinions. Thus they are best left out of this article. AJ-India 20:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

AJ-India: "these adjectives are not used in the Indian press and that is a point"

• Hindustan Times: "right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party"
• Times of India: "right wing BJP" (more)
• Deccan Herald: "right-wing BJP"

And no, they're not editorials or other opinion pieces—they are reliable sources. If we're going to allow a few wikilawyers to turn this into some abstruse exercise in selective philosophical nihilism (i.e., "nothing is objective"—at least when that which is being discussed does not dovetail with our opinions and biases), then we might take this advice to its logical conclusion: move Rwandan Genocide to Rwandan Incident—after all, "genocide" is just a POV term concocted by Western newspapers. Any takers? Saravask 01:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Not only are these adjectives merely 'opinions'(even if the Indian press used it), their definitions itself is not set in stone. All these adjectives can be used to describe different things at different times. WP is better off without these adjectives.

Also, an opinion is not necessarily a fact. If an opinion is worthy of making it to WP, it will surely have to be qualified with a... "In the opinion of so and so..." or in this case, "In the opinion of the Congress, the BJP is #&%$^*%^$.....". But passing off opinions so very matter-of-factly as 'undisputed fact' is a no-no. Sarvagnya 21:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, the terms might have been used, but as has been suggested earlier, these might be incorporated in the detail page of each party, where such things can be dealt with at length. For a summary, they serve no purpose, because as I have already explained, they and the other principal party, INC, are not significantly different, to cause any major policy reversal, and thus change the course the country takes. This was evident from the (near) 5 year Vajpayee government prior to the INC one. The difference is more of retoric. As for Communist party, the name is self explanatory. So, the adjectives are best left out. AJ-India 03:38, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the adjectives are unnecessary for the India page, especially when they don't define the party. If the BJP is called right-wing, the readers can click on the link (BJP) and then find out whether it is right-wing or not. BJP is primarily a nationalist party and a right-wing party second. Politics isn't one dimensional. The Green parties all over the world tend to be socialist except that isn't the reason why the Greens are notable. They are famous because of their stance on environmental issues. So we wouldn't write "left-wing Greens," would we? Gizza^{Chat ©} 09:01, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The point of the adjectives "right-wing" or "right leaning" or "center right" etc. is not to define the party, but simply to give readers a general idea of its orientation without them having to go to the link; otherwise, why even bother with giving the names—why not just a statement: "Indian politics is vigorous and varied," and let the reader go to the Indian politics link? As for the Greens, most people know what Green is, so left-leaning Green becomes an overkill; sadly most people (the world over) don't know what the BJP is, or that it might be secondarily right-wing (as you put it), or even that Hindu nationalism is different from Indian nationalism advocated by a Hindu (e.g. Gandhi). Hindu nationalism is a term of relatively recent vintage, going back to Bruce Graham's book (1990) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:35, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

What exactly I (Fowler&fowler) did

Since some users seem to be under the impression that I live to revert any changes made by anyone, no matter how trivial, and since some users are using expressions like "page blanking" or "content blanking" for my reverts, let me clarify exactly what I did and when. I will explain the situation in a series of points:

1. On January 23, User Indianstar made many edits on the India page that I didn't interfere with then, and haven't since. Here are some examples. Indianstar: Example1-Jan23 (minor), Example2-Jan23 (2 sentences added), Example3-Jan23 (reorganised a paragraph), Example4-Jan23 (image added), Example5-Jan23 (image added), Example5-Jan23 (5 sentences added on nuclear program.)
2. On January 26, user Indianstar made 5 more edits, some of which were significant. Here is the list: Example1-Jan26 (added 2 paragraphs—a total of 7 sentences—and the edit summary said: "added brief details"), Example2-Jan26 (2 sentences were added on G4 alliance etc; no edit summary provided), Example3-Jan26 (1 sentence on Yoga added; paragraph split into three), Example4-Jan26 (6 names of dress styles added, to the 3 already there), Example5-Jan26 (corrected archipelago number, added 1 sentence on SW monsoon). I didn't interfere with those edits on January 26.
3. On January 27, user Indianstar made one minor and two significant edits:
   1. Edit1-Jan27 (routine copyedit)
   2. Edit2-Jan27 (4 sentences added in History section on political integration).
   3. Edit3-Jan27 (significant copy edit: 8 sentences in the History section—some of which bore the stamp of Himalayanashoka's distinctive style—were whittled down to 2).
4. It was at that point that my antennae went up. I could see at a glance that the history section had been edited in myriad ways by many people (including Himalayanashoka and his sockpuppets) during the brief windows of editing freedom the India page enjoyed in January. It was beyond the stage where individual edits could be clearly identified. I therefore rolled-back only the history section. Although my edit summary said "rolled back to version of November," it was exactly the same version as that of January 1 (see here: January 1 History section).
5. When I did that, user Indianstar reacted by making one more significant edit Edit4-Jan27 (edit summary said, "let us reduce other parts of the History section") In this latest copy edit, the text on the British years had been whittled down from 110 to 74 and, in addition, the following sentence had been added for the Maurya empire:

“ His Mauryan Empire is normally documented as the first formation of a unified subcontinental country, and it is from Emperor Ashoka's empire that modern India derives most of its national symbology and ideology. ”

You have to realize the reaction of any editor when they confront this sequence of editing history in an FA article: Jan 23 (5 edits, 7 sentences added), Jan 26 (5 edits, 11 sentences added and 6 styles of apparel added), Jan 27 (many edits: 5 sentences added; a number of sentences removed as a result of copy edits). User Indianstar says that her/his contribution was only 8 or 9 sentences, but she/he had in reality added 23 sentences in addition to making significant copy edits (please doublecheck). It was at that point that I felt we needed some explanation: I reverted 5 of her/his edits and took the discussion to the talk page. It is true that in the Yoga example, I should have been more understanding and integrated it into the narrative, but we need to look at the big picture here!

I don't have any personal animosity towards user Indianstar. She/he has been unfailingly polite to me and I sincerely believe that this problem can be resolved in a civil way, but we need to firm up some guidelines for the future. That was the goal of the RfC. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Why do you add total additions done by me from the day I was born to show big picture?. All additions done by me on Jan 23 were discussed by me in Talk page when page was protected. Issue is about sentences reverted by you.

Following additions were done by me on Jan 26 which was reverted by you.

Example 1 - Space research. Major subject which don't find any mention in the article. Talk page title talks that Military and Foreign relations section need to be expanded 5 Sentences

Example 2 - India's role in seeking permanent membership. Major subject. 2 Sentences

Example 3 - Yoga. More prominent than Kalari Payattu which is mentioned in the article. (I don't have any disregard for Kalari payattu. I am just trying to say that Yoga is more popular all over the world and people connect Yoga with India. It was mentioned as part of Hindu philosophy to prove that practice of yoga is very old. 1 sentence

Example 4 - Indian dresses. Current dresses is not a representative view of Indian dresses. 1 sentence

Example 5 - North East Monsoon. Significant error.1 sentence and copy edit

To facilitate these additions, I have removed 8 sentences in history section which mentioned too much info about British India. I have not added anything about Mauryan empire, I have just reverted your edit.(1 month old edit). It may have been there earlier. Infact I don't know anything about Mauryan empire.

Why do you say removal of too much info about British empire as Himalayan Ashoka style. It was infact written in patriotic flavour which is the style of Himalayan Ashoka?. Himalayan Ashoka would have loved to keep such sentences. If that is the case why you have not added it like you have reverted other valuable additions done by me.Is it fair to say undiscussed changes as the reason for revert. Is it fair to revert back to 1 month old version when page is being monitored regularly.(Infact you have done so many reverts in that period.)

I will also love to resolve the problem in civil way. Since others have not opposed above contents,(Most of these additions were also supported by you). I suggest you to add details about India's role in space research, India's bid for permanent membership,Yoga & North east monsoon which are definitely prominent subjects which deserve mention in India article. We can add contents about Indian dresses,Political integration of India/Sunderban after further discussions. Wikipedia rules does not say that each edit has to be discussed in Talk page.So undiscussed changes is not the proper reason for revert. I am open to add major future contents after discussing in Talk pages. --Indianstar 14:01, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Resolving these issues in civil ways is my intention too. Why don't we let user:Nichalp weigh in on this? He will be back on WP on Feb 4 (i.e. in less than two days). I will then be happy to abdicate my editorial restraint, and we will get the show on the road in short order. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

We do not need Nichalp to know that Yoga should be mentioned in the India article. After all the Indian government is certainly pushing yoga in its heavily funded "Incredible India" campaign. This article is not owned by you or Nichalp or anyone else. If you have any useful insights on why Yoga should not be included then you should provide it. Wait for Nichalp is not a valid response. If he does not like it then he can make a post about it when he is back. --Blacksun 10:43, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Hindi

I tried to put up the Hindi name in the introductory para (a change from Sanskrit), because Hindi is the primary official language of the Union, but the change was reverted back to Sanskrit. This is very, very offensive and I am going to put back Hindi again. Some Indians might well be very anti-Hindi and will tolerate anything other than Hindi, but here they have no right because Art. 243 clearly states that Hindi shall be the official language of the Union and not Sanskrit or even English (though exceptions to that are also listed). Further, the Constitution itself recognizes the short-name "India/Bharat", so there is no need to translate India as "Bharat Ganaraajya", but simply, "Bharat". Also note that nowhere the Constitution or any other laws state that the various Scheduled languages are "official" languages of the Indian Union.Cygnus_hansa 21:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Information about India's climate

Article states that Thar desert and Himalayas are responsible for India's climate. Can somebody clarify how Thar desert is responsible for India's climate?. Article also says that Thar desert is responsible for south west monsoon. No credible evidences(Like other encyclopedias[3], Indian meteorological sites etc) ratifies that statement and they give different logic for south west monsoon without mentioning any role for Thar desert. --Indianstar 07:23, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is a connection. From June until August a broad warm belt develops in the South Asian region—extending from the Iranian desert to Tibet—approximately along 28 N latitude. This belt "contains two intensely warm centers, one hovering over the Thar desert and the other over southeastern Tibet." These two centers drive the southwest monsoon. See: Chang, Jen-Hu. 1967. "The Indian Summer Monsoon" Geographical Review 57(3):373-396. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

1967 Book may be minority view. Monsoon sets initially in Kerala. Does it mean kerala is responsible for Indian weather. Many credible pages explains about south east monsoon process and none of them assigns significance to Thar desert.[4][5][6] [7] [http://www.maps-india.com/overview/southwestmonsoon.htm]. Also monsoon is one part of the weather. How can we say Thar desert is responsible for Indian weather. Also statements about Katabatic winds is totally disconnected. (Mountain prevents Katabatic winds, so what? what is the end result?. Is it responsible for increasing temperature or decreasing temperature or humidity) What we are trying to communicate to common man who reads the article? --Indianstar 14:39, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I think Thar desert plays an important part in SW Monsoon. To quote the NCERT book for Geography, ``In Summer, a low-pressure area develops over interior Asia as well as over northwestern India. This causes a complete reversal of the direction of winds during summer .... These are known as the SW Monsoon winds. [8] --Abhask 22:10, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Monsoon forms in several parts of the world. Desert is not mandatory for monsoon formation. There is no desert in east and south india but those areas receives rainfall through North east monsoon. So many examples can be quoted to justify these claims. Books quoted by you also does not say anything about Thar desert. Monsoon winds hovers around north western india where Thar desert is also located. It does not mean Thar desert is responsible for monsoon formation.--Indianstar 04:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, to me it looks quite evident from the sources that low-pressure zone develops in NorthWestern India (where Thar Desert is located) in summers and this low pressure <along with that in interior Asia> is resposible for the winds to flow <remember the basic geography rules? The origin of winds?>. And hence the SW winds flow. If there wasn't a low pressure area in Thar dessert, at least the directions of the winds would not have been the same. But, yeah - it is not the only thing responsible for the quantity and quality of SW monsoons - other factors like proximity to water, low-pressure in interior Asia, etc also contribute. Abhask 22:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

My edits

I have copyedited the first four sections of the article, for language, grammar, phrasing, formatting etc; with no intentional/significant content change. I don't think I have lengthened the article at all (I support efforts of keeping the articles at a readable length), and I have tried to leave informative edit summaries. Feel free to revert any particular edit if you think it is incorrect or not an improvement, but please don't do a blind revert on seeing the large number of edits by me. Here is a diff of all me recent edits (except that the two templates were not my additions). Thanks. Abecedare 10:08, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for you copy edits. Cursorily reading through the history section, I found most edits to be OK, but some will probably need to be changed—not reversed, but changed—since the version you edited had already accumulated little errors from the last stable version. Once we discuss the RfC, I hope we can come up with some reasonable "policy" about large changes. I won't revert your edits, but, for now, I'd say, that it is probably a good idea to copy edit only a section or two at a time, not four, especially if the copy edit is thorough; that way, the work of the "double checkers" remains manageable. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:52, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Mentioning Yoga in article

It is a very important part of Indian culture that is also widely known around the world. Their is no legitimate reason not to have it in the article, including size. I am looking for suggestions on how to add it in the article. --Blacksun 10:47, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Just for humour.....There is a book written in 1934 which quotes Yoga is not very important and not useful. I will soon give references. Since size is 43 kbs and this is featured article, no more stuff can be added to this article. You can add to sub articles. (Probably you can add to Bangladesh FA article which was also part of Indian subcontinent when yoga practice started. Don't worry even if size of that article is 45 kb.) There is a bot running and that bot will revert your entries. We can only discuss for weeks together in Talk pages. Be prepared to spend next 1 month... Since there was a discussion between "X" and "Y" over some other issues. Y will be dutybound to oppose this view if "X" supports your views. You can come back in 2012, Archive 2500 will have continuation of this discussions under Ayyavazhi and occupation discussions. By that time India article would have created history with 10000 reverts without any major content additon for 5 years. --Indianstar 14:50, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

How about, "India is home to the age-old discipline of Yoga, and also to the ancient martial art, Kalari Payattu"? "Discipline" covers both physical, mental, and philosophical aspects. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

What is wrong in mentioning it is one of the Hindu schools of Philosophy. It is a fact and verifiable. Hinduism is not ugly word or POV to be avoided. Phrase sentence as "India is home to the Yoga which is one of the six schools of Hindu philosophy, and also to the ancient martial art Kalaripayattu." This sentence also communicates age-old practice of Yoga. --Indianstar 03:11, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I second Indianstar's views. The problem why 'Hindu' becomes a dirty word on some of these articles is that some people just want to be 'politically right' and not just 'right'(pun unintended).... lest they be stained with the 'kommoonal' tag. Sarvagnya 05:31, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

What I don't understand is people are interested to attach religious tag to parties which are subjective opinions. They don't want to attach religious tag to arts which got developed as part of particular religion which finds mention extensively in religious text books.--Indianstar 06:15, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

If you want to mention that it is a Hindu philosophy why don't we add the other schools of Hindu philosophy, some of which have had more impact on Hinduism and India? Gizza^{Chat ©} 07:34, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

My opinion is that other schools of philosophy may not fit exactly in culture and Indian arts and may not suit exactly with the flow of the article. Those were mentioned in Hinduism articles. Yoga is more prominent.(Other schools may be important) Yoga is known by all irrespective of their religion and its popularity extends even outside India. --Indianstar 07:56, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure which aspect of Yoga is to be added to the article.

• If you are considering Yoga as a school of Hindu philosophy, then as Gizza pointed out, there are other equally prominent schools.
• And if you are considering adding the Asana aspect of Yoga (which is the part widely known around the world) then the link with Hinduism (as far as the India article is concerned) is perhaps incidental. Abecedare 07:58, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Asana aspect of Yoga is considered as Yoga all around the world. others scholls of Hindu philosophy may suit well with Hinduism article and not with India article. As suggested by you it could be linked with Asana instead of linking with Yoga. --Indianstar 08:33, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Therefore the article should stress the Asana aspect since the Hindu philosophy is not comparatively notable. Gizza^{Chat ©} 08:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not very particular about how sentence has to be phrased or where it has to be linked. Let some experts decide it. I wanted to mention its relationship with Hinduism to show its age-old nature. People objected mentioning its relationship with Hinduism. We say in the same section "Tajmahal is inspired by Islamic architecture." Nobody has any objection to that word in this article. It is fact and verifiable. Same way Yoga or Asana or whatever it is called has relationship with Hinduism. It is a fact and verifiable. I contended that people should not object to show such relationship. --Indianstar 09:37, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any problems with Hindu being mentioned. Its just that (as Abecedare and DeGizza hinted at too), "philosophy" seemed out of place in talk of cricket, kabaddi and kalari p---. How about, "Yoga, both physical discipline and Hindu philosophical tradition, arose in ancient India, as did the martial art Kalari Payattu"? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:45, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks OK to me.It is better to separate Kalari payattu in separate sentence if possible. Otherwise there is a possibility of misunderstanding about Kalari payattu. --Indianstar 10:50, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure what would be the basis of making a philosophical and physiological distinction of Yoga like that? Maybe, this distinction is valid in Western nations but is it true or sensible in the context of India article? --Blacksun 14:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't think there should be any confusion, the separation is clear. Mentioning both Yoga and KP in one sentence is synergistic; two sentences sound unfocussed. At least that's my take. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:15, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is another suggestion: "It is also home to one of the worlds oldest martial art forms - Kalari Payattu as well as the physical discipline of Yoga". I am fine with FnF's proposal too. Abecedare 17:16, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

why always this obsession with "world's oldest"? There is no native historiography in India, which means that any dating attempts are reduced to wild guessing. Just say things are "old", or "ancient" if you must, and go easy on the superlatives. dab (𒁳) 10:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Because some people love superlatives. --Blacksun 10:52, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with dab's observation. If we retain the current language "It is also home to one of the worlds oldest martial art forms - Kalari Payattu." we at least need a citation. By the way, the Kalari Payattu article dates the martial art form to 11-12 century CE - I, personally, would be surprised if humans somewhere had not developed some martial art form in the previous 10's of millennia of existence. Abecedare 05:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

This is article on India and not rest of the world. As per, it should be linked to Yoga not some clinical description of a random physical exercise that the article Asana seems to be. --Blacksun 13:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with Blacksun. Yoga is Yoga. It should be linked to '''Yoga''' and nothing else. Asana is NOT Yoga. And I dont see any reason we should try to be apologetic of Yoga's philosophical and religious connections and try to hide behind Asana(sic). If somebody cant digest the fact that Yoga is inextricably liked with religion and philosophy and that too, with Hindu religion and philosophy, then too bad. They just should keep their prejudices and Asana, philosophy, exercise crap to themselves. Come to think of it, even this so called asana 'aspect' of Yoga is not free from religion and philosophy. Every 'asana' session everywhere in the world starts with the chanting of 'Om'. Sarvagnya 16:16, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, this question has already been resolved above. My suggestion above, "Yoga, both physical discipline and Hindu philosophical tradition, arose in ancient India, as did the martial art Kalari Payattu"? links Yoga to [[Yoga]], physical discipline to [[Asana]] and Hindu philosophical tradition to [[Hindu philosophy]]. Since, user:Blacksun had at the outset talked about Yoga as "a very important part of Indian culture that is also widely known around the world" and since user:Sarvagyna had seconded explicit mention of Hindu philosophy, "I second Indianstar's views. The problem why 'Hindu' becomes a dirty word on some of these articles is that ...," I think this version should be agreeable to all. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is encyclopedia - not original research. The sentence you propose seems to infer that they Asana and Yoga are two independent events when all evidence indicates that Asana is part of Yoga. Linking to Yoga article is enough as people can read more over there about various parts of Yoga. It is fine and dandy that in west, only a small part of Yoga tends to be practised (generally speaking). That does not mean you can separate it out of what it is an integral part of, especially in the Indian context. --Blacksun 18:50, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm? If anything, my sentence states explicitly that both philosophy and asana are an integral part of Yoga. Please read it again. Where do I say that "Asana and Yoga are two independent events?" I'm mystified. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:31, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I getting more and more perplexed about what people want. My original sentence above said (see above): "India is home to the age-old discipline of Yoga, and also to the ancient martial art, Kalari Payattu." In that sentence, there was only one Yoga and people objected to that on the grounds that "philosophy" was not explicitly mentioned etc. Now "philosophy" is explicitly mentioned etc. and people are still objecting to it. Should we go back to the original version? I am happy with either, but people need to make up their minds about what they want. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:36, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I apologize - I prefer your original statement. Probably best to not go in too much detail here as everything will be available in the specific article. --129.125.7.218 10:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

So, is the sentence "India is home to the age-old discipline of Yoga, and also to the ancient martial art, Kalari Payattu" OK with everyone? If so, Blacksun or Indianstar please add it to the article (since it was your idea). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Protected

Please work out differences regarding User:Himalayanashoka's additions. We should take a look at Talk:Australia or Talk:Turkey to see how it is to be done. Thanks. Saravask 18:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I dont understand why we need to work out differences regarding a banned users additions? Please dont protect the page for another ten days due to some sock puppet.--Blacksun 00:48, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I was going to file a Checkuser request, but I saw that Fowler beat me to it. Per the results, I've just indef blocked two of the socks. Saravask 02:23, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Can we have the page semi-protected ? Abecedare 04:12, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I second the motion. The sock army is back. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I have placed a request at WP:RFP and yes User:Neutroindic has been confirmed to be a sock-puppet of User:Himalayanashoka Abecedare 04:28, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

This page seems to be a battlegound. I've protected the page and I hope to keep for at least a week till all issues are sorted. =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:53, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

what do you mean by "I hope to keep for at least a week"? You hope to keep the page protected for a week or more? I agree it is going nowhere at present, but it appears that people are too entrenched for page protection to do any good. The only way forward will be to enforce a process of mediation and compromise, and clamp down on WP:POINT and unconstructive diversions on the editor side. dab (𒁳) 11:14, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I suppose the page can be semi-protected as of now. Any thoughts? Shyam ^(T/C) 10:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

What caused the page to be fully-protected?? As an outsider to this dispute, can anyone give me the gist of what's happening??

--sunstar net^talk 15:35, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

When is this week going to end? Or the hope to keep it blocked, so to say.--æn↓þæµß¶-ŧ-¢ 20:25, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

My mistake. By the way, I havent listened to India.mid but I am reverting nonetheless on the basis of previous example.--æn↓þæµß¶-ŧ-¢ 20:28, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Tamil as Classical Language

Why Tamil was removed from Classical language list? --Indianstar 16:08, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I had no role in this. :) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

lol--Blacksun 10:50, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Errors on the map

Somebody should check the map. The states do not always go with the numbers. There might be some vandalism there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:India-states-numbered.svg AKoan 23:14, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, AKoan is right ! The map marks "Delhi" as a union territory rather than a state; and therefore the numbering of the states is off by 1, i.e. Gujarat should be 8 instead of 7, Haryana 9 instead of 8 and so on. Anyone have graphic skills to update the map ? Abecedare 23:58, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I have corrected the India state map on commons (by reverting to an earlier version). It should be OK now. Abecedare 00:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Delhi is *not* a state. For a UT to gain statehood, a constitutional ammendment is a must. Till date no ammendments have made Delhi a state. Provisions in the constitution allow the central government to allow a UT have its own legislature. This is how Delhi and Pondicherry have its own government. =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Syrian Christians of South India And Creoles of Latin America

Lalijm 23:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)Is there any link between South Indian (Syrian)Lalijm 23:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC) Christians and Creoles of Latin America?

Your (Atulsnischal) article Wildlife of India

Dear Atulnischal, I'm not sure what grand plan you have in mind, but copying the section on Flora and Fauna from the India page and pasting it to create a new article and then referencing it on the India page itself requires some explanation. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:08, 12 February 2007 (UTC) User talk:Saravask

"Wildlife of India" deserves an article in its own right, "Wildlife of India" is a popular term that people look for and search for on the internet, school kids, nature lovers and people who want to go on nature and eco-tourism trips etc. General people and younger generation looking for Info on Indian wildlife do not look for scientific and little known and boring words like Fauna or Flora or terminology like Protected areas of India etc. All this can be brought together under "Wildlife of India" article by a popular and commonly used and searched name. As per the content of this article: everybody is free to edit and add info on it.

Thanks, sincerely

Atulsnischal 23:21, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

As I said below, I don't see the point of dumbing down Wikipedia. WP is not a tourist brochure, it is an encylopedia. Other encylopedia's use both "Flora" and "Fauna." For example, here is Britiannica's page on Savanna. The table of contents are: 1) Introduction 2) Origin 3) Environment 4) Biota 4(a) Flora, 4(b) Fauna, ... Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Invitation for Wikipedia:WikiProject Protected areas of India & Conservation

If you are interested in Environment, Wildlife, Conservation and Nature etc. please join in to contribute, even starting off with making new stub class articles will be a great contribution.

Sincerely

Atulsnischal 16:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

We need senior administrators or people who are long in Wikipedia to help us with the templates and for other further helps. Details can be seen in its talk page. IT's urgent. We want this wkiproject to be added to the exsisting WP:IND banner. Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 05:02, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you would be better off contributing to the pages that already exist like contributing some text to Flora of India, instead of designing a grand plan for a Wiki project. The Grand Plan is useless when the individual pages are mostly stubs. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Wildlife of India

Kindly contribute to this article when you get time, and request others too.

Thanks

Atulsnischal 20:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand the point of this article. As of now, it is an exact copy-and-paste of the Flora and fauna section of the India page. As for Atulnischal's contention that people don't understand complicated expressions like "Flora and fauna," my own survey indicates that even junior high school kids know about "flora" and "fauna." Frankly, I don't see the point of dumbing down Wikipedia in order to appease some hypothetical ignorant readership. The pages Flora of India and Fauna of India both need work. There is no point creating a new page Wildlife of India (which, incidentally, includes both flora and fauna), when the individual Flora and Fauna pages are still unfinished. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)