Talk:India

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Lead

Further information: WP:LEAD

F&f, "Home to the Indus Valley Civilization and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent..." isn't outright false, but it is positively pathetic just in terms of tone. It shouldn't grace a FA for a day, let alone two years(!?). That's just style ("home to"? "vast"?). In terms of WP:DUE, how is it defensible to name a prehistoric culture in para 2 of the lead to India, but subsume historical items of tremendous notability (Maurya, Gupta, Mughal empires) under a cheesy "vast"? I'm sorry. This isn't the worst bit of prose on Wikipedia, of course, but what is it doing in the lead to a Featured Article? This should be a no-brainer, fix and move on. dab (𒁳) 13:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

:) I only just noticed this. Let me think about it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:15, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

To add to the list

Among Indian writers of the modern era active in Indian languages or English, Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize in 1913. (In Culture section)

"modern era active"?? KnowledgeHegemony 14:56, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

It's fine grammatically. Read it again, this time taking the few seconds to stop at 'era' and think that maybe active isn't connected to it as a phrase. 172.143.154.84 (talk) 19:00, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Indian Empire,East India Company, etc...

My edit was reverted last time but I really think its a needed constructive edit. As things stood before it leaned towards a rather simplistic and erroneous view of history that the British 'owned' India for 200 years. That it was a part of the UK but denied the vote and all that. Of course it didn't directly say that but that's the way it read to me. It wasn't the main focus of my edits though
That would be that I really think it needs mentioning that there were at least two different periods in European domination of India- first was all the informal stuff with the EIC dominating at the end and second was the actual British empire. Quite different periods of history and 1858 is a pretty significant year in Indian history which needs mentioning just as much as 1947 does. It was afterall when 'India' was founded. --Him and a dog 11:59, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

There have been long discussion on this before and the current wording was arrived at after much back and forth. Please read talk archives from Jan-March 2007. I understand you point, but this is an extremely (nay, impossibly) abbreviated history (in a lead). However, the links are provided and a reader can easily read up the details there. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Agekm (talk · contribs) insisting India is in Africa

Hi. Please revert this user's actions. If I remember correctly, India is in Asia, and has been for the past 5 million years. The last time it was in South Africa was 100 million years ago. I have already reverted this user twice, reverting twice more will result in 3RR, so please revert this edit. It has stated it is in south Asia for a long time. Seriously, if someone moved India to Africa, the global climate will be in big trouble. Please help. Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 23:04, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

That is simple vandalism. Simply revert the edit and warn the editor. If he/she persists, they will be blocked from editing. Abecedare (talk) 23:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

this site is extremely good and well thought out it has every thing thatb anyone needs i am doing an english talk and this is the best site ever it has a lot of interstinbg facts on it and it has encouraged me to look into more detail for india thank you if you are wanting to talk back to me i go to fortrise academy in Scotland the UK my address is jackzp22@hotmail.co.uk write back soon thankyou once more —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.63.101 (talk) 18:50, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Even 200 Ma ago, India wasn't part of Africa as such, but of Gondwana, a supercontinent that included Africa, India, South America, Australia and a few other small land masses in modern times. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 23:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Images (again ... sorry)

Can more editors please watchlist the Template:Indian image rotation, which for the past three months has seen (AFAIK) unilatreral and undiscussed changes by User:Nikkul, many of which I think were inappropriate (list of changes). For example:

• Image:Ophrysia superciliosa hm.jpg was replaced by Image:MumbaiClimate.jpg, the latter being a silhouette image of two palms, which while artistic, has minuscule encyclopdic value since the reader cannot even see the objects of central interest.
• The selected picture Image:Panthera_tigris_tigris.jpg was replaced by Image:India_tiger.jpg (click on the images to see why I think this was a bad idea)
• The high-resolution Image:Sakyamuni_Buddha.jpg image was replaced by the low-resolution, and highly colour saturated, Image:BuddhaTwang.jpg.
• Besides that, several of the captions added or modified by Nikkul are in my opinion sub-standard, especially for an FA article; example
  • Today's version of the page contains the image Image:Shiva_Statue.png with the caption "Lord Shiva is one of the principal deities of Hinduism", without any mention of what is actually pictured. (The image itself is iffy for the page, but I'll leave that aside for the moment)
  • Today, Nikkul, modified the caption on the Image:SU-30MKI-g4sp.jpg image from "The Sukhoi Su-30MKI is part of the Indian Air Force" to "The Indian Air Force is the world's second largest air force" sourced to [1]. Again the new caption failed to say what was pictured; additionally it was POV and misleading since a reader is not expected to know that by "second largest" one means that IAF has the second largest number of personnel.
  • Nikkul changed the caption on Image:India tiger.jpg from "The Bengal tiger, threatened by poachers and smugglers, faces declining population levels and possible extinction." to "The Royal Bengal tiger is India's national animal." Normally I would assume good faith and disregard this, but its hard not to interpret it as POV pushing given the consistent pattern of behaviour.

So what can we do ? I don't wish to go back to the days when each image change on the India page, required mega-bytes of heated discussion; but I think there should be some minimal attempt to invite input before adding/replacing content (perhaps following the WP:DYK/WP:PINSPC model of inviting comments rather than trying to build wide consensus in each case).
Secondly, I see that several editors have raised concern about Nikkul's adding/removing pictures from India, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore etc: for instance Nichalp, Dwaipayanc, Gppande, thunderboltz, Arejay and now, me. I wonder if we can have a consolidated discussion about this issue (perhaps at WT:INB), instead of dealing with it piecemeal. Note that I am not seeking any sanctions/probation against Nikkul, who I think does some exemplary work in getting images onto wikipedia from flickr; however it would be useful to reach some general consensus on the number and quality of images that is thought appropriate on India and India city pages.
Comments and suggestions are invited!. Abecedare (talk) 21:47, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Here is the link to Image Rotation Discussion, where some users did arguably express support for some of the changes Nikkul made. Please note that I am not aiming to start a discussion on the individual decisions here, but rather the process and judgment that we should use in the future. Abecedare (talk) 21:57, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello there Abecedare, I understand your concerns, and the way you clearly mentioned that you are not aiming to start a discussion on the individual decisions here, but rather the process and judgment that we should use in the future.

But still as a fellow Wikipedian and a friend, who is also associated with WP:IND I would like to request Nikkul to abstain from 'glorifying' (not the apt word I guess) India on Wikipedia, which we as nation loving Indians tend to do, at times unintentionally, influenced by the "India shining" wave sweeping the world media. I have noticed that you have tried removing the 'negative' aspects of India from the lead related to poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition etc. However these are facts, which can't and should'nt be hidden.

Like Abecedare, I too admire your efforts in getting quality pictures from flickr to Wikipedia. Happy editing! Thanks, KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 (talk) 17:06, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Should change population unit

should change 1.12 billion[8] to something like 1.120.000.000 because the term "billion" is ambiguous. It can be either that or 1.120.000.000.000.000. -- Lacrymology

British colonial rule

Surely India declared independence from the United Kingdom? Speedboy Salesman (talk) 20:42, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

No. The about statement is correct if Republic of India is used. India is far greater in all aspects.Chanakyathegreat (talk) 12:51, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, AFAIK, Republic of India didn't "declare" independence. The independence was granted by the Indian Independence Act 1947 of the British Parliament. --Ragib (talk) 12:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

First of all, India was not a republic at the time of Independence. It became republic on Jan26, 1951. And yes Independence was granted to India, it was not a run-away territory of the British Raj. gppande «talk» 10:22, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

British colonial rule is fine I guess or is British Raj the correct term? KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 (talk) 13:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Military image

Destroyer INS Ranjit (D53).

It's time to change the Su-30MKI image with a new one. What about this image. Since the missiles and Air force section is covered, let the selection be from the IN section.Chanakyathegreat (talk) 05:29, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

This image doesnt show much. I prefer the su image Nikkul (talk) 17:52, 11 April 2008 (UTC)