Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics/Archive 69

A proposal for Kashmir-related pages on this notable day for India and Pakistan

For nearly 13 years now, I have been watching with disappointment, and sometimes dismay, the back and forth over Kashmir, the thrusting and parrying of national POVs, all to no avail. What a waste of time and energy it has been!

Yesterday and today, August 14 and 15, commemorate the decolonization of South Asia. It is also roughly the time that the Kashmir dispute began. What better way to mark that time than to agree on some phrasing with which to begin the Kashmir-related pages of significance. In coming up with such phrasing, I have been helped by the corresponding phrasing in the "Kashmir" page in Encyclopaedia Britannica. That page begins with:

Lead sentences of "Kashmir," in Britannica

Kashmir, region of the northwestern Indian subcontinent. It is bounded by the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang to the northeast and the Tibet Autonomous Region to the east (both parts of China), by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to the south, by Pakistan to the west, and by Afghanistan to the northwest. The region, with a total area of some 85,800 square miles (222,200 square km), has been the subject of dispute between India and Pakistan since the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. The northern and western portions are administered by Pakistan and comprise three areas: Azad Kashmir, Gilgit, and Baltistan, the last two being part of a territory called the Northern Areas. Administered by India are the southern and southeastern portions, which constitute the state of Jammu and Kashmir but are slated to be split into two union territories. The Indian- and Pakistani-administered portions are divided by a “line of control” agreed to in 1972, although neither country recognizes it as an international boundary. In addition, China became active in the eastern area of Kashmir in the 1950s and has controlled the northeastern part of Ladakh (the easternmost portion of the region) since 1962.

Note: The Britannica sentences mention "slated to be union territories," so they are up to date. Furthermore, three things are clear from Britannica's phrasing: (a) the region is disputed and (b) all its parts are "administered," and (c) the northern (Gilgit-Baltistan) and western (Azad Kashmir) regions are under Pakistani administration; the southern (Jammu and Kashmir) and southeastern (Ladakh) under Indian, and the eastern (Aksai Chin) under Chinese. Based on this, a major tertiary source, and of many other sources I have looked at, I would like to propose the following lead sentence:

____________ is a region administered by India/Pakistan/China as a state/union territory/self-governing entity (etc.), and constituting in a general way the northern/western/southern/southeastern/eastern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, and India and China since 1959.

The "general way" has been added to protect the sentences from nitpickers. If the pages Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, Jammu and Kashmir Ladakh, Kashmir valley, Jammu and Aksai Chin can have this as their lead sentence, I believe a big headache would disappear overnight. It is a mouthful, to be sure, but it is accurate. Purveyors of POV will be less inclined to thrust and parry when the article is wearing such NPOV armor. Pinging @Kautilya3, Saqib, Vanamonde93, El C, RegentsPark, Winged Blades of Godric, Sitush, MilborneOne, Chipmunkdavis, Abecedare, Drmies, Joshua Jonathan, Tamravidhir, DeluxeVegan, Gotitbro, Lingzhi2, Ceoil, SlimVirgin, Bbb23, Bishonen, Ms Sarah Welch, Moonraker, DuncanHill, Doug Weller, Philip Baird Shearer, Mar4d, Rjensen, HLGallon, Ragib, and Titodutta: and any others I might have missed. I am especially keen to hear from Saqib. If he on board (with the Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan pages), it will be easier for the same consensus on the Indian-administered Kashmir pages. Please keep Walt Whitman in mind:

Have you learned lessons only of those who admired you, were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons of those who braced themselves against you and disputed the passage with you?

Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:55, 15 August 2019 (UTC) PS In pinging the various people, I am not canvassing, just racking my brains to randomly pick people I can remember seeing on South Asia related pages, whether in consonance, dissonance, or happy oblivion. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:55, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

This is fine, my only contention was that the leads of the territories should be consistent with each other. Though I would like to point out that "self-governing entity" is quite POV. Gotitbro (talk) 15:14, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

To be fair, the Azad Kashmir page says only "is a nominally self-governing jurisdiction administered by Pakistan" They are already on board with "administered." Consistency, of course, is the nub of the proposal. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:23, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

You've my support to fix this lead boldly as you see fit. --Saqib (talk) 15:27, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

(←) I am very much in favor of standardization. Perhaps...

____________ is a region administered by India/Pakistan/China as a state/union territory/nominally self-governing entity, and constituting in a general way the northern/western/southern/southeastern/eastern portion of the larger Kashmir region. All regions of Kashmir except its east have been the subject of dispute between India and Pakistan since the Partition of India in 1947; administration of its east has been disputed between India and China since 1959.

 ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 15:51, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

• Indeed, it would be very helpful to institutionalize this wording, but also to create a shortcut to a discussion establishing this consensus, and to be able to point newbies to that instead of getting into the habitual lengthy conversation about how Wikipedia follows reliable sources and not the claims of the competing governments. So, to be clear; I think the phrase "in a general way" is unnecessary, but otherwise I endorse F&F's proposal entirely; because this is how reliable sources, and in particular independent scholarly sources, describe the situation. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:52, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support Fowler&fowler's proposal; it immaculately sums up the present scenario without stepping into too much detail. Lingzhi2's alt is too wordy for my taste. DeluxeVegan (talk) 16:15, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
• I am ok with it, but it doesn't really help. Here is a sample of edits today: Karimabad, Gilgit-Baltistan, Mirpur, Pakistan, Kashmiri language, Pir Panjal range, Hunza Valley. (Right now, the Indians are hyper. But there are also times when the Pakistanis get hyper.) For the proposal to make a difference, it needs to be propagated to every entity in the region: district, village, town, river, mountain, mountain pass, language, ethnic group etc. etc. Here are the things that get vandalised, and what can be done about it.
  • Country field gets changed. Replace the country field by a region field and use Indian/Pakistani/Chinese-adminisered Kashmir as the region.
  • Flags are magnets for vandalism. Prohibit flags.
  • Country maps get switched. Prohibit country maps.
  • Prohibit all lists like territories of Pakistan, states and union territories of India, districts of Pakistan, districts of India, etc.
  • Do not allow any mention of countries in the article bodies, except with an "-administered" suffix. K2 is the highest point of "Pakistan"? Nope. It is highest point of "Pakistan-administered territories". Leh district ranks 599th in "India"? Nope.
  • Then we are likely to get the problem of Ladakhis, Baltis and Gilgitis coming and removing "Kashmir", because they think they aren't part of any "Kashmir". I have no solution for that.
  • "Azad Kashmir" will still get vandalised, because it is a POV name in itself. I don't have a solution for that either.

The problems are deep. Fowler's proposal is just cosmetic. And, I don't know how many Indians even accept Britannica's definition of "Kashmir". Even the Kashmiris don't. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:13, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Let's start with the cosmetic changes. It won't fix everything. But it will be a start. Remember WP:INDICSCRIPTS was even a bigger problem, corrupting many more pages? But eventually an institutionalized version became accepted. I certainly remember long debates on this page and elsewhere on what scripts should be allowed, in what context, and so forth. Let's start with the big pages, and then the little ones will line up. The proposal itself will evolve as did INDICSCRIPTS. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:33, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, but how do maps get vandalized? If there is this map used in Gilgit-Baltistan, how is it going to be switched to one that shows this region to be in India? (AFAIK, there is no such map as it would be inaccurate; if there is, it should be modified). I, for one, see value in maps. DeluxeVegan (talk) 19:53, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

DeluxeVegan, the edit to Mirpur, Pakistan I mentioned above vandalised the map entry. This edit was a bit creative, but more often the edits just switch Pakistan map to India map or vice versa. The map on the page gives an option to view the location with respect to Azad Kashmir as well as Pakistan. So, a vandal feels like replacing Pakistan by India. Of course, the page title itself is an invitation to vandalise. Uanfala and Kashmiri often fight such vandalism. I will invite them to share their experiences. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 07:39, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: I take your "I'm OK with it," to mean that you are on board with the proposal, cosmetic though it might be. Am I correct in interpreting you so? I do understand that the problem is complex. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:53, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I am in agreement with the proposal. My lack of enthusiasm is because it doesn't solve any real problem. The to-ing and fro-ing on the top level pages is practically non-existent. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:04, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

As was pinged, only here to say, if necessary, that Fowler&fowler is an unusually bright, first rate editor, who has considerable knowledge in is field, and has banks of integrity. I say this as someone who has bitterly argued with him in the past; but it was always over matters of fact. Ceoil (talk) 21:08, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Agree also with most of Kautilya3's prohibitions. Flags forex are always and everywhere, in every context, simply image spam. They're Mostly Harmless spam (but still spam) in non-controversial contexts, but they are invitations to edit war in areas such as these. Other prohibitions sensible as well. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 02:49, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

That would require an Israel-Palestine like lock on all Kashmir related articles (at least the major ones) to stop this kind of vandalism, I would support such a move as that would help a lot in such cases, but vandalism itself is not going away. Removing flags and maps is not at all useful (people want to know where the places are after all) and they are administered by the respective countries, not sure how removing the country maps would help. The lists are extremely useful and relevant; removing them would be a disservice to a lot users and does not help at all. Adding "-administered" is cosmetic in itself and the respective places are part of the said countries changing that doesn't help.

The point here is about the main territories of Kashmir and most of the points raised above are impractical while the lead proposal by Fowler can be and should be implemented. Gotitbro (talk) 07:51, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Lock on all Kashmir-related articles is never going to happen. That is not really a practical suggestion.

Flags are being blocked right now on some of the pages by appealing to WP:INFOBOXFLAG, but it is not yet done uniformly. As for maps, practically anybody who is wanting to read about Mirpur, Pakistan or Nowshera, Jammu and Kashmir would know where Kashmir is with respect to the respective countries. Adding the country maps is merely for the respective parties to assert their rights, sovereignties or what not. Likewise linking words like "state" and "district" to lists of states/districts in the respective countries is an assertion of sovereignties. That is why these pages attract vandals who want to contest the claimed sovereignties. If we are really trying to neutral and impartial, then we have to prohibit all such implied claims. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:25, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Flags should certainly not be included. Just yesterday, there was this user who was spamming all Kashmir-related pages asking to either include the Indian flag, or remove Pakistani and China flags from those respective pages. A blanket ban on all flags in the "|country=" field in infoboxes (which excludes state flags for J&K/AK, Template:Infobox former subdivision which doesn't render properly without flags, and similar cases) helps to save time in such cases. I think we can get around the map problem for cities by using a South Asia/subcontinent map instead of a country map, which serves the same purpose, but with arguably less POV. That still leaves us to deal with state maps (JK, AK, GB and the proposed ones), in which case highlighting the location within the country (India/Pakistan) will be considered academic (those pages are extended confirmed protected, so that should be fine). DeluxeVegan (talk) 10:48, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree that a stricter code for the infoboxes and ledes of Kashmir-related articles is definitely a good idea. However, I don't think we should always remove the country-level maps: at least for the major places like Mirpur or Srinagar, not all readers will really know where exactly in the world Kashmir is; also, it's difficult to have large-region maps without making some sort of statement (and not including a country map is also a statement). I agree that linking to the "list of districts in country" type articles is not helpful, but that's not related to the disputed status of the territories. A link of some sort has to be there: if an article is about a tehsil, then the reader needs a link to the article that describes the administrative setup of a tehsil in the respective country (Tehsil#India and Tehsil#Pakistan are good targets, I believe). – Uanfala (talk) 13:12, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

• Hello User:Fowler&fowler, thanks for the proposal. It looks to fine to me. A couple of questions/comments: (apologies if I am missing something). which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, and India and China since 1959. -- I hope this will be cited by an RS. Is it going to be a general one or going to change in different articles? Or actually, other parts a) "AdminEntity" is a part of "CountryA", b) it is administered by "ContryA" will need similar RS.
  Over-all the idea looks fantastic to me, I am just trying to think of a few problems we may (or may not) face. --Titodutta (talk) 08:02, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
• If this discussion reaches consensus wording, an RfC should be started and should be widely publicized. Assuming a favorable result, that would make it much easier to enforce uniform wording, and also be easier for requesting page protection. Misguided edits would be reverted with an edit summary pointing to the RfC. That won't solve all problems but it would make life much easier. Regarding the wording, I suggest adding something saying, for example, at link to article, the lead would read "...". Johnuniq (talk) 08:12, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree that if we get a wording we need an RfC to help it stick. John's suggestion above looks good. Doug Weller talk 11:48, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

+1, that'll be a lot easier to cite or put as a hidden comment in an article, if needed. Regards, --Titodutta (talk) 14:50, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support. Fowler&fowler's initiative and proposal is on the mark, as is Johnuniq's RfC suggestion. It may help keep the article more NPOV and less edit war-prone if the lead follows along the lines of F&f's draft, and the alternate national or regional POVs/sides – Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, Kashmiri, Jammu, Ladakh, etc – are presented in the main article, one by one (collapse it if it gets too long). Of course, all the POVs should cite the appropriate reliable sources. Further, once the RfC is closed, edit that article and embed a comment in the source that cautions the future editors to "not revise the language, see the RfC link and please start at the talk page" or some such. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 20:36, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you @Ms Sarah Welch: This is very cogent and precise. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:10, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Thank you @Gotitbro, Vanamonde93, DeluxeVegan, Titodutta, Uanfala, Kautilya3, Johnuniq, Doug Weller, and Lingzhi2: I'm not sure I've understood all the points, but let me say, generally, that for the sourcing I want to appeal to WP:TERTIARY, and what it says about due weight. I want to address essentially two issues in the sourcing, that (a) the region is disputed, and (b) that the sub-regions are "administered" (without implying anything about sovereignty). Specialist secondary sources (monographs and the like) are not useful here as there are too many of them, and they all finesse nuances which distract. I have the following sources in mind (two encyclopedias and two undergraduate histories of South Asia, two of India, and two tertiary sources about Pakistan (one an undergraduate text; the other a survey article):

Tertiary sources for possible use in the RfC

Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannia, Kashmir, region Indian subcontinent, Encyclopaedia Britannica, retrieved 15 August 2019 {{citation}}: |last1= has generic name (help) (subscription required) Quote: "Kashmir, region of the northwestern Indian subcontinent ... has been the subject of dispute between India and Pakistan since the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. The northern and western portions are administered by Pakistan and comprise three areas: Azad Kashmir, Gilgit, and Baltistan, the last two being part of a territory called the Northern Areas. Administered by India are the southern and southeastern portions, which constitute the state of Jammu and Kashmir but are slated to be split into two union territories. ... China became active in the eastern area of Kashmir in the 1950s and has controlled the northeastern part of Ladakh (the easternmost portion of the region) since 1962." "Kashmir", Encyclopedia Americana, Scholastic Library Publishing, 2006, p. 328, ISBN 978-0-7172-0139-6 C. E Bosworth, University of Manchester Quote: KASHMIR, kash'mer, the northernmost region of the Indian subcontinent, administered partlv by India, partly by Pakistan, and partly by China. The region has been the subject of a bitter dispute between India and Pakistan since they became independent in 1947 Pletcher, Kenneth, Aksai Chin, Plateau Region, Asia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, retrieved 16 August 2019 (subscription required) Quote: "Aksai Chin, Chinese (Pinyin) Aksayqin, portion of the Kashmir region, at the northernmost extent of the Indian subcontinent in south-central Asia. It constitutes nearly all the territory of the Chinese-administered sector of Kashmir that is claimed by India to be part of the Ladakh area of Jammu and Kashmir state." Talbot, Ian (2016), A History of Modern South Asia: Politics, States, Diasporas, Yale University Press, pp. 28–29, ISBN 978-0-300-19694-8 Quote: "We move from a disputed international border to a dotted line on the map that represents a military border not recognized in international law. The line of control separates the Indian and Pakistani administered areas of the former Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir." Ludden, David (2013), India and South Asia: A Short History, Oneworld Publications, p. 216, ISBN 978-1-78074-108-6 Quote: "Kashmir remains disputed national territory." Robb, Peter (2011), A History of India, Macmillan, p. 228, ISBN 978-0-230-34549-2 Quote: For nationalists on all sides it (Kashmir) became a rhetorical symbol of pride and strength, akin to the rival brandishing of nuclear weapons which latterly has accompanied the dispute." Stein, Burton (2010), A History of India, John Wiley & Sons, p. 358, ISBN 978-1-4443-2351-1 Quote: "In the last days of 1948, a ceasefire was agreed under the United Nations ... relations were soured and wars fought by the two inheritors of British authority; their foreign policies and conduct from the onset of their existence as independent states have been shaped by the Kashmir dispute." Wynbrandt, James (2009), A Brief History of Pakistan, Infobase Publishing, pp. 289–, ISBN 978-0-8160-6184-6 Quote: "Kashmir remains the site of the world's largest and most militarized territorial dispute with portions under the de facto administration of China (Aksai Chin), India (Jammu and Kashmir), and Pakistan (Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas)" Or, Racine, Jean Luc (2004), "Living with India: Relations between Pakistan and India", in Christophe Jaffrelot (ed.), A History of Pakistan and Its Origins, Anthem Press, pp. 112–133, 121, ISBN 978-1-84331-149-2 Quote: "As relations between China and Pakistan improved, the border adjustments agreed in 1963 — vigorously contested by India, which claimed the whole of the former kingdom of Kashmir —allowed Beijing to consolidate the strategic axis linking Tibet and Xinjiang (Sinkiang) along a sensitive boundary. The opening of the Karakorum road in 1978 improved links between Pakistan and Xinjiang, opened up the Northern Territories (Gilgit and Baltistan), and also linked Pakistan to Central Asia, avoiding the troubled north of Afghanistan. Once it had occupied the trans-Himalayan territory of Aksai Chin, at one time part of Ladakh, ... China controlled the trans-Karakorum fringes of Kashmir. ... China is also an interested party in the dispute over Kashmir."

Based on these, I think the simplest proposal would be:

____________ is a region administered by India/Pakistan/China as a state/union territory/nominally self-governing entity (etc.), and constituting the northern/western/southern/southeastern/eastern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, later joined in by China.

Let me know if this is acceptable, or what tweaks are needed. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:22, 16 August 2019 (UTC) Updated Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:06, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: Could you explain a little more what you mean by "for example, ... at link?" Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:35, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

The proposal is, I think, a pattern for the lead in certain articles. That should be spelled out with an example of the text for a particular article because a specific example is clearer than a generic rule. Johnuniq (talk) 23:22, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Note: Hi, all. I have not been able to catch up with the developments here, and have hence kept my views on hold. I shall get back as soon as I can. I am confident that things will go well here, however, I shall peruse the discussion and give my views soon. --Tamravidhir (talk) 06:12, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

RfC phrasing (first cut)

@Gotitbro, Vanamonde93, DeluxeVegan, Titodutta, Uanfala, Kautilya3, Johnuniq, Doug Weller, and Lingzhi2: Although I had initially proposed the lead sentence for the larger sub-region of Kashmir, after hearing from a number of people, especially @Kautilya3:, I see the value of generalizing and of striking while the iron is hot. I have therefore made it a four tier proposal, which applies to (A) the larger regions Jammu and Kashmir, Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Aksai Chin, (B) their administrative divisions, such as Gilgit Division, Kashmir Division, (C) to all the districts in (B); and (D) to all the district capitals in (C).

(A) Large Regions: ____________ is a region administered by India/Pakistan/China as a state/union territory/nominally self-governing entity, etc., and constituting the northern/western/southern/southeastern/eastern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, and between India and China from somewhat later.
Examples are: Jammu and Kashmir, Azad Kashmir. For regions in which the form of administration is not clearly defined, the examples are Aksai Chin and Gilgit-Baltistan

(B) Administrative Divisions: ____________ is an administrative division of/in _______________, a region administered by India/Pakistan/China as a state/union territory/nominally self-governing entity (etc.), and constituting the northern/western/southern/southeastern/eastern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, and between India and China from somewhat later. Examples are: Gilgit Division, Poonch Division, and Kashmir Division.

(C) Districts: ____________ is a district in (name of administrative division) of (name of larger region), a region administered by India/Pakistan/China as a state/union territory/nominally self-governing entity (etc.), and constituting the northern/western/southern/southeastern/eastern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, and between India and China from somewhat later. Examples are Anantnag District, Mirpur District.

(D) District Capitals: ____________ is the capital of __________ district in (name of larger region), a region administered by India/Pakistan/China as a state/union territory/nominally self-governing entity (etc.), and constituting the northern/western/southern/southeastern/eastern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, and between India and China from somewhat later. Examples are Anantnag City, Mirpur City.

As you will see that there is the danger of sounding clunky when the regression becomes long. I will come up with some judicious contractions in the final version. The total number of pages affected by the RfC are: (i) in Jammu and Kashmir, Three divisions, 22 districts, 22 district capitals (48 pages), (ii) in Azad Kashmir four divisions, 10 districts, 10 district capitals (25 pages) (iii) in Gilgit-Baltistan Three divisions, 10 districts, 10 capitals (24 pages), and (iv) in Aksai Chin (1 page), grand totalling 48 + 25 + 24 + 1= 98 pages. That is a lot to be sure, but it is better to tackle them systematically than haphazardly. Finally, as the proposal addresses "administered" areas, it does not apply to other notable pages, such as those of a notable city that is not a district capital, a pilgrimage site, a natural feature, such as a mountain, or a lake, i.e. anything outside the ambit of (A) through (D) above. We can come back to those later. Please give your feedback. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:27, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

Forgot to ping @Tamravidhir and Ms Sarah Welch: Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:30, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

• "somewhat later" sounds a bit off. Not sure why we need to mention the year/starting point in the lead sentence at all, it can be covered later in the lead. Would probably look more clean and less clunky that way. Gotitbro (talk) 01:13, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

I hear you. I have some thoughts myself, but let's hear from some others as well. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:45, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

• Expanding the proposal to include divisions, districts and district capitals is a step in the right direction. Maybe you could also include the Trans-Karakoram Tract and later add the upcoming union territories? The wording may benefit from some tweaking. DeluxeVegan (talk) 07:20, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
• Looks good. Thanks for generalising it to districts and district capitals. I agree that the dates can be omitted. "Disputed between India, Pakistan and China" should be good enough. My main concerning the overwhelming amount of quotations. I suggest that we use the full portfolio of quotations for the top-level pages, and limit to 1-2 quotations for the lower level pages. The full list of citations can still be present in all of them. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:12, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
• I like the approach and the "judicious contractions" F&f mentions. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 10:47, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
• Looks good to me too. Some quick notes:
  • I too would suggest simplifying "dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, and between India and China from somewhat later." to something like "dispute between India, Pakistan and China" or "dispute between India, Pakistan and China since the mid-20th century". More concise and as a (minor) side benefit subsumes the Pakistan-China dispute over Trans-Karakoram Tract.
  • I am assuming that the attached references/quotes are for the benefit of discussion here and not intended to be added in toto to the actual articles. Right?
  • Members of WP:PAK, and possibly WP:CHINA (or, just the editors involved at Aksai Chin and related articles), need to be invited to weigh in. Additional notices at the talk pages of at least the "large region" articles will prevent possible late-in-the-process complaints about being blindsighted.

Thanks for the initiative and work, F&f! Abecedare (talk) 12:53, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks all. I like "since the mid-20th century." Some sense of the age of this dispute is important. I did not specifically sound out WP:PAK or WP:CHINA, the former because I had the sense it was inactive, the latter because in the grand scale of things I figured they wouldn't much care about the un-grand Aksai Chin. I did, however, ping @Saqib: in my very first post and he gave me his assent, though I forgot to ping him this time. Glad to include those groups. The "full portfolio of quotations" (I like that description) is only for the gimlet-eyed readers here. The final version will probably have just two; they, along with the text they support, will indeed be judiciously contracted. I'm busy until the 22nd with the India page, which I'm proposing for WP:TFA for Gandhi's upcoming 150th, but will work on this thereafter. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:31, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

If its ok with you, I'd be happy to send out the project/page notices later today. Abecedare (talk) 14:28, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Abecedare: you make an excellent point about cross-posting and inviting WP:PAK and WP:CHINA editors. While these boards may be inactive or wouldn't care much as F&f observes, the RfC process would be more robust if at least this RfC is more widely publicized and a chance is offered for anyone interested in commenting and offering suggestions. I would support a similar discussion for wiki articles on other conflict-prone regions of our world, in the spirit of Johnuniq's observations above. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:35, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

@Abecedare: Sounds great. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:53, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Done. Added a notification at both projects' noticeboard and at, hopefully, enough of the potentially affected pages to catch attention of any interested editor without flooding too many watchlists. Abecedare (talk) 19:13, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

@Mar4d and SheriffIsInTown: whats your thoughts on this proposal ? --Saqib (talk) 12:01, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

• A point of disagreement with one draft. I can live with including "subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947". But including "since the Partition of India in 1947" sets a dangerous hare running. What was partitioned in 1947 was only British India. Kashmir, as a princely state, could not have been partitioned by the British, and was not. (Including those words may be prompted by what EB says, "since the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947", but sadly EB is off-topic.) In 1947 there was a formal partition, settled by the Radcliffe commissions, of Bengal and the Punjab, two British provinces. And then beginning in 1947 there was a kind of informal partition of the princely states, which went on well into 1948, settled mainly by the wishes of the rulers. Whether we like it or not, as a matter of law Hari Singh had the right to opt first for the complete independence of Jammu and Kashmir and later to accede to India. That has since led to the various Indo-Pakistani wars and conflicts, but in my humble opinion the Partition of India is much, much, better left out here. Moonraker (talk) 13:16, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

@Moonraker: Thanks for your helpful comments, but which draft has the Partition in it? I don't remember it appearing anywhere. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:47, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

The proposal by Lingzhi2. I don't get the impression that Lingzhi2 is married to the "partition of India" phrasing, which does raise issues of the type Moonraker mentions, but they can speak for themselves. Abecedare (talk) 19:14, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Last time I checked, there was only one of me, and I've always been a "he". "She or he" or "he or she" would have been wonderfully correct; no need to abuse the English language. Meanwhile, I had also thought that my proposal had been left by the wayside a very long time ago. I actually meant to go back and add "about the time of" before "the partition", but didn't do so because it seemed mine was already rejected. I think proposals need to clearly separate the separate conflicts, and fears of wordiness be damned. Clarity trumps concision. Not everyone who is reading is as familiar with the underlying time and general thrust of history as the participants here are. Phrases such as "dispute between India, Pakistan and China since the mid-20th century" make it sound as if all three of them are locked in a room together arguing over one continuous & whole piece of land, when in fact they are running back and forth between several separate arguments over several smaller pieces of one piece of land.. I say this because I can readily imagine uninformed readers immediately assuming precisely that. But having said that, I am not gonna fight for that position, because arguing over wording in Wikipedia is about as constructive as arguing over politics in Wikipedia. So. Please do continue. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 23:27, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler, it's an early suggestion and begins with "I am very much in favor of standardization. Perhaps..." Moonraker (talk) 11:35, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

• I support the general idea and like the original wording (the RfC proposal) with the "somewhat later" caveat identified by several other editors. I think that that origina wording, which separates the India-Pakistan and India-China disputes, is more appropriate than Abecedare's suggestion that the disputes be confalted into a general India-Pakistan-China one (primarly because, assuming my understanding is correct, there are no disputes between China and Pakistan). --regentspark (comment) 16:19, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

RfC wording version 2

@Gotitbro, Vanamonde93, DeluxeVegan, Titodutta, Uanfala, Kautilya3, Johnuniq, Doug Weller, Lingzhi2, Moonraker, Saqib, RegentsPark, and Abecedare: Here's my new version, arrived at after weighing all your comments, especially RegentsPark's about not sounding like the disputes all began at the same time. I have reworded it. I may appear long to some, but it is precise. It has just two references, both wizened enyclopedias. I will add the "for example, see ..." once we have agreement on the language. Here they are. Please give me your feedback. Language within double parentheses (( ... )) has been added after receiving feedback.

(A) Large Regions: ____________ is a region administered by India/Pakistan/China as a state/union territory/nominally self-governing entity, etc., and constituting the northern/western/southern/southeastern/eastern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, and between India and China since 1962. Example: "Jammu and Kashmir is a region administered by India as a state, and constituting the southern and southeastern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, and between India and China since 1962."

(I originally had "... and between India and China openly since 1962, but in ferment through the late 1950s." or words to that effect, but I don't believe we need that kind of precision.)

(B) Administrative Divisions: ____________ is an administrative division of/in _______________, a portion of the disputed Kashmir region administered by India/Pakistan/China as a state/union territory/nominally self-governing entity, and claimed by Pakistan/China/India. Example: Jammu Division is an administrative division of Jammu and Kashmir, a portion of the disputed Kashmir region administered by India as a state and claimed by Pakistan."

(C) Districts: ____________ is a district in (name of administrative division) of (name of larger region), the latter being a portion of the disputed Kashmir region administered by India/Pakistan/China as a state/union territory/nominally self-governing entity and claimed by Pakistan/China/India. Example: Jammu district is a district in the Jammu Division of Jammu and Kashmir, the latter being a portion of the disputed Kashmir region administered by India as a state and claimed by Pakistan.

(D) District Capitals: ____________ is the capital of __________ district in (name of larger region), the latter being a portion of the disputed Kashmir region administered by India/Pakistan/China as a state/union territory/nominally self-governing entity and claimed by Pakistan/China/India. Example: "Mirpur is the capital of Mirpur district in Azad Kashmir, the latter being a portion of the disputed Kashmir region administered by Pakistan as a nominally self-governing entiry and claimed by India."

Please give your prompt feedback so I can get on with the RfC itself. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk»

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:44, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

PS I should add that I can't do anything about Britannica's mention of the Partition. In my reading it is meant only in the sense of "since the decolonization of the subcontinent in 1947 into two dominion states." Whether the partition of British India had any bearing on the integration of the princely states is a fraught question which we don't address. Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:04, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

• I haven't looked at most of the preceding threads, so please ignore if this has been discussed already. I feel that this wording will be a bit odd for most of the district and city articles: why mention China's involvement in the dispute in the articles about Jammu or Mirpur? If China has no claims over the particular territory, then mentioning it could invite readers to assume that it is. Also, something like Udhampur is a district in Jammu and Kashmir, a region administered by India as a state, and constituting the southern portion of the larger Kashmir region is liable to be misread as implying that it's Udhampur district (rather than J&K) that is the souther portion of Kashmir. – Uanfala (talk) 20:08, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

@Uanfala: I have fixed the Udhampur problem by adding ((which is)) in the appropriate place. The double parentheses indicated text added after receiving feedback. As for you other point, I certainly had thought about it, but in the end did not include it because the statement devolves into special cases, and not everyone who will do the maintenance of these pages will know which special case to apply to what portion of geography. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:27, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

@Uanfala: If "which is" is still ambiguous, it can be changed to the more formal but unambiguous, ((the latter being)). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:30, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

@Uanfala: Thus for Mirpur it would read: "Mirpur is the capital of Mirpur district in Azad Kashmir, the latter being a region administered by Pakistan as a nominally self-governing entity, and constituting the western portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947 and between India and China since 1962 after being in ferment through the late 1950s. (scratching the in ferment bit out).

That resolves the ambiguity, but I still don't think details of the conflict should cascade down into the ledes of these lower-level articles. If it were entirely up to me, I'd go for something as simple as possible, like "Mirpur is the capital of Mirpur district in Azad Kashmir, a region administered by Pakistan but claimed by India". If readers would like to find out what sort of region it is or since when it has been administered by the one country or claimed by the other, they can just click on the link, or read further down to the inevitable History section. – Uanfala (talk) 21:20, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

You mean keep the disambiguation stuff only for Azad Kashmir? It might work. But for a division that does not have "Kashmir" in it, the reader will be left clueless about the context: Gilgit is the capital of Gilgit district in Gilgit-Baltistan, a region administered by Pakistan but claimed by India." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:31, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

My general version would read: Gilgit is the capital of Gilgit district in Gilgit-Baltistan, a region administered by Pakistan, and constituting the northern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947 and between India and China since 1962." It is a mouthful to be sure, but it pins down the context. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:37, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps for the lower level articles, your version could be expanded to: "Gilgit is the capital of Gilgit district in Gilgit-Baltistan, a portion of the disputed Kashmir region administered by Pakistan and claimed by India." And the more formal version with 1947, 1962 etc could be kept for the high-level regions. But lets wait to hear from the others. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:48, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

I have now incorporated this last version in all the lower-level portion of the proposal. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:12, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

• I would add the "state/union territory/self-governing entity etc" for administrative divisions, districts, and district capitals too, as in: "Jammu Division is an administrative division of Jammu and Kashmir, a portion of the disputed Kashmir region administered by India as a state and claimed by Pakistan," "Jammu district is a district in the Jammu Division of Jammu and Kashmir, the latter being a portion of the disputed Kashmir region administered by India as a state and claimed by Pakistan," and similar for district capitals. DeluxeVegan (talk) 05:40, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

@DeluxeVegan: I have incorporated your phrasing in the RfC's. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:24, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Asia/The 10,000 Challenge

India has extremely few articles coming in for it! Please get involved!♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:51, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

List of Dalits

Multiple editors have added a large number of unsourced entries at List of Dalits, which has in turn created BLP-related issues. So, someone familiar with the list should revert it to an appropriate revision. - NitinMlk (talk) 19:50, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:WikiProject Patna

Template:WikiProject Patna has been nominated for merging with Template:WikiProject India. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. PC78 (talk) 11:53, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Nurul Alam Chowdhury

Greetings, is there someone here familiar with languages written in Devanagari to comment on the sourcing of Nurul Alam Chowdhury? Literally every source is written in such a language. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 12:01, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

The sources are in Bangla language. @Ragib: can you help with this? -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 12:44, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Jo-Jo Eumerus, Native speaker; will be seeing soon:-) ∯WBG^converse 16:38, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks in advance. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:25, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

@Tito Dutta: dada and @Pinakpani: dada, can you help?--S. M. Nazmus Shakib (talk) 19:54, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

• WBG is working on it, I am confident that he will complete it soon. Or, WBG, do you want me to have a look? Regards. --Titodutta (talk) 20:01, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

The Top 25 Report

Hi all. The WP:Top 25 Report, as the title suggests, is a newspaper-style report on the top 25 most-viewed articles on Wikipedia published weekly. India-related articles have always been a staple of the report, but in the past year or so, these articles have gone from periodical hits once in a month or so to many appearances in a week's report, for eg: Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/August 4 to 10, 2019, Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/June 23 to 29, 2019, Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/May 19 to 25, 2019, etc. If any of you are interested in writing reports (and as a side providing your more knowledgeable views on India-related topics) please let us know. 2.51.23.164 (talk) 07:53, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

• Sounds interesting to me. How much of the entire process can be automated? --Titodutta (talk) 21:16, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Titodutta Whoops, looks like I missed the reply; the automated list is available every week on Sunday around 8 UTC at WP:5000. The refined list is prepared by the contributors by a simple process: exclude the Main Page and pages with either too high computer views or too high mobile views (those are bot traffic). Since the report is not in mainspace, you can express all your personal views except for BLPs (WP:BLP applies everywhere on Wikipedia). If you have any further questions you can post them at WT:TOP25. Cheers, 2.51.23.164 (talk) 19:53, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Non-English sources in Bill Hutchens

I'm wondering if anyone from this Wikipedia can read (and assess) some of the non-English sources being cited in Bill Hutchens. One of the sources seems to be to MediaOne TV, which is listed as being under the scope of this WikiProject, but I'm not sure what language the source is written. So, I'm just asking here on the hope that someone might be able to read the source. If anyone is able to assess the source (particularly for WP:NACTOR purposes), please post at Talk:Bill Hutchens#Notability. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:25, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Kolkata review

I have nominated Kolkata for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. DrKay (talk) 08:10, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

West Bengal article fixation

Hi guys can someone address the West Bengal article issue. The first thing which caught my eye in the lead is the number of references. Though some may be necessary, we could, perhaps, reduce the number of references in the lead, given the same information is covered elsewhere in a section with apt citations. The lead provides excessive details, which is not required at all it would be better to mentioned in the main body. It should be as per WP:SS and WP:Lead fixation. There are information cited in the lead which does not appear in the body of the text. The article has been copy edited by GOCE editors, after few fixes the article is ready for its GA review. Thanks--Aakanksha55 (talk) 08:51, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Babri Masjid

File:Babri Masjid Ayodhya.png

Hi, could any of you please check if the image on the Babri Masjid article is actually the image of the named masjid? I am quite unsure. I have attached the image here. --Tamravidhir (talk) 15:31, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Tamravidhir The image seems to be genuine. I found it on https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/12/10/ayodhya-the-battle-for-indias-soul-the-complete-story/ and http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/AyodhyaFinalSeries.pdf where is says "COPYRIGHT: THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD". The same image is also available in https://www.thequint.com/news/politics/babri-masjid-demolition-hearing-supreme-court-lk-advani with the caption "The Babri Masjid in early 1900. (Photo Courtesy: The British Library Board)". However, I don't think the image is in public domain, so I have send a deletion request on commons.--DreamLinker (talk) 09:29, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:WikiProject Kollam

Template:WikiProject Kollam has been nominated for merging with Template:WikiProject India. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. PC78 (talk) 17:25, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Voices

are welcome at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Silence Day (2nd nomination). I will be interested to see, if anyone can dig secondary coverage of the event in contrast to the bunch of primary sources from in-house-presses, which are currently being added, in bulk. ∯WBG^converse 15:43, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

reporting on massive vandalism on certain articles

Architecture of India, Coinage of India, Kosambi has been brutally vandalised and massive content has been removed which were properly cited using academic sources, i have tried restoring those contents which have been present in the article since months. The user ‎पाटलिपुत्र (talk · contribs) has been solely responsible for that and some other senior editors have backed up that vandalism without providing convincing arguments.

content which has been removed are as follows

EUCCC coin section/ Early uninscribed cast copper coin

satavahana coins section

ujjain coins section

pala empire coins section

chola empire coins section

Kausambi palace section

Kausambi stone palace and images

Kausambi palace four centred pointed arches

pataliputra voussoir arch section

pre mauryan hindu temples section

tens of images from rock cut indian architecture, circular dome temples

early medieval indian fortifications Zombie gunner (talk) 14:35, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Most of Zombie gunner's images (as well as those of his multiple IPs) are probable copyright violations. He has been removing Deletion requests from nominated images in an attempt to block the evaluation process [1]. We have been having severe editorial issues through IP jumping on these few India-related article which have been damaged beyond recognition. There are many copyvio issues, falsification of sources, dates (For example change of image description at Commons false date then changing the description of Wikipedia [2]) etc.... And it is impossible to correct as IPs keep returning without accountability (apparently same user, from two alternating places, now Zombie gunner since today). There have been several efforts at blocking the user [3], but this is never ending. I have asked for article protection here and I am attempting to clean up.पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 16:58, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Vandalism of user: Fowler&fowler in the article Architecture of India

Hi, a user called ‎Fowler&fowler (talk · contribs) is now vandalising article Architecture of India, has reinstated a version from 2017 and cut down massive chunks of info without having any discussion, his particular target seems to be pre islamic/ non Islamic architecture which seem to show the user's agenda (please read his comments in the history tab), i request senior members to intervene and stop this user from doing so. Zombie gunner (talk) 17:24, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

I have commented at Talk:Architecture_of_India#Issue_of_UNDUE_and_OR. I would like to assure you that this is not vandalism. When a lot of contentious content is added, it is normal to have editors try to remove it first. We then discuss and proceed. Please also read WP:AGF about assuming good faith and not commenting on editors' motives.--DreamLinker (talk) 19:24, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Copying my post at the Talk:Architecture of India, page: "Consider the textbook: Harle, James C. (1994). The Art and Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-06217-5.. This is a widely used textbook. A reader of the Wikipedia article Architecture of India should see the same broad organization as in the book (the architecture part, that is). They shouldn't be waylaid with OR sourced to dubious sources, such as that added in this remarkable edit by पाटलिपुत्र involving copying from the Stupa article and adding to the 37 citations in the article to the source: Buddhist architecture by Le Huu Phuoc, published by Grafikol, a personal website of Le Huu Phuoc. And who is Le Huu Phuoc? According to his Amazon website, "Le Huu Phuoc had an extensive education and practice in architecture as an architectural CAD draftsman and architect of his own house. Over the years he has been immersing himself in photography and writing with three published books" Again, he had 37 citations. In contrast, James Harle, Keeper of Eastern Art at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and author of The Art and Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent, Yale University Press, has 2 citations. Now you know why I reduced the article. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:00, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Point taken Fowler&Fowler. Ironically, I was trying to clean up the article myself from the falsification and copyvios added over many months by a jumping IP [4], now calling himself "Zombie gunner" above. Regarding my edits on the architecture of the 500 BC-500 CE period, I was not aware that Grafikol was Le Huu Phuoc's own publishing house. His book "Buddhist architecture" is actually quite good, I have owned it for a while... he references extensively traditional scolarship, so I have the possibility go into that to get proper referencing, and there is your source above. So the onus is on me to get proper references for the pre-500 CE part, I'll see what I can do. Of course, I do not object to your removals for the time being. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 05:14, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Individual reassessment of Pitru Paksha

Pitru Paksha, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Tamravidhir (talk) 09:53, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Working on article on Durga puja

Greetings to all. I have been working on the article on Durga Puja for the past few days. It would be of great help if those interested in the topic amongst you could provide with respective inputs to improve the article. --Tamravidhir (talk) 03:18, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

A spree of dubious edits

An editor, ‎पाटलिपुत्र (talk · contribs) has been on a spree of edits that sometimes appear to be borderline POV, borderline OR, borderline UNDUE—edits that in my view violate the spirit of Wikipedia rules even if they don't always violate the letter. (See, for example, her/his caption of the infobox image of the Kushan Empire that I've recently corrected.) She/he does so on many South Asia-related pages, though sometimes more generally, and in the past, has copied (without paraphrasing) content from sites such as PLOS, or from other Wikipedia articles. Although this is allowed, s/he has not only not acknowledged this in the manner required but has also done so with such prolificity that it begins to border on the unencyclopedic. See for example, Talk:Neolithic#PLOS_citation_and_image_spamming and here. S/he has been sloppy in her/his characterization of images s/he has uploaded by the hundreds, uploading, for example, an image of a smaller copy of the Sarnath Capital in the National Museum in New Delhi, but labeling it the Sarnath Capital. We all make such errors now and then, but when someone does this on a scale as this editor seems to have done, it becomes a community concern, in my view, that is. I'm reticent about posting on ANI as this is not a black and white violation, but perhaps editors here who work on ancient India related pages have some ideas. The main issue for me is that cleaning up after her/him can waste an inordinate amount of community time. Pinging some editors and admins who work on ancient India: @Kautilya3:, @Ms Sarah Welch:, @Abecedare:, @Doug Weller:, @RegentsPark:, @Joshua Jonathan: for ideas. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:18, 13 September 2019 (UTC) Pinging @पाटलिपुत्र: formally as well. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:20, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

So @Fowler&fowler: you have already harassed me for having an Indian user name [5] or [6] (I added initials to my signature to humour you), accused me of "dumping a usual Indian smoke and mirrors" [7], not to mention your talks of "Hindu carbage" [8] (although I was not your direct target here), and now... image captions and use of Creative Commons texts which are not to your exact liking? I am fairly systematic in attributing CC text properly as Diannaa has already recognized, but errors happen. We're all just trying to do our best for this Encyclopedia. Let's cool down a bit, don't you think? I do not intend to respond further. Have a nice day. पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 17:32, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

@पाटलिपुत्र: Please don't play the victim. Not because of an Indian user name, but a user name in another script that most editors cannot recognize, that most editors have to copy in order to communicate with you. I know Wikipedia allows it, but why should you have this special dispensation which causes inconvenience to other editors and the rest of us have to make do with simple English language user names. You are pushing the boundary of what is collegiality in the same way as you do with what is encyclopedic. As for "Hindu garbage," if you are so sure I was being racist, please open a thread at ANI, and allow others, per boomerang, to examine your edits. The other editor who initially accused me of it, is now topic banned from India-related topics. Don't ask me to cool down. I am calling you out for repeated violations, and am inviting others who might have dealt with you more than I have, for advice. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:59, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

@पाटलिपुत्र: my full edit summary of an edit on the Indus Valley Civilisation page, from which you have only partially quoted above, was "Reverted good faith edits by पाटलिपुत्र: This map is neither better nor more modern. We have been with great courtesy to each other discussion discussing maps on the talk page; in you come riding into the Indus city like some lone ranger and dump a usual Indian smoke and mirrors show which insinuates that IVC was really in modern day India. We too could have been lone rangers. (TW))" I did make one error: discussing-->discussion. What do you think I meant by "Indian smoke and mirrors show?" I meant the POV that keeps trying to prove that IVC was really based more in India than Pakistan. How is calling that out anti-Indian? My edit was made in response to this out-of-context map which you had added to the "Geographical extent" of the IVC page: File:Harappan settlements.jpg. Looking at it, an average reader who reads Wikipedia, would never know that IVC has anything to do with Indus or Pakistan. Rather, they would expect an Indus artifact to lie underfoot, half-buried, at every step taken in Haryana and Gujarat. If I were anti-Indian, I would not have added this quotebox at IVC. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:25, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: Sorry for the slow response, some RL commitments have kept me away. There is indeed a problematic editing pattern by पाटलिपुत्र and this problem is a long-standing one. It goes beyond the poor choice of words in some wikipedia article or an occasional misreading and poor summary of a source, something that can be discussed and easily fixed. The images-related issues, in particular, are serious and I concur with your observations. Kautilya3 had expressed some concerns a while ago about पाटलिपुत्र too (e.g. and elsewhere). पाटलिपुत्र: your response to F&f is not constructive. We need to collegially correct the issues or escalate this for a formal review. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 03:58, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Roopmati - needs source describing it as folktale

Or legend, whichever is appropriate. I haven't reverted the new editor who added unsourced material at the top of the lead. I spent 5 minutes searching but only found snippets. Thanks.Doug Weller talk 15:45, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: This clearly appears to be disruptive. Reverted. --Tamravidhir (talk) 15:49, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

It is concerning that that edit was live since 30 July 2019, an instance of how such edits may go unnoticed. Thank you bringing this to notice! --Tamravidhir (talk) 15:51, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

It was a good faith edit, not disruptive. The editor is correct, Roopmati is a fictional character and her story appears in books of folktales. The article should make that clear. Doug Weller talk 15:54, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure that may be the scenario User:Doug Weller. I am open to WP:RS, but as far as my limited knowledge informs me Roopmati did exist but with time she became entangled in popular regional folklores, thereby mingling history with local folk traditions. Such mingling of popular folklore has also happened with other women such as Jodha Bai (standing disputed as wife of either Akbar/Jahangir) and Chand Bibi. --Tamravidhir (talk) 16:03, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Possibly, but in any case the article portrays her story as historical ad thus violates NPOV. Doug Weller talk 16:06, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

I won't say it violates NPOV but the section on her life is certainly unreferenced. I will look for source. --Tamravidhir (talk) 16:08, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

I have been preoccupied with a few other articles and have not been able to devote attention and time to the Roopmati article. I have added a bibliography section with sources however, which have good enough content to rework the article. If meanwhile any user wishes to look into the article and rework it, the same shall indeed be helpful. --Tamravidhir (talk) 18:28, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Kerala for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Kerala is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Kerala until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 20:37, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Fundraising in India

Hey all,

As I announced on the wikimediaindia-l back in June and in August on this noticeboard we are planning to return to fundraising in India in 2020. On Monday, we will be running a three hour test to further test our payments infrastructure.

• If you need to report a bug or technical issue, please create a phabricator ticket.
• If you see a donor on a talk page, OTRS or social media having difficulties in donating, please refer them to donate@wikimedia.org.
• If you have specific ideas to share, please feel invited to add them to our fundraising ideas page.

We have gathered feedback from CIS, focus groups, and community members but you can also send feedback regarding the fundraising campaign directly on my talk page. Your feedback will definitely factor into our campaign for next year. Many Thanks Seddon (WMF) (talk) 15:10, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

WP: Rater

• WP:RATER

I have been using this script for some days now. I have found it very useful and recommend this to all. It saves time by quickly rating and adding parameters to Wikiproject tags on the article, without even going to the talk page. --DBigXrayᗙ 09:40, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

@DBigXray: Thanks. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:47, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

This is a really good one. Especially for tag and assess drives and otherwise in general too. Thanks. DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 05:58, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

@DBigXray: Thanks for letting me know! Tamravidhir (talk) 18:20, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Move Request for Vṛścik‌‌‌a → Vrishchika

The transliteration into international English is not correct. In English language there are no diacritics. Also the title Vṛścik‌‌‌a is highly confusing for English language users, as it skips vowels and c is used instead of ch. Crashed greek (talk) 09:09, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

being discussed at Talk:Vṛścik‌‌‌a#Requested_move_30_September_2019--DBigXrayᗙ 10:15, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

India will be WP:TFA on October 2, 2019

Mahatma Gandhi was the principal architect of the successful campaign for India's independence. Tomorrow, October 2, 2019, is his 150th birthday. To honor him, in less than half an hour, India, the Wikipedia page about his most sought-after prize, will be Today's Featured Article on the Main Page. Please keep an eye on the article, as well as the Mahatma Gandhi page. Best regards and best wishes, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:39, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Nice work Fowler. As always, you put in more effort than one would think possible! --regentspark (comment) 01:04, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

It was my pleasure and privilege. Thank you! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:27, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

I really appreciate all the effort you have put into that article. Thank you for your hard work!--DreamLinker (talk) 03:19, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Great work! Excellent date chosen! Capankajsmilyo^{(Talk | Infobox assistance)} 03:30, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Adivasi

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Could someone take a look at Adivasi? User:Dev0745 is making extensive edits there, but I've the impression that parts of it may be rambling. For example:

Tribal are heterogeneous ethnic groups can be divided in five ethnolinguistic groups such as Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, Sino-Tibetan and Andamanse. Indo-Aryan tribal have same origin as their negibour caste population. Dravidian tribal have also same origin as Dravidian caste population.

Thanks. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 16:33, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that, but was too busy to look at it with any focus or depth. Thanks, @Joshua Jonathan: for bringing the edits to the community's notice. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:07, 1 October 2019 (UTC) Updated Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:08, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello, thanks for discussion. Although I was trying to edit article "Adivasi" but due to different article have different conclusion,It's seem confusing without reading them properly. It would better to write after gaining proper knowledge about it. I am giving link here what many articles talk about i.e Tribal speak five language family such as Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austroasiatic, Tibeto Burman and Andamanese.

• "TRIBAL LANGUAGES IN INDIA – INTRODUCTION (1/4)".
• Brahmin and tribal in North India share same genetic haplogroups: "The Autochthonous Origin and a Tribal Link of Indian Brahmins: Evaluation Through Molecular Genetic Markers".
• Caste and tribe are derive from same prehistoric genetic inheritance: "The Genetic Heritage of the Earliest Settlers Persists Both in Indian Tribal and Caste Populations".
• Whereas according to some article Tribal have independent origin in south india: "Independent origins of Indian caste and tribal paternal lineages".
• Austroasiatic speaker are migrants from south-east Asia 4000-3500 year ago. This imply some tribal are not indigenous which contradict the claim of Adivasi(indigenous) by tribals: Sidwell, Paul. 2018. Austroasiatic Studies: state of the art in 2018. Presentation at the Graduate Institute of Linguistics, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, 22 May 2018.

So thanks, I will try to edit anything after gaining proper knowledge about the topic.(Dev0745 (talk) 01:38, 2 October 2019 (UTC));

Note:Reflist added for references--DreamLinker (talk) 02:17, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Note 2: reflist removed after turnig refs into list of links. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:03, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Any ideas - a barnstar specific to JK/Kashmir

So I wanted to create a barnstar specific to JK. (Had a few editors in mind whom I wanted to give it to and it can also be placed in the respective barnstar lists and project pages for others to use). Could someone help design it? Or any ideas as to what it should be? (keep it simple please in case i have to end up making it?) Thanks! DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 13:52, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Is there already one? DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 13:58, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Any such award would be open to the objection that it is being used to promote a certain POV—by rewarding those who promote the POV. Although I would obviously oppose such an award, I would defer to user:Kautilya3, as I haven't been paying attention to J&K and other daughter articles, some of which are content forks of Kashmir. I will, however, start paying attention if any hurried efforts are made to promote J&K to a Good article, DYK, etc. and thereby to give its evolved content the imprimatur of WP. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:46, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

How about then a barnstar for Kashmir related stuff as a whole... as opposed to only JK? DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 05:31, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I concur with User:Fowler&fowler. This is a bad idea. DiplomatTesterMan, if you need one better choose one from the existing Wikipedia:Barnstars. Or if you insist giving a political barnstar consider an Indian or Pakistani or joint Indo-Pak Barnstar depending on the need. --DBigXrayᗙ 06:33, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Et tu, DBigXray! (WP:SARC) :D oh ok i will let this go (... and raise the issue twenty years later)

Consensus seems to say this isn't going anywhere for now. N DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 11:56, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Looks like the issue got taken care of in my absence. I am not dismissing the idea out of hand, but this is not the right time for it. We might also think about what it would mean to give someone a "Kashmir barnstar", while so many of us know so little about Kashmiris per se. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:11, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

New Hinduism barnstar

DTM, if you are fingers to itching to make barnstars, you might consider redesigning that nerdy Hinduism barnstar to something more personable, e.g., with a Diwali diya instead. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:11, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Will give it a go.DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 15:13, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Gave it a try. DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 10:30, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

I am barging in here. I wanted to state that one may have to be cautious what is signified by the signifier. Tamravidhir (talk) 18:24, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Tamravidhir, it's good you have barged in. As for the caution you advise... the "diya" is harmless enough right? As far as I know, the diya is a symbol of Diwali, "one of the most popular festivals of Hinduism" celebrated by Hindus, Jains, Sikhs (according to the article).... or is it more complicated than that? Would you suggest any other symbols which could be used? DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 07:59, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

@DiplomatTesterMan: My concerns are about the barnstar itself, not he diya alone. On what criteria do you give it to editors? Whom do you give it to? What if editors engaging in violation of NPOV are awarded the barnstar? Who gets to decide how the barnstar is used? Given situations in Indian polity, and the plight of Kashmir right now, Indo not see this as an appropriate time for this. I fail to see any need for a separate "J&K barnstar". Tamravidhir (talk) 05:23, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

@Tamravidhir: Oh the confusion!! I am not creating a barnstar for (only) Kashmir any longer at this point... havent i said above that I was seeing no consensus for that and i will let the matter go for now. Hasn't Kautilya written above - "DTM, if you are fingers to itching to make barnstars, you might consider redesigning that nerdy Hinduism barnstar to something more personable, e.g., with a Diwali diya instead." The diya barnstar is a new Hinduism related barnstar (still prospective). Just like there are barnstar for other religions on Wikipedia in the same way. I don't see any controversy here? (new section) DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 06:55, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

This should probably go in a new section if the conversation is to continue related to the diya barnstar. Kautilya3, when you mentioned putting a diya, is this what you had in mind (images of the right). DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 06:55, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Indeed the previous J&K discussion ended with  Not done. We are on to other things.

Coming back to the Diya barnstars, great job, DTM. The second one (black barnstar) looks quite sharp, and suggests bringing light into darkness, exactly the kind of thing a potential barnstart recipient might have done.

The first one (brown barnstar) needs some more work I think. Why is the diya in it oversized? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:05, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

The brown barnstar was made first, and according to the Barnstar 2.0 Guidelines the diya was made the size it is... but for the black barnstar i just ignored it because the smaller version looked better and by then I had gone through more barnstars of various types so had enough reason to bypass that particular size guideline... DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 10:12, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

• For what it's worth; most barnstars at some point have been given to people that shouldn't have received them. What those designing a barnstar need to keep in mind is that the basic use they are intended for is in compliance with our principles. Topic-specific barnstars usually exist to encourage editors who work on that topic; ie an "indian barnstar" is for working for content related to India, not for being "pro-India" (whatever that might mean). As such, I see no problem with a Hinduism barnstar, or indeed a Kashmir barnstar; Kashmir is a topic, and a difficult one; encouragement to do good work there cannot hurt. That said, obsessing over barnstars isn't healthy either. We're an encyclopedia, not an MMORPG. I cannot dictate how people spend their time, but if you're capable of writing policy-compliant content, I'd much rather you spent your time writing policy-compliant content. Vanamonde (Talk) 23:31, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

I deserved each one of my barnstars! On a more serious note the example you gave is very relevant and easy to understand - "ie an "indian barnstar" is for working for content related to India, not for being "pro-India" (whatever that might mean)." and accordingly there should be no problem with either a Hinduism barnstar, or indeed a Kashmir barnstar. And sigh, I guess I may be taking WP:MMORPG too seriously. Back to policy compliant content. DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 10:12, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Raja Rao Award

Wondering if other-language sources can be found for this award (see Draft:Raja Rao Award) given at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, 2000-08. Hyperbolick (talk) 17:15, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Copyright and census handbooks

Does anyone know if the text in the census district handbooks (like those) is subject to copyright or similar restrictions? The website has a notice saying that the content is subject to copyright unless otherwise noted. But are there any exceptions? The reason I'm asking is that there's a very large chunk of text in Pauri Garhwal district that is copied from http://censusindia.gov.in/2011census/dchb/0506_PART_A_DCHB_GARHWAL.pdf, and I wanted to know for sure before trying to remove it (you know, out of respect for the great effort that some editor must have put in when copy-and-pasting). – Uanfala (talk) 16:11, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Uanfala To the best of my knowledge, the text of census reports are subject to copyright. Only certain publications are copyright free such as this [9] where it is explicitly noted. As for giving due respect to the great effort put in by the editor who copy-pasted it, I would suggest we delete the copied content not through multiple key presses, but through selecting it all in one go, pressing "delete" and then tagging the revisions for deletion as well.--DreamLinker (talk) 16:24, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I've cleared out the article with one fell swoop, but felt a bit too shy to tag for revdel: partly because I tend to get annoyed at seeing huge chunks of an article's history suddenly go missing (the offending content here was added more than a year ago), and partly because I like to think it's not that much of a problem if buried within the history of an article there is a copy of a text, which is freely available online anyway. – Uanfala (talk) 19:05, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Oh, just adding that in some lucky circumstances, copying from a district handbook might be OK – that's when the text in question was itself reused from earlier handbooks that are old enough to be in the public domain. I don't know how often that happens for India, but I've occasionally come across such passages in recent district handbooks for Pakistan. – Uanfala (talk) 19:08, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Help with finding Hindi language sources

Hi! I'm writing an article on Dr. Bhasker Sharma, a homeopathy practitioner - it's available in my sandbox. I'm having trouble finding reliable sources to back up the information I have. Would anybody be able to provide some help? I don't speak Hindi and have no notion of which Hindi sources are ok to use or not. Any guidance is welcome! Thank you very much! Maud KOC (talk) 08:57, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Maud KOC I would be happy to help with finding Hindi sources. However, I need some more detailed information since Bhaskar Sharma is a really common name. Could you point out some of the sources you currently know about?--DreamLinker (talk) 18:19, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

DreamLinker Thank you very much! I've written an article on Bhaskar Sharma in my sandbox - I think you can access it on my sandbox! In fact, I submitted it for review but it was rejected for being 'essentially self-advertising'. This is my first time writing an article - if you have any advice on that side too, I'd be happy to know what to improve! Thanks a lot !Maud KOC (talk) 06:51, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Newsletter

I have started a monthly newsletter for WP India. You can join here Wikipedia:WikiProject India/Newsletter/Members___CAPTAIN MEDUSAtalk (We are the champions, my friends) 18:48, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

@Kailash29792, Dey subrata, Nizil Shah, Tamravidhir, AaqibAnjum, CptViraj, CAPTAIN RAJU, and Dey subrata:

Zakir Naik article

A lot of content is being removed from that article by what seems to be his followers. This has been removed recently, "Naik states that it is permissible to beat one's wife "gently". He argues that "as far as the family is concerned, a man is the leader. So, he has the right", but he should beat his wife "lightly". He also said that Muslims have the right to rape their female slaves where he referred to "prisoners of war" as slaves.

Please re-insert it! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.196.248.124 (talk • contribs) 08:02, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

References

Hindi–Urdu controversy

The article Hindi–Urdu controversy looks dubious without much sources. Please look into it. Crashed greek (talk) 08:32, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Saini Mali?

It has been suggested that this edit introducing "(Mali)" in the hatnote may be incorrect. I'd like others who are more familiar with the subject to review and please determine what is correct, per the sources available. Thank you! Waggie (talk) 06:42, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Page move discussion

An editor has requested that {{subst:linked|Template:Infobox Chinese}} be moved to {{subst:#if:|{{subst:linked|{{{2}}}}}|another page}}{{subst:#switch: project |user | USER = . Since you had some involvement with 'Template:Infobox Chinese', you |#default = , which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You}} are invited to participate in [[{{subst:#if:|{{subst:#if:|#{{{section}}}|}}|{{subst:#if:|Template talk:Infobox Chinese#{{{section}}}|{{subst:TALKPAGENAME:Template:Infobox Chinese}}}}}}|the move discussion]]. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:10, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pyaar ki Pungi (2nd nomination)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pyaar ki Pungi (2nd nomination). Some fresh opinions will be welcome. DBigXrayᗙ 10:20, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

2019 Indian economic slowdown

I have started Draft:2019 Indian economic slowdown. Please help it expand. I am yet to add more information but more hands will be helpful. Regards,-Nizil (talk) 06:13, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussion at WP:Articles for deletion/Tujhe Kitna Chahne Lage

 You are invited to join the discussion at WP:Articles for deletion/Tujhe Kitna Chahne Lage. DBigXrayᗙ 06:59, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Indian cinema task force#Charts for Indian Film songs

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Indian cinema task force#Charts for Indian Film songs. DBigXrayᗙ 08:27, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Lots of well documented images of Indias cultural monuments but not yet categorized

Hi, I just found a lots of good images by @Itsmalay~commonswiki:, all well documented with ASI-Numbers but not yet categorized. If you looking for some missing pics about some india cultural monuments (e.g. for the Lists of State Protected Monuments in India) it is a treasure! cheers --W like wiki ^{good to know} 12:17, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

@W like wiki: Thanks for the info. All images have been categorized now. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {Talk / Edits} 05:51, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Eyes sought

at Vivek Agnihotri; after the subject gave a clarion call to his Twitter followers to whitewash his bio, we have Abhijeet Safai, engaging in similar behavior. ∯WBG^converse 14:46, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

I have applied the ARBBLP DS to the article. El_C 15:59, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Jammu and Kashmir pages

Continuing the the previous discussion on how to organise the Jammu and Kashmir pages, we have agreed that:

• The present page on Jammu and Kashmir will continue to exist, under a suitable new title.
• Jammu and Kashmir (union territory) will be devoted to the unit that will get created on 31 October.

The remaining questions:

• The new title for the page on the state. I would recommend a neutral, non-inflammatory title such as Jammu and Kashmir (state). At least until the Supreme Court gives a decision on the constitutional questions, there should be no need for anything more "historical-sounding".
• We will need Jammu and Kashmir to become a redirect to this page, so that the existing links will continue to make sense. Moreover, the redirect page will need to be full-protected so that we won't have move-warring on it. (Vanamonde93, RegentsPark, I hope you can attend to this on 31 October.)

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:03, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

• Kautilya's proposed title makes sense to me; it satisfies the requirements of being concise and specific. I'm happy to perform moves as and when it becomes necessary. The redirect, I think, can be EC-protected upon creation according to the pre-emptive protection we've got authorized; if there's move-warring by EC editors, we'll have to go to RFPP, I think, because I've commented on the naming discussion as an editor. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:39, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

The more work I do on the pages for the state and the future union territory the more I am beginning to think a single article could be appropriate for goth entities as there seems to be a lot of duplication between the two pages. I present a possible solution on my sandbox for such an article User:Cordyceps-Zombie/sandbox Cordyceps-Zombie (talk) 14:31, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

That would be factually inaccurate, if you ask me. The state was subject to many-a wars between India and Pakistan, and was an entity that had a degree of autonomy for about 70 years. Its history, administration, geography, politics, demographics and perhaps even economy are going to differ from that of the union territory. No matter how we try, there is going to be a mix up between information corresponding to the state and the union territory if we include them in the same article. The state is separate from the union territory and simply shares the same name. We probably shouldn't be including the etymology and geography section in both the articles, if thats what prompted you, and should instead point to Kashmir, History of Kashmir or Geography of Jammu and Kashmir. DeluxeVegan (talk) 15:15, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

What was that, Cordyceps-Zombie? Consensus was to keep the pages separate in the previous discussion, and you haven't demonstrated a new consensus yet for so big a change. DeluxeVegan (talk) 15:51, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Pinging Kautilya3. DeluxeVegan (talk) 15:52, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Cordyceps-Zombie, thank you very much for producing a rather clean article on the new union territory. I understand your point about duplication of content between the page on the state and that on the union territory. And, I suspect all of us that argued for two separate pages knew that there would be a certain amount of duplication. What you have produced is quite reasonable.

I don't expect that we will have two separate pages for ever, but we certainly need them until the dust settles. We don't know what the future may bring. We don't know what the Supreme Court decides. Until things are resolved one way or another, we need to be conservative. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:59, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:23, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Page move discussion

An editor has requested that {{subst:linked|Kamaal Rashid Khan}} be moved to {{subst:#if:|{{subst:linked|{{{2}}}}}|another page}}{{subst:#switch: project |user | USER = . Since you had some involvement with 'Kamaal Rashid Khan', you |#default = , which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You}} are invited to participate in [[{{subst:#if:|{{subst:#if:|#{{{section}}}|}}|{{subst:#if:|Talk:Kamaal Rashid Khan#{{{section}}}|{{subst:TALKPAGENAME:Kamaal Rashid Khan}}}}}}|the move discussion]]. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:31, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

More eyes at Vivek Agnihotri, please

If you are reading this, would you please add Vivek Agnihotri to your watchlist. I'm concerned about the general tone and shape of the article (flop, hit, reference bloat, etc), but I'm also concerned about the phrasing in the controversies section. I want to make sure that if each controversy is worth including, that it explains with clear syntax what the controversies were, and provides sufficient context, without drawing any conclusions or including unconscious editorials like "abused". Thank you. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:33, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

questions about medias in Sri Lanka

Could someone tell me the newspapers, TV channels, and magazines in Sri Lanka with high credibility? I am now working on Colombo Financial City in Chinese version, but I don't know how to find the trustworthy newspapers in Sri Lanka. Johnson.Xia (talk) 20:26, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Cleanup required

Recently created article Kumar Swami, a spiritual leader, needs cleanup. Please check the references and their quality. I do not know how to handle medical claims on dandruff treatment and diagnosis by voice. Regards,-Nizil (talk) 13:48, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

On my radar .... ∯WBG^converse 15:21, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Gandhi family

This is an absolutely terrible stub, mostly rambling on about names for Gandhi himself (it is not on the Nehru-Gandhi family, but Gandhi's own). But it gets over 900 views a day. It badly needs one of:

• • a) Turning into a proper article by adapting chunks from various bios
  • b) Redirecting to his bio
  • c) a disam page - no doubt most readers are looking for Nehru-Gandhi family

What best to do? Johnbod (talk) 04:56, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

I think a DAB is a good idea; an article for MK Gandhi's family is probably necessary, but its claim to being a primary topic is dubious. I might even suggest moving the current to some title with a DAB in the title, and redirecting the current title to Nehru-Gandhi family. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:21, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

I've moved the page to The family of Mahatma Gandhi. Much clearer. Whether this needs an article is, of course, debatable.--regentspark (comment) 01:14, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

That hardly solves the question! Unless there are more comments here I shall implement c) above for the original title, and redirect the new one to the bio, where there is some actual information on the subject. Johnbod (talk) 15:01, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Now see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The family of Mahatma Gandhi. Johnbod (talk) 06:15, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Long search for Gandhi images, public domain in US

Hey. As the header says, I'm still in a Long search for Gandhi images which are public domain in the US. So they need to be before 1936, not published in the US within 30 days after, and with an identifiable first place of publication.. OR perhaps government works.... any ideas? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 13:29, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Photographs taken in India in 1945 or earlier will of fallen out of Indian copyright by 1996 and so generally will not have US copyright. Many (but not all) of the photos at Category:Mohandas K. Gandhi in India look to be OK but lots have not been tagged as being free of US copyright even though they are. Also try at https://www.loc.gov/photos/?q=gandhi Thincat (talk) 17:10, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

They won't have copyright in India, but alas, the situation in the US is apparently far more complicated. None of those are PD. Tks. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 04:27, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Anything out of copyright (50 years after creation) in India by 1996 and which has not been published in US and registered for US copyright when first published will not have gone into copyright again.[10] Ask about particular cases at WP:MCQ and even copyright hardliners will accept that some (most?) are PD both in India and US. Thincat (talk) 08:39, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

I've now seen the difficulties at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bengal famine of 1943/archive4 and earlier. If you can show a photo was taken in India in 1945 or earlier it will have become PD in India by 1 January 1996. This may not be so difficult to demonstrate. However, if it was first published in US within 30 days of being published in India and if it was registered for copyright and its US copyright was renewed it will stay in US copyright until 95 years after publication. Otherwise it will be PD in US. Hence many will be PD in the US although it is (very) difficult to prove lack of US publication, registration and renewal (and I have only on one or two rare occasions attempted such a task and I don't think I have ever definitely succeeded). If taken (and presumably published) in 1924 or earlier I think a photo would pass close scrutiny. So looking at c:Category:Mohandas_K._Gandhi_in_1924 (and earlier) should be fruitful for earlier PD photos of Gandhi but not, of course, contemporary with the famine. Thincat (talk) 09:29, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Economic and Political Weekly

Anybody knows about searching their non-JSTOR archives for a part. text-string, not contained in title and/or abstract? ∯WBG^converse 05:55, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

@Gazal world:, can you help here? You have access to EPW. @Winged Blades of Godric: Can you tell which article do you need or what do you want to search in EPW archives? This might help Gazal world.-Nizil (talk) 14:13, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

@Nizil Shah: I think Winged Blades of Godric is asking about the article 'text searching' feature on EPW. The feature is not available there. We only search article title, author and other metadata. We can not search article text, as we can search on JSTOR and other paywall. --Gazal world (talk) 14:33, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Nizil Shah, I have (personal non-TWL) access to EPW, as well. Gazal World's answer is noted; thanks! ∯WBG^converse 15:31, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

ThePrint

If anyone would like to contribute for an article on ThePrint which is at Draft:ThePrint but has failed WP:AfC for claims dishonorable failure to satisfy WP:AFC reviewer ... mainly due lack of WP:COMPETENCY of most recent AfC submitter methinks, they are welcome to contribute. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 21:00, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Made a couple of changes. The editor seems competent enough. DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 12:01, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Djm-leighpark, a suggestion, remove this entire section "Notable stories".DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 12:04, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

...and you could also remove the "Criticism and Controversy" section. DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 12:14, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

I will work on the article and mainspace it. ∯WBG^converse 13:31, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

ThePrint is an important article as far as Indian media goes, will be glad to see it in the mainspace soon. DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 12:40, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Map

All political maps of India need update following creation of J&K UT and Ladakh UT. Followup to Talk:Jammu and Kashmir (union territory)#Map. -Nizil (talk) 05:33, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Cleanup

Markandey Katju needs complete rewrite. The article is a mess and filled with routine news coverage.-Nizil (talk) 06:01, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

FA Suggestions

Please have a look at Mahavira and share your views for FA. Thanks Capankajsmilyo^{(Talk | Infobox assistance)} 08:03, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Ayodhya dispute and Kartarpur corridor

Moved from User talk:DBigXray

Hey can you have a look at Kartarpur Corridor and Ayodhya dispute articles. Both have been nominated for front page. Need you to assess and correct any mistakes on the article. Sherenk1 (talk) 14:01, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

I am a bit busy in real life today and IMHO the articles can benefit more when more people look at it. so I have copied the note to here. --DBigXrayᗙ 11:53, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Lipulekh Pass

The page on Lipulekh Pass is suddenly seeing a burst of Nepalese editing activity today. I have no idea why. There is certainly kind of a border dispute there, but the exact status is unclear. Please keep a watch on this page. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:36, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Hmm, it seems that the newly released map of India after the Kashmir reorganization includes the Lipulekh Pass, a trijunction between India, Nepal and China and administered by Nepal, under Indian borders. This seems to have created an uproar in local Nepali media. DeluxeVegan (talk) 14:26, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

The page on Kalapani, Uttarakhand is also suffering the same fate. Something is really going on! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:41, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Found a reasonable source that describes the status of the dispute. And the Nepalese version of the dispute. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:50, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

The situation is quite the other way around. The ridge line that forms the watershed of the Kalapani River is under Indian administration. OpenStreetMap as well as Google Maps show this. The Lipulekh Pass is just above the source of Kalapani. If India concedes this territory to Nepal then Lipulekh would be shared between them. (It still doesn't become Nepalese.)

The Nepalese in the above link are claiming all the way up to Lampiyadhura (the next pass to the northwest). But the maps people aren't recognizing that claim. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:34, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

A CIA map of the borders of Nepal, 1965, shows the Kalapani territory as part of India

So, the cat is out of the bag today.

In a public statement issued in Nepali, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said, “The Nepal government is very clear that Kalapani is a Nepali territory and any unilateral move to alter the border demarcation is not acceptable.”

Any idea what "alteration" was done? As far as I have seen the border has been the same on Google maps ever since I first checked (around the time of the Doklam standoff). -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:43, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Found a map going back to 1965 that puts the Kalapani territory in India. There is a thin line shown along the Kalapani river, which could be just to show the river, or possibly a Nepalese claim line. Can't say. But the bold line clearly exposes the lie of "unilateral move to alter the border demarcation". The CIA was clearly led to believe that this border had been agreed. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:27, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Found a UN map of Nepal today [11]. It has the same borders as the CIA map above. Also, it is colour-coded. So we can tell that the "thin line" is just the Kalapani river; it is not any claim line. There is absolutely no controversy. The UN is not even marking it as a disputed territory.

A correct map showing the concave corner at Kalapani/Lipulekh

I also found that the Almora District Gazetteer (1911) states unequivocally:

The drainage area of the Kalapani lies wholly within British territory, but a short way below the [Kalapani] springs the Kali forms the boundary with Nepal.

So the British defined the Kali River as starting from the Kalapani springs (where the locals believed that a Kali temple was responsible for producing the waters). Above these springs they used the watershed as the boundary. That was in 1911. Nothing has changed since then.

Now, for the problems.

• The Nepalese editors have been going beserk since the uproar erupted a week ago, and adding the Nepalese claim of Lipulekh or Kalapani to all kinds of places. This is an example from today. We need more people to get involved to watch the pages and revert the POV edits.
• There seem to be POV maps of the border all over the place. A correct map should have a concave corner at the Lipulekh Pass (because that is the shape of the watershed). The POV maps have a convex corner (suggesting that the border is running along the Kalapani river, not the watershed). For example see Darchula district. The map at the top is the "official" Wikipedia map produced by a commons regular. The lower map is uploaded by a pro-Nepalese editor. The official map has a concave corner and the Nepalese version has a convex corner. The Nepalese have been seeing these wrong maps for years now, and when they see a correct map, they get upset that somebody has "unilaterally altered" their border. We need to crack down on this somehow. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:25, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

References

Peravurani

Could someone from this WikiProject take a look at Peravurani? There's been quite a lot of unsourced content added to it by a WP:SPA over the last few months, much which needed to be WP:REVDELeted as copyvios. Most likely the edits are being made in good faith, but perhaps much of what is being added falls under WP:NOTEVERYTHING, etc. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:21, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

National Pledge (India)

The article gives the text of the Pledge in various regional languages but doesn't cite a source, and I believe at least the Hindi and Sanskrit versions are not the "official" translations. I failed to find a source for the official translations; can someone here help, please? Huon (talk) 13:04, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Consistency issues

I have made comments at Talk:Sri Ganganagar district#Sri, Shri, or both. Interested parties please weigh in. Otr500 (talk) 19:13, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Cities and towns

I ran across Draft:Umali. This could be the start of village articles numbering around 649,481 (2018 census) so is there a reason these villages cannot be like named as Umali, India? Otr500 (talk) 20:53, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

@Otr500: Hi. Not sure what's 649,481. But regarding the names, the common practice is "Town, District" format. In case there are multiple towns in the same district with same name, then it goes "Town, Taluka". See: Deulgaon. —usernamekiran(talk) 21:31, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

649,481 would be the estimated number of villages in India, according to the 2018 census, therefore possibly the number of potential articles not counting those already created. If I would have seen a consistency of "Town, District" I might have gathered that.

Is this possibly a newer "common practice"? I understand when there is ambiguity such as Deulgaon. I saw List of cities in India by population (300 cities), List of cities in India by population List of cities and towns in Kerala, List of cities and towns in Goa, List of cities in Gujarat by population, List of cities and towns in Tripura, List of cities in Maharashtra, and Maharashtra#Regions, divisions and districts.

I found a few as mentioned (Town, District), Aurangabad, Maharashtra, Jalna, Maharashtra, Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh, Paravur, Kollam, Dharmavaram, Anantapur district, and Jamalpur, Bihar, some exceptions like Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh (city/state), Guna, India (city/country).

As for villages: List of cities in India by population shows four sub-districts. Out of the first three there are 104 "Town/District" out of 445 or 23%. I would normally expect that a well known city might be listed just under the city name, and some under city/country, but it appears there is no project mandate. It seems the majority are listed just under city or village names. Otr500 (talk) 06:25, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Uniform format for infobox of Kashmir-related first-order division articles

(left) The UT/CIA map in the infobox of Kashmir (right) The updated map showing the new subdivisions.

@Gotitbro, Vanamonde93, DeluxeVegan, Titodutta, Uanfala, Kautilya3, Johnuniq, Doug Weller, Lingzhi2, Moonraker, Saqib, RegentsPark, Abecedare, SpacemanSpiff, Joe Roe, PakEditor, Cordyceps-Zombie, and RaviC: Sorry to be pinging you all the time, but I have created the same infobox format of map and images for all the disputed sub-regions of Kashmir. View the formats at Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Azad Kashmir. (The fifth, Aksai Chin, administered by China, I will get to tomorrow.) I have removed all insinuations of sovereignty such as emblems, seals, and anthems. All have the University of Texas/CIA map of Kashmir that has been in the Kashmir infobox for upward of a dozen years, which I have updated. They each have only two pictures in the infobox. No more. Please help in preserving this format. I believe it is NPOV, and if preserved, it will go a long way in reducing the POV-promotion in Kashmir-related articles. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:03, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

• You know, I see people editing, and I don't always understand the nuances of what they are doing. for that reason, I haven't been reverting anyone much... I did revert one edit that seemed spurious. In time I will catch on. Thanks for all your hard work! ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 08:08, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @Lingzhi2: The old and updated maps are displayed on the left. It is now time for me to go to bed! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:13, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
• Wow, that's a lot of work, thanks Fowler&fowler. Johnuniq (talk) 08:46, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

A very clear map fowler. The entire history of the area since the mid-19th century is clearly presented. Thanks! --regentspark (comment) 16:27, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Sorry to be late, but that's very good work. Doug Weller talk 12:41, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Help with a merge

Hey, can I get help with the following articles up for merging:

• Jyoti Raju
• Jyothi Raj

They are most likely about the same person and should be merged. I am not sure which spelling of the name should be used. Please respond at Talk:Jyothi_Raj#Merge. --Hecato (talk) 17:08, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Vivek Agnihotri : NPOV

As I have specified in the talk page, this biography of a living person is full of NPOV statements. It reads like a long chewing out of an individual. There needs to be some neutrality reintroduced and encyclopedic content put back in this article. Can someone help with a consensus (on talk page) to put the NPOV tag on this article? Rabbabodrool (talk) 04:52, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Kamal Mustafa (filmmaker) work about Pakistan-India conflict

Anyone interested in his biography+work about Pakistan-India conflict may see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kamal Mustafa (filmmaker). Give your suggestions. Thanks. Störm (talk) 13:25, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Are views of Dayananda Saraswati fringe?

Please comment on Talk:Swaminarayan_Sampraday#Request_for_comment.— Harshil ^{want to talk?} 15:01, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

List of districts of Tamil Nadu

Please see Talk:List of districts of Tamil Nadu#Map in infobox needs updating. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:54, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Even the government of Tamil Nadu which is responsible for this hasn't completed the task! I don't know why we allow all these updates to happen on the basis of announcements. (I'm not referring to your map request, but the updates to the various articles in general). —SpacemanSpiff 03:00, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@SpacemanSpiff: Yup. I made the request based on an email. I know nothing about it myself. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:13, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ustad Ghulam Mohammed Khan

Hello, fellow Wikipedians. Please help us at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ustad Ghulam Mohammed Khan if anyone is interested. Störm (talk) 12:17, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Panjab University categories

The Panjab University, Chandigarh article was moved to Panjab University after a move discussion in June 2016 (see here). I have created new categories accordingly, but the older ones are still here: Category:Panjab University, Chandigarh, Category:Panjab University, Chandigarh alumni, and Category:Panjab University, Chandigarh faculty. So WP:C2D applies here. As of now, I have soft redirected them to their new titles, as it seems like a better choice due to similar named universities (see Punjab University). But then again, I hardly know anything about categories. Maybe we should just delete the older one. Any thoughts? - NitinMlk (talk) 15:24, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

WP:CFD should be used for category renames. —SpacemanSpiff 01:53, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

The present case clearly meets one of criteria of WP:CFDS, namely WP:C2D. So I guess the proper forum would have been Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy. Had it been the case of WP:CFD, I would've surely discussed it there first. Having said that, in this case as well, I should've listed the three cats at WP:CFDS. And I will surely list such cases at CFDS in the future. BTW, thanks for the guidance. - NitinMlk (talk) 19:12, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Keep eye on this user

Rishabh.rsd is pushing too high Jain POV in Jainism related articles. He is adding names like Shri, Bhagwan, Lord and God even after I had warned him multiple times not to do so as it is violation of WP:NPOV under WP:HONORIFIC and WP:NCIN. He did here, here, here and POV push. If possible then to impose topic ban on Jainism will be enough for this user because he is mostly pushing high POV in all of his articles and his contributions outside this topic is zero. Pinging @Winged Blades of Godric and El C:.-- Harshil ^{want to talk?} 15:30, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

This could fall under WP:ARBIND, not sure though. Anyone more familiar enough with discretionary sactions to know? If so, give them the standard DS warning and if it continues, use the enforcement process. Alternatively, take it to WP:ANI if they continue after enough warning messages and invitations to discuss. Ravensfire (talk) 20:26, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

@Ravensfire: I’m not sure even. If someone knows then they should start procedure. Definitely, he’s WP:NOTHERE to build encyclopaedia. I already gave DS notice to him. — Harshil ^{want to talk?} 03:28, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

I have nothing to add or subtract about the scope of the discretionary sanctions; however, I am perplexed by the three examples of Jain POV promotion by @Rishabh.rsd: offered by @Harshil169: in the first post of this thread. In the first place, does it not seem a little secretive, if not also paternalistic, to have a thread in a public forum such as WT:INDIA to be titled "Keep an eye on ..." and for its inaugural post to begin with {{noping|Rishabh.rsd}}? In the second place, how many gratuitous applications of "Lord" or "Goddess" in the naming of deities of Hinduism would you like me to ferret out on Wikipedia? Hundreds, thousands? Here is just the tip of the iceberg: Goddess Lakshmi,Lord Rama, Lord Krishna, Goddess Kali. I'm not saying that the behavior of the Rishabh.rsd does not warrant our concern, but do the examples offered in the first post justify jumping to talking about topic bans? He's made a thousand edits in the last year. With such a slowpoke history, how much POV promotion can he have done? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:30, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I’ll recommend you to read their talk page. They use sources which have been rejected by mainstream scholarships. And it’s not DE to use word like Lord unknowingly but after given warning, to add such prefixes should be avoided. Specifically, adding such claims to mix mythology with history, making pages like Anti-Jain sentiments which attacks one organisation is not NPOV. — Harshil ^{want to talk?} 03:57, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I had already read his talk page. Most warnings have been given by you. On a number of those pages, you had no prior history of editing, only one of reverting his edits. On one, Rishabha (Hinduism), you were quick to revert his edits, but let stand "Lord Shiva" in the lead. This is not adding up for me.Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:27, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Tahnks for pointing out. I had removed it. — Harshil ^{want to talk?} 06:15, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Does Jainism Fall under DS ARBIPA

This could fall under WP:ARBIND, not sure though. Anyone more familiar enough with discretionary sactions to know? If so, give them the standard DS warning and if it continues, use the enforcement process. Alternatively, take it to WP:ANI if they continue after enough warning messages and invitations to discuss. Ravensfire (talk) 20:26, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

@Ravensfire: I’m not sure even. If someone knows then they should start procedure. Definitely, he’s WP:NOTHERE to build encyclopaedia. I already gave DS notice to him. — Harshil ^{want to talk?} 03:28, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Dear Admins, @Vanamonde93, Titodutta, Doug Weller, RegentsPark, Abecedare, and SpacemanSpiff: I disagree with User:Ravensfire and I dont think Jainism articles fall under WP:ARBIND. Please confirm this or correct me if I am mistaken. regards--DBigXrayᗙ 18:30, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

@DBigXray: Jainism being a religion that theoretically has no regional limits, not everything related to Jainism necessarily falls under ARBIND. However, the history of Jainism has taken place in locations covered by ARBIPA; therefore, it is a good guess that the vast majority of Jainism-related topics do fall under those discretionary sanctions. In short, they do not automatically fall under DS, but statistically speaking they are likely to (indeed, the same logic applies to Hinduism and Buddhism, perhaps to a slightly lesser degree, as those religions have longer histories outside South Asia). Vanamonde (Talk) 18:35, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Holy cow, This is disturbing info, but it is good to know to save one's ass. Vanamonde thx --DBigXrayᗙ 18:46, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Where's the conflict that would make these fall under DS? Doug Weller talk 19:25, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Vanamonde, User:Doug Weller Doug has a point. An answer will be helpful. It seems one has to file an appeal just to check if some of these topics can be under DS/IPA or not. --DBigXrayᗙ 16:25, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@DBigXray: I didn't see Doug Weller's comment, and I didn't realize there was a question directed at me. I'm still not sure there is; Doug, could you clarify? AFAICS anything in the general realm of Indian history comes under ARBIPA; and that includes most Jain history. That just goes to show that the scope of ARBIPA is huge, and maybe should never have been that big; but that's a different story. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:31, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• Clarification: The original ARBIPA sanctions were related to dispute areas, but it was subsequently modified in 2012 to "all pages relating to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan". I was one of those that opposed it at that time, but see the discussion at the bottom between arbs NYB and KL. —SpacemanSpiff 18:12, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

  Ah that makes sense, thanks Spiff. Just goes to show that I'm a spring chicken compared to you and Doug. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:24, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• User:SpacemanSpiff thanks for the clarification. The talk among arbs (one of them lawyer) is still legalese to me.

1. Does this really mean "ALL" articles that have WP:INDIA tag are under DS ?

2. does that mean Nagraj (comics) is also under DS ?

3. Can someone please elaborate what this means "on non-controversial pages they shouldn't have any effect, but can be applied broadly and quickly in case of flare-ups" --DBigXrayᗙ 18:47, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

All articles that can reasonably be construed to fall under India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, can be placed under discretionary sanctions, they are not so automatically. In case of a flare up on Nagraj (comics), it may be placed under discretionary sanctions if enforcing admin(s) evaluate the issue and think it is required, that is also the import of "on non-controversial pages they shouldn't have any effect, but can be applied broadly and quickly in case of flare-ups". —SpacemanSpiff 19:00, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure this is correct. "Placing" an article under discretionary sanctions usually just means an admin posting a note saying that this article is covered under discretionary sanctions. It is covered, irrespective of whether that is done or not. I have never seen an WP:AE case being turned down on the grounds that an article hasn't been "placed" under discretionary sanctions. If there are enough references to India, Indian places or Indian people in the article, it usually goes through. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:26, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

That's more an issue of semantics. Articles fall within the scope of discretionary sanctions automatically; but sanctions on editors based on their behavior at those articles, and restrictions on articles themselves, are placed at administrator discretion. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:31, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

I wasn't involved in any of this and I'm afraid I was thinking of the earlier sanctions, not the amendment. It's ARBPIA that is restricted to conflict areas, and I think that was a mistake. Doug Weller talk 20:06, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

My understanding is similar to that of Spiff. Any page that refers to India, Pakistan or Afghanistan can come under the remit of standard discretionary sanctions but actual sanctions can be applied on an editor only if either they've been warned of the existence of the sanctions or if the page has a clear notice of sanctions (as in various Kashmir conflict articles). In both cases, that is done at the discretion of an uninvolved administrator. --regentspark (comment) 21:35, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Ok, got it. I didn't know that people could be sanctioned even without being personally notified. It must be rare. Can I also have your view on whether these pages fall under ARBIND for notified editors:

• California textbook controversy over Hindu history and
• Madheshi people?

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:33, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: There has been some lack of clarity in past decisions about whether DS are authorized for pages, or for content; but I believe in recent years the trend has been to assume that some pages fall entirely within the scope of a DS regime, whereas more peripherally related pages are partially covered by DS; for instance, on Tulsi Gabbard, I would argue that the portions about her relationship with Modi are covered by ARBIPA, but nothing else. I think the pages you linked would be treated similarly. If this came up at ARCA, I'm quite certain ARBCOM would take the same view; but others may disagree. Vanamonde (Talk) 00:11, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I have split the thread as there are 2 separate topics discussed here and the one On DS is important enough to merit a seperate thread to be visible in the archives.--DBigXrayᗙ 08:19, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

thanks all for sharing your thoughts, this thread has turned out to be very useful in understanding the scope of ARBIND. One final question on procedure. Assume there are 2 editors X and Y both have DS/IPA alert posted on their talk page recently since they edited Kashmir. Now they had a content dispute on Nagraj (comics). Nagraj (comics) currently does not have an ARBIND banner on the talk page. X is misbehaving and also has a history of misbehavior. Can Y take X to WP:ARE ? or does an admin first needs to slap a DS banner on the article talk page.--DBigXrayᗙ 08:19, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

DBigXray, a talk page banner is not necessary in that case. However, I would not do anything on DS if this is an isolated incident. However, if the two have been disruptive in other areas, and are continuing that dispute in this article, then I would not hesitate to take action. Different admins may feel differently, that's why the sanctions are "discretionary". —SpacemanSpiff 11:44, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

National Council for Human Resource in Health in India

I've updated the National Council for Human Resource in Health in India article to reflect recent developments. However, I'm still not sure I've got all this straight, since the reporting is quite confusing on this issue. Can someone with knowledge of medical regulation in India please check this, and the other related articles on this subject, as the whole issue seems to be in flux? -- The Anome (talk) 10:52, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Error in SVG maps of Punjab state districts

Namaste/Satsriakal
This is to bring to notice that there is an inadvertant error in below file on left. Easy mistake due to names. Names for numbers 19 and 21 need to be swapped. 19 is SBS Nagar and 21 is SAS Nagar. This error has also crept into different language translations.

Numbers 19 and 21 incorrect

Correct names

Trust that is helpful - Jazze7 (talk) 13:04, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Iffy edits by IPv6

Please see Special:Contributions/2409:4041:268C:96D1:D024:B3FF:FEC8:1939/32 for numerous, minor spammy or vandalism edits to Indianin the last day or two, for example this or this, or not so minor, like this; about half of them to Indian topics, the other half not. Mathglot (talk) 21:45, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Follow up at AIV. Mathglot (talk) 22:38, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Moved to WT:AIV § Question about procedure re IPv6 reports

INX Media case

Can someone update the recent developments regarding case in the article? It’s not being updated since September and I’ve no details of all updates.— Harshil ^{want to talk?} 12:55, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Our hon' former finance minister is out of Tihar after 105 days... I've updated that part at least. DTM (talk) 06:19, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Gita Jayanti

The article contains BS. It confuses history with mythology and lacks critical commentary. I’m going to clean this article. If someone wants to help then they’re invited to do so. — Harshil ^{want to talk?} 05:35, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

@Harshil169: You are quite correct, but it's worth noting that this is a very common problem in religion articles in general, and articles related to Hindu deities in particular; they attract a very large number of believers who are unable to distinguish the two when building content. I came across Radha just yesterday; it has the same problem. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:03, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

@Harshil169: In rewriting the article, please note (which you might already have done) that the date of the composition of the Gita is much discussed in a section of the Bhagavad Gita page. Therefore, it is important, if we are not to create a WP:Content fork, to make this article about a modern observance. The notion of celebrating Gita Day seems to go back to the beginnings of Hindu revivalism in the 19th century at least to the first half of the 20th century, mentioned, for example, in this book published in 1940 (it mistakenly says 1860). You will, of course, need modern reliable sources that attest. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:18, 6 December 2019 (UTC) Updated. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:57, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

PS Off the top of my head now: an aspect of that revivalism was the creation of the Gita as the Hindu version of the Bible or Qu'ran, and for Hindus, belonging to a speculative, freewheeling, religion, to also be people of The Book. This notion had spread far and wide, appearing in Hindu outposts, such as Trinidad. Naipaul mentions this in the last chapter of Enigma of Arrival. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:23, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Buddhism in India, and its history

There is a requested move here, for which everyone's input is needed. Thanks.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 09:16, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

RfD notification: List of Scheduled Castes

Hello, your opinion would be welcome at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2019 December 6#List of Scheduled Castes. List of Scheduled Castes was once a proper list, but was redirected a few years ago, and it doesn't seem we have such a list elsewhere. --BDD (talk) 14:33, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Capitalization of 'taluk' in article names

Apologies if this has been discussed before, but I notice that in some article titles "taluk" is not capitalized (Madurai-North taluk, Madurantakam taluk) while in others it is (Paravur Taluk, Athani Taluk). It seems like the capitalization should be made consistent, and my understanding from previous discussions of WP:NCCAPS is that "taluk" should probably be lowercase (compare how e.g. Pathanamthitta District et al were moved to Pathanamthitta district et al, US "At-large district" articles were moved, etc). Anyone want to weigh in? -sche (talk) 00:50, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Is Padma Shri a major award?

There are two deletion requests under discussion at the moment where the basic question is if Padma Shri is a major award, according notability to a person per WP:ANYBIO. The two discussions are Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/P. B. Buckshey and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vijay Prakash Singh. My own personal opinion is that Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award of a country of 1.35 billion people is a major one. I am posting this note here as both the articles are of interest from a WikiProject India perspective.--jojo@nthony (talk) 13:22, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Tachs, it's damn major/reputed and being conferred with the award, is almost always a de-facto indicator of notability. ∯WBG^converse 15:41, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

You should add Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anil Kumar Bhalla to this list as well. To a degree all three have been set as test precedents. Thankyou.Djm-leighpark (talk) 23:05, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Another one, too, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kalyan Banerjee (homoeopath), which also is likely to follow P. B. Buckshey. It is a pity that democracy of numbers is taking precedence over better judgment. --jojo@nthony (talk) 10:55, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

• Agree As I have argued at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anil Kumar Bhalla, I believe that receiving the Padma Shri means that a person meets WP:ANYBIO. I don't agree that it is the equivalent of the OBE, as some have argued in the AfDs mentioned. The Padma Shri is the fourth highest civilian award in a country of 1.35 billion people, and a total of 2840 Padma Shri awards have been made in its 65 year history, roughly 44 per year. The OBE is the fourth highest class of the Order of the British Empire - there are 3 levels of civilian awards in the UK that are higher than the highest class of the Order of the British Empire, so the OBE is about 7th in order of precedence (under royals, etc). Going on the 2019 Queens Birthday Honours List (and remembering that there is also the New Year's Honours List), over 500 OBEs are awarded each year, and over 250 CBEs (the 3rd highest class of the Order of the British Empire). The Padma Shri is more exclusive than either, especially considering the respective populations of the UK and India. It should definitely be considered to confer notability.

Another argument has been made that the Padma Shri is awarded due to the Old boy network. The same could be said about the UK awards of Barons/Baronesses, Knights of the Garter and Knights of the Thistle, and Baronets, and probably CBEs too, and awards in other fields like the Academy Awards. We have a notability guideline that recognises "a well-known and significant award or honor" - it does not require us to determine whether that award was deserved and given on merit, or because of who the person went to school with or how much they donated to a political party. That gets into the realm of WP:OR. RebeccaGreen (talk) 08:10, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Please keep an eye on this page

Please keep an eye on this page - The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 - and help expand/clean as per policy. DTM (talk) 10:49, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Caravan

Anybody with a Caravan Subscription, who can help me get this piece? ∯WBG^converse 12:27, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

• Got this. FWIW, I am having a subscription to The Caravan and if anybody wishes to use any of their pay-walled sources over our articles, feel free to ping me. ∯WBG^converse 16:18, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't know this magazine. It is a weekly or monthly? Is this the same Caravan that has been singled out along with the Wire in Dexter Filkins article to appear in the New Yorker on Monday? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:30, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

fowler There is only one caravan (this linked above) that I know of, in the business of news. It is monthly.--DBigXrayᗙ 21:00, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't see the link. I vaguely remembered an old magazine. It was apparently relaunched in 2010 according to the link. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:28, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

My personal opinion, "The Caravan" comes out with some really good stuff! DTM (talk) 10:51, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

article title

Jha Sanjay was previously at Sanjay Jha (speaker). I don't believe it was validly moved as the name used within the article is still "Sanjay Jha". Could someone confirm the correct title. Thanks. MB 05:41, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

MB, Meh... This person is controversial politician not speaker. Person who created article also uploaded multiple images of him commons which are under deletion now. Most of his claims were just WP:PEAcocky and I did some cleanup+addition in the Article. I will move it to politician. Someone with COI created this article for sure. Harshil ^{want to talk?} 16:10, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Creator asked at Help Desk how to move it back to the (speaker) title. I see you are watching/reverting as necessary. MB 17:36, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

@MB: creator is blocked under NOTHERE and COI editing. — Harshil ^{want to talk?} 18:20, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

@Harshil169 and MB: I don't have any knowledge about the subject, but, from the present state of the article, he seems like a spokesperson, rather than a politician. I mean, did he ever contest in any election? BTW, if the articles of spokespersons are generally disambiguated as "politician" at this project, then I guess the present title is correct. - NitinMlk (talk) 20:08, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

@NitinMlk: before my cleanup, article was about his so called motivational career and superfluous claims of eloquent speaker. He is politician. — Harshil ^{want to talk?} 22:16, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

New bot to remove completed infobox requests

Hello! I have recently created a bot to remove completed infobox requests and am sending this message to Noticeboard for India-related topics since the project currently has a backlogged infobox request category. Details about the task can be found at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PearBOT 2, but in short it removes all infobox requests from articles with an infobox, once a week. To sign up, reply with {{ping|Trialpears}} and tell me if any special considerations are required for the Wikiproject. For example: if only a specific infobox should be detected, such as {{infobox journal}} for WikiProject Academic Journals; or if an irregularly named infobox such as {{starbox begin}} should be detected. Feel free to ask if you have any questions!

Sent on behalf of Trialpears (talk) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:34, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Template talk:Infobox film#Indian films: How to format writing credits and music credits?

Hi all, we've been kind of tip-toeing around this issue for a while in Indian film articles, so I thought it was time to open a larger discussion about how we should format writing credits and music credits in the infobox, given that Indian films often have a "dialogues" credit for writers, and often use the |music= parameter to indicate who wrote the film's songs, even though the field is typically intended for the film's score. Your input is encouraged at Template talk:Infobox film#Indian films: How to format writing credits and music credits?. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:51, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Requested move

There is a requested move at Talk:Modern Sub Machine Carbine that would benefit from your opinion. Please come and help! PI Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 17:00, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Extent of "Bengal"

Architecture of Bengal, a mainly historical article, begins: "The architecture of Bengal, which comprises the modern country of Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Tripura, Assam's Barak Valley,...". This seems an excessive area to claim to me, not that I'm any expert. Might adding "parts of" before Bihar, or elsewhere, help? Thoughts? Johnbod (talk) 21:53, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

@Johnbod: Well they seem to be using an expansive definition of Bengal, viz. the Bengal province ca 1860–1900. See File:Pope1880BengalPres2.jpg. While you are here, could I ask for a big favor? Could you please add the correct UK PD permission to the file? Apparently, it is not PD-UK. Thanks. PS Before the British, the Mughal suba (province) of Bengal did include large parts of Bihar and Orissa, though not Assam. I'm not sure what the precedent is in art history though. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:05, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

There should be no special definition for art, I think. I'm inclined to just cut Bihar & Orissa as more wrong than right. I suppose language is the best guide here. I've added the PD-UK-unknown to the cms file - we apparently don't have a tag for UK PD stuff where the author is known! Commons is mad. Johnbod (talk) 23:06, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what was confounding me. Thanks! Back to Bengal: it is probably best to keep Bengal = East Bengal (Bangladesh) + West Bengal (a state in India), ... (now free-associating to give an idea by usage) ... = the deltaic region of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, in which they speak the Bengali language, where Bhatiyalis and the songs of the bauls are heard and sung, the lands in which the Bengal famine of 1943 struck, as did the Great Bengal Famine 150 years earlier. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:56, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Request eyes on Gol Gumbaz

The Gol Gumbaz article has seen a fair amount of IP vandalism recently. I think I've fixed it now, but I know little about the subject. If more knowledgeable people would be so kind as to keep an eye on it and quickly revert any vandalism, I would appreciate it. If it gets too bad, I'd support page protection. HLHJ (talk) 17:37, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Vandalism-reverting

Before you make an edit, please ensure that you have reverted any previous vandalism. All edits without edit summaries are candidates for reversion, especially if they have a references removed tag. If you make further edits without doing this, other editors will be entitled to revert your edit along with the vandalism, unless it is easy to separate the two. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:29, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Kayastha

Need some eyes at Kayastha and Chitraguptavanshi Kayastha during the holiday season. Usual caste-cruft backed by poor sources, by a single user. It's appalling that article that receives an average 700+ hits daily managed to have this lead listing Vedah.net, Kamat.com, Hindunet.org etc. as sources, for several days. utcursch | talk 16:06, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

@Utcursch: Would you like me to semi it? If so, tell me for how long. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 20:37, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protection won't help as the SPA involved has been here for quite some time. Anyways, this is getting more eyes at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#User:Utcursch reported by User:Nikhil Srivastava (Result: ). utcursch | talk 21:36, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Shamsheer Vayalil (Parambath) name question

At Talk:Shamsheer Vayalil#Shamsheer or Vayalil or Parambath?, I've a question about the subject's name, if someone could have a look. Thanks. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 12:46, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

U. R. Krishnan

Hello colleagues. Is there anyone familiar with Indian politician U. R. Krishnan and would you be willing to help enhance and improve the article about him? Thanks very much. Dr42 (talk) 08:12, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Attack page

Can some admin delete User:Jaswindermehra13 page? It just contains transliterated Punjabi language curse words. I have CSDed it, but only a Punjabi/Hindi speaking admin will be able to understand the meaning of its content. BTW, the page was created by a newbie who is indulging in disruptive editing at mali/Saini-related articles. - NitinMlk (talk) 22:04, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

The page creator was a sock of Punjabier, not a newbie: see here. - NitinMlk (talk) 21:15, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Lists of notable people in articles about places

If X is an article about a city, town, district or other administrative unit, it's bound to have a section called "Notable people", usually listing a fair number of people. These sections tend to attract a great number of edits, mostly from IPs, that add:

1. entries for non-notable people (by far the most common type of addition)
2. entries for possibly maybe notable people without articles on wikipedia (common)
3. entries for people with articles who are not from X but some place associated with X (e.g. if X is a city, the entry will be for someone who's not from X but from somewhere else in X district)
4. entries for people that are actually and verifiably from X (rare)
5. entries for people from completely different parts of the country.

The vast majority of edits are not constructive, and among the ones that are there's always the added burden of locating the article (not always linked, with the difficulty compounded by the existence of spelling variants), and verifying the entry is correct (laborious due to the the commonplace absence of relevant information in the respective article).

The net result is that these lists take massive amounts of editor time to police, which is out of proportion to to their marginal encyclopedic value. Do we really need those lists? – Uanfala (talk) 15:02, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Hello, Uanfala. This is part of a bigger problem: for relevance, see Talk:List of people from Punjab, India#Need clarity regarding the article's title and scope. I mean when we say that "notable people from X place", we all have different definition of "from". And when we don't have clarity regarding the inclusion criteria, then these types of subsections/lists are impossible to manage. So I guess we can have two choices here. First one can be to remove such lists from the articles of X places, and limit the entries to the relevant list articles. But that's not a solution. Other option can be to set an unambiguous definition of "from", and restrict the entries in relevant lists/subsections accordingly. This option is workable, provided we can have a consensus regarding the criteria of inclusion. But I guess it would be quite challenging to develop such criteria. - NitinMlk (talk) 18:08, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Uanfala NitinMlk I am aware of the problem. However I would like to keep this info in location articles. It has been helpful for me as a reader. How about we consider the meaning of "from" as broadly construed. And a name be allowed as long as a RS is provided that helps verify that he is from the city. --DBigXrayᗙ 18:59, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

DBigXray, what is your definition of "from" as broadly construed? BTW, if there is some clarity regarding the inclusion criteria then I don't have any problem from their inclusion. - NitinMlk (talk) 19:05, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

My definition of from = If The person is born there, or has lived there (any years). Basically if a reliable source identifies him from a place then he fits the criteria.--DBigXrayᗙ 19:08, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Your criteria has some good inclusion points, but please carefully go through the following discussion: Talk:List of people from Punjab, India#Need clarity regarding the article's title and scope. That will help you to see flaws in your criteria. And maybe it will also help you to improve your inclusion criteria. And I will respond tomorrow. :) NitinMlk (talk) 19:16, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

NitinMlk Thanks for posting the link again. I did go through the thread, (first half completely and the last half cursorily). I still believe that my position is unchanged, we should just go by what the source says and use it inclusively in case of any dispute if the name is merited in the list or not. --DBigXrayᗙ 09:31, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

OK. Let's wait for input from others. - NitinMlk (talk) 16:08, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't like these lists but they're not going to go away. Given that, I don't see much of an alternative to what DBigXray says. If it is resonably sourced, let it stay. If not, toss it out. Along with the notability caveat and the easiest way to judge notability is to see if we have an article on the person. So, source + article = stay. --regentspark (comment) 22:58, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

But if we manage to get enough people who don't like them, then we can be in a position to make them all go away, like we did with the Indic scripts, no? – Uanfala (talk) 23:24, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't see them as the same. With this it's a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, which was not the case with indic scripts. As long as we can define the criteria clearly, I don't see any substantive reason to exclude the lists. --regentspark (comment) 00:18, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Indic scripts were voted out because editors believed the effort involved in policing them didn't match their encyclopedic value. That's exactly the same situation here. We've got content that is almost always incomplete, very often inaccurate, arguably of little to no value to the encyclopedia and invariably the target of anonymous editing that siphons off a lot of editor time to look after. – Uanfala (talk) 00:35, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

RegentsPark thanks for pointing the "having his bio article" requirement, I missed to add that. Uanfala I disagree with the above assertion and also disagree that it is same situation. There is no point in discussing Indic script here. About the list, I am regularly patrolling the Indian city/geo articles and I know that the requirement that "this notable subject must have his own article" is a very broad net that scoops up most of the promo edits. A notable subject that has its own article is always significantly covered and the sources do mention the city he is "from". Anyway the WP:BURDEN here lies with the person adding the name in the list, so if he adds the name without including a RS that confirms it, you are within your rights to revert him asking to redo with an RS that says so. --DBigXrayᗙ 10:07, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

• If there isn't a consensus to delete such lists, then only other option left is to fix them. DBigXray, one of your inclusion criteria is that if a person "has lived there (any years)", then they are "from" there. I guess "any years" mean at least one year. But this criterion is untenable and will make these lists look fatuous. I have just looked at the articles of three Gandhis, and as per this criterion, Mahatma Gandhi seems like "from" places like London, Durban, Johannesburg, New Delhi, Champaran, different parts of Gujarat, etc. Similarly, Rahul Gandhi seems from Delhi, Florida, Cambridge, London, etc. And Rajiv Gandhi seems from Delhi, Dehradun, Cambridge, London, Mumbai, etc. But when we state that someone is from X place, I guess we normally mean that they hail from there, or have spent a considerable amount of early life there, which in turn may have an impact on their remaining life. Anyway, this particular criterion needs to be either amended or discarded. - NitinMlk (talk) 19:56, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

NitinMlk, You seem to have read a line and jumped on it and wrote an entire para. You forgot that it is not us editors who will decide (by looking at the no of years), if the person X is from Y, We leave that to RS. If you want to state X is from Y in an article, you will still need a reliable source that states that. If an RS states that X is from Y, then the name is justified to be in the list.--DBigXrayᗙ 20:08, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

DBigXray, in that case, we don't need this criterion, as your main criterion – i.e., "if a reliable source identifies him from a place then he fits the criteria" – will take care of it. BTW, I am not jumping on anything; rather I want to set the inclusion criteria straight. - NitinMlk (talk) 20:20, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

NitinMlk, Yes and as RP reminded us above, we also have a criteria of the subject having his own bio. All these combined takes care of the problem to a large extent. My line where I said, that if a person "has lived there (any years)" was basically a clarification, if a dispute arises that a Subject is mentioned from A as well as B in different RSes, In those cases, we are not supposed to count the years etc, but inclusively mention the name at both places, since we have an RS to back it up. --DBigXrayᗙ 20:38, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. - NitinMlk (talk) 20:41, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

• Based on the suggestions so far, I guess the inclusion criteria is that the subject:

a) should have a WP article, and

b) should either born at the place in question, or a reliable source should mention that they are from there.

@DBigXray and RegentsPark:, am I right regarding the above points? BTW, if the participants develop consensus regarding the inclusion criteria, then we can mention that under a subsection at Wikipedia:WikiProject India#Project guidelines. That will surely help in maintaining these lists.

Uanfala, as can be seen from a simple search, the List of people from X exist globally. So their removal would require a discussion at a much bigger forum, e.g. village pump. And I guess a majority of people will most probably oppose the removal of such a huge number of lists. So it seems the better solution here is to set a clear inclusion criteria for India-related lists. - NitinMlk (talk) 21:32, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

b) A reliable source establishes that the subject was born there or was from that city.

Tweaked b to clarify that a source is needed in both cases. Sounds good to be added in the criteria.--DBigXrayᗙ Happy Holidays! 22:51, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Raghava Lawrence - Telugu interpretation help requested

Hi all, could I please trouble someone for help with a verification of content in Telugu? Someone has indicated that in this NTV interview, (it's a verified channel) at around 14:00, Raghava Lawrence talks about his family origin. The issue is about whether or not he is Telugu or Tamil. He was born in Tamil Nadu, so my default assumption would be that he was Tamil, but that's not always the case, obviously and I'm trying to manage some back-and-forth editing at his article. And if anyone can find a clearer reference on this, I'd appreciate it. I haven't been successful. Thank you! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 14:02, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Pinging on this. Can anyone point me to an active Telugu-speaking editor who I can ask to look at this? Thanks. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 20:48, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

He runs an old age home and the plight of an old woman, abandoned by her son, moved him. Most of the interview, where he spoke about his personal life, was about the experiences he faced at the old age home. That's all what i could infer from the interview. And regarding his lineage, all i could know was Poovirundhavali in Tamil Nadu is his father's hometown (through an article in The Hindu). Veera Narayana 05:35, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#Citizenship_Amendment_Act_protests

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#Citizenship_Amendment_Act_protests. DBigXrayᗙ Happy Holidays! 10:56, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Also some more eyes at Citizenship Amendment Act protests will be helpful to keep vandalism and POV at bay. --DBigXrayᗙ Happy Holidays! 11:18, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Uttar_Pradesh_Police_are_threatening_legal_action_against_vandals_for_defacing_their_Wiki_page

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Uttar_Pradesh_Police_are_threatening_legal_action_against_vandals_for_defacing_their_Wiki_page. Happy Holidays! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 10:20, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Do I Exist: A Riddle

Hello. The article Do I exist: A riddle, a short film by Mumbai filmmaker Dhruva Harsh, has been nominated for deletion (not by me). I don't know much about this film and have found only a few English-language sources about it (examples here and here), and it looks like it's been chosen for a number of international film festivals. I'm trying to get a sense of whether it meets Wikipedia's notability standards, and am wondering if there are other reliable sources out there, perhaps not in the English langauge, that could establish its notability. But I'm not sure the best way to go about finding such sources. Would anyone here know a good place to look? — Hunter Kahn 14:48, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Sonny Mehta

I have nominated Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#Sonny_Mehta this RD. If anyone can update the article and reflect their views then it would be better.-- Harshil ^{want to talk?} 14:58, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Onam being changed from Secular to Hindu Festival

@Kautilya3, Vanamonde93, RegentsPark, Winged Blades of Godric, Sitush, Abecedare, Tamravidhir, Doug Weller, SpacemanSpiff, Titodutta, and Fowler&fowler:

Hi All, in the past few days, several POV edits have been made to this article (For example This diff), to portray this as a Hindu festival even though it is a secular festival celebrated by all religions (Hindus, Muslims as well as Christians) of Kerala.

References

Few days back an IP posted a message on my talk page stating "BJP-RSS propaganda in Onam article to make it more Hindu than secular and to alter its myth by diminishing the importance of Mahabali over Vamana. Ms Sarah Welch is restoring problematic content by Snowcream without discussion. Onam is celebrated all over Kerala irrespective of religion. 2409:4073:30D:F96:6431:C9DF:B49E:479D (talk) 06:18, 26 December 2019 (UTC)"

Since this is a controversial topic, I would request more editors to share their thoughts about these changes on the talk page. --Happy New Year! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 14:44, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Square brackets

• "Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines (Amendment) Rules) 2018" - I couldn't put "[" and "]" in the title. (anyone knows how, possible?) DTM (talk) 13:02, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

since [] is a wikitext. see WP:WIKITEXT. --Happy New Year! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 14:57, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

DBigXray, So that means no, "[" brackets can't be used in the title. Oh well. DTM (talk) 07:59, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

And I had put this in the above section since the article deals with that, I was just asking a side question. Anyway. DTM (talk) 08:09, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Vallur

Could someone have a look at Vallur? There's been a bit of edit-warring which I suspect comes down to the fact that there's several different places called Vallur in India and we need to create new articles for each of them, but I don't know enough about Indian geography to comment. TIA Le Deluge (talk) 14:40, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

And it looks like there could be something similar going on at Varshakonda, with one in Andhra Pradesh and one in Telangana.Le Deluge (talk) 14:42, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Note for Indian Wikipedians proposed changes in Intermediaries Guidelines

• Wikipedia writes to IT Minister: New govt guidelines will severely disrupt our model.
• Wikimedia Foundation expresses deep concerns about India’s proposed intermediary liability rules
• The Information Technology Intermediaries Guidelines (Amendment) Rules 2018 Draft
• Opinion | Wikipedia must stay open Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 23:16, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Government is indeed being fascist for this. They can’t hide particular informations for particular people. May God (for them, Sri Ram) bless India!— Harshil ^{want to talk?} 02:46, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Harshil169, Fascism cannot survive with a free media, this was expected. I am really concerned about the well being of Wikipedians who are currently in India. Happy New Year! ᗙ DBigXrayᗙ 14:50, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

The rules aren't that bad. DTM (talk) 08:10, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

• This is a good piece from CIS, as well. ∯WBG^converse 06:42, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

DBigXray You wrote "I am really concerned about the well being of Wikipedians who are currently in India". See my latest DYK nom for the Rules:

• ... that new rules in India, if implemented, would change Wikipedia worldwide?  Source: Because the resource is curated by language and not geographic market, the rules would change the entire website, not just Indians’ access to the knowledge, the Foundation said.

Is it just Indian's who are affected? DTM (talk) 11:06, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

To put my statement in clearer terms. The Wikipedians across the world will be inconvenienced while the ones in India will be fucked. --DBigXrayᗙ 11:11, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Multi-regional definition in lead of Indian states (again !)

Last time we had a discussion here regarding usage of multiple regions to define the location of a state. The outcome of the discussion was in favour of following the general definition (as in Britannica) and not to have multi-regional definitions in the lead, disregarding all other less commonly used definitions that can be found in govt. websites, books, news sources. Recently, in the Bihar article [12] another geographical region has been added citing this source. Per above, the newer addition need to be removed. However if we plan to keep it, we should note that the source can be used to multi-define other states as well e.g. Maharashtra as a central Indian state and West Bengal in north-east, a departure from accepted definitions. Would like to ping people involved in the older discussion @Fowler&fowler, Gotitbro, and Kautilya3: for suggestions. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 17:11, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: I reverted the edit by that particular user on the Bihar article but seems like he didn't even bother reading the edit summary at all and reinstated his edit. I figured someone else would come in and take of that since we had a consensus and did not want to get tangled with it like the last time such edits were made. Please revert the edit by the user, we really needn't be discussing this again and again, the last consensus developed pretty well in this regard only a short while ago. Gotitbro (talk) 17:25, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Gotitbro You are right. I'll restore as per status qvo. If somebody has something else to say it, can be discussed here. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 17:48, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Articles for creation backlog

Please consider reviewing some of the drafts awaiting review in your project scope, our backlog is over 3,700 articles right now. JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:06, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

A new editor's edits

A new editor Isak.lund (talk · contribs) who made his first edit in tremendously late December 2019 has been making a whirlwind of minor edits in a number of articles. Could people keep an eye on them? Per WP rules, we have to assume good faith, and in this spirit, I welcome him aboard, (Welcome!), but when new editors are making edit after edit—none betraying the beginner's hesitations—in highly-viewed articles, we also want to protect Wikipedia, especially at a time when its ranks have thinned. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:13, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Hello @Fowler&fowler: Thanks for notifying me. If any editor has any issue with my edit please feel free to contact me over my talk page. Cheers--Isak.lund (talk) 04:49, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Laxmi Agarwal

Be quick and apply protection on page. Lots of vandalism is happening in a minute. Please add this in watchlist and revert vandalism. -- Harshil ^{want to talk?} 10:18, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Merger discussion for Narth Sarel

An article that your project should be interested in—Narth Sarel—has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:00, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Katwaria Sarai

The article Katwaria Sarai has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

virtually nonsense,unecyclopedic and lacks any notability

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Theprussian (talk) 19:07, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

IP edits

I came across edits by 144.48.111.211 while looking through the Jagadish Chandra Bose article in which a Bangladesh specific POVPUSH was being done . Others edits by the IP seems to be in the same non-good faith category of nationalistic POVPUSHing. I am not much familiar with the India-Bangladesh topic, so ask other users to take a look. The IP has also been restoring older POV content in other articles. Pinging @Kautilya3 and Fylindfotberserk:. Gotitbro (talk) 09:05, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Sure. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:35, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject History needs people

Hi everyone. I am the new coordinator for WikiProject History. we need people there!! right now the project seems to be semi-inactive. I am going to various WikiProjects whose topics overlap with ours, to request volunteers.

• If you have any experience at all with standard WikiProject processes such as quality assessment, article help, asking questions, feel free to come by and get involved.

• and if you have NO Experience, but just want to come by and get involved, feel free to do so!!!

• For anyone who wants to get involved, please come by and add your name at our talk page, at our talk page section: WikiProject History needs you!!!!

• Alternately, if you have any interest at all, feel free to reply right here, on this talk page. please ping me when you do so, by typing {{ping|sm8900}} in your reply.

we welcome your input. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 01:55, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Page move discussion

An editor has requested that {{subst:linked|Pattom Thanupillai ministry}} be moved to {{subst:#if:|{{subst:linked|{{{2}}}}}|another page}}{{subst:#switch: project |user | USER = . Since you had some involvement with 'Pattom Thanupillai ministry', you |#default = , which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You}} are invited to participate in [[{{subst:#if:|{{subst:#if:|#{{{section}}}|}}|{{subst:#if:|Talk:Pattom Thanupillai ministry#{{{section}}}|{{subst:TALKPAGENAME:Pattom Thanupillai ministry}}}}}}|the move discussion]]. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:49, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Pasi (caste)

This is to draw the attention to bring in notice in assessment and modification on Pasi (caste), as the article in the current state seems to be failing Neutral point of view as it only talks about the past of the community and its content is mostly discriminatory relyed on the sources published before the partition of India and the formation of the Indian constitution which has legally abolished caste, gender and racial discrimination.

The content of the article itself begins with the phrase The Pasi were one of the untouchable communities which is true, yet not neutral and is more of caste-biased and if we follow the same trend and pattern of writing articles on Wikipedia will we begin the article of Narendra Modi with the phrase that ...he was a poor tea-seller belonging to the lower caste-section, OBC... instead of he is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014? We shall also not forget the fact that few authors have quoted India as the land of the Snake charmer with their few minutes of observation at the sea-coast of the Indian ocean which has ultimately portrayed the wrong image of India as it does not make every Indian a snake charmer.

Well-cited edits from the reliable sources to this article was recently reverted by @Primefac: with the summary Whitewashing and comment on my talk page "Please stop trying to whitewash articles and remove any indication that a caste is (or was) an untouchable." even though the "Present circumstances" section has information about the past of the community, which wasn't an attempt to whitewash the article.

Doubtlessly, it's a part of the history of the community which can be included in the history section of the article rather than defaming the community on its history and the past which is legally not valid.

Interested editors are invited to give their point-of-view while considering WP:GS/Caste and WP:NPOV. — Sanskari ^Hangout 09:54, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

@Sanskari: You should probably take this to the article talk page. Seems like a straightforward "content expression" dispute to me. --regentspark (comment) 15:42, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

This is an issue also found at Paswan and other (previously) Untouchable groups. I suggested the OP find a centralized discussion board to get consensus across the range of articles. Primefac (talk) 16:37, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd also like to ping Sitush to this conversation, as they have dealt with this information at Pasi as well as other locations, and Winged Blades of Godric, who seems to hold the opposite view (for the record, I disagree with their recent removal of that content, but will discuss it further either here or there). Primefac (talk) 16:39, 14 January 2020 (UTC) Comment struck now that I've seen they've just modified the lead. Primefac (talk) 16:41, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Can anyone help?

I blocked User:GIMEXCO LTD. for a promotional username and promotional edits. I've been advised that the same user exists on the Bengali Wikipedia and that their page there is also promotional. If anyone cares to check that out, I would be grateful. Deb (talk) 15:25, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#Ongoing_removal_Citizenship_Amendment_Act_protests

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#Ongoing_removal_Citizenship_Amendment_Act_protests. DBigXrayᗙ 23:45, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Jaggi Vasudev and Isha related articles

Just put more eyes on Jaggi Vasudev and Isha Foundation. I had worked hard to remove superfluous and unsourced claims with addition of reception. But I received calls from their probable Bhakts to put Jaggi in positive light for almost ₹30K-40K which I’d refused. I’m receiving mails and messages regarding this off-wiki. There’ve been constant attempts from the foundation via meat and sock to whitewash nonsense of Jaggi. Spot those editors and block them to reduce stress and take these pages upto ECP. Harshil ^{want to talk?} 00:54, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Divya Drishti

I know this is probably beneath the normal scope of interest at this board, but I'm curious if anyone watches Divya Drishti. Short question: While I know Karan Khanna was once a cast member, was he part of the main cast?

Context: About a week ago I was dealing with an editor or editors who had repeatedly deleted Karan Khanna's name from the article entirely, like here as if the guy had never appeared on the series. (Demonstrably he did.) As you'll note, the editor deleted Khanna's name for playing the character Shikhar Shergill, but left Mishkat Varma, who currently plays the character. After semi-protecting the article, the user is now arguing on the talk page that Khanna was never a main cast member, so Khanna should be moved down to Recurring, but I'm further confused because the user hasn't said anything about whether Mishkat Varma should get moved down. Did this role expand to main cast with the new guy, or is this a case of an editor trying to manipulate the Main cast to represent the current lineup rather than promoting a historical picture of the series' most important cast members? Thanks. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 14:49, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/India-related articles#Legislative Assembly constituency names

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/India-related articles#Legislative Assembly constituency names. Italawar (talk) 12:32, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of RadioJoyAlukkas.com

The article RadioJoyAlukkas.com has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

This never took off, and was only kept because of WP:AGF (see talk page) . It should be deleted or merged

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Jakesyl (talk) 03:28, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Deletion discussions on political entities

There is a number of ongoing AfDs that break all logic and a wider community involvement would be of interest. A number of articles on entities linked to BJP (such as Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, etc.) are being nominated for deletion supposedly based on WP:GNG or WP:NORG, which is really weird considering that organizations like BJYM and BKS have larger membership base than the population of many sovereign countries. Regardless of how one feels about political events in India today, arguing that organizations BKS, BJYM, RSS, VHP, ABVP, SJM, etc. are non-notable defines common sense. --Soman (talk) 23:05, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

A number of Political WP:spam articles linked to Congress such as All India Minority Congress are also being discussed for deletion. These should not have been created in the first place since they do not conform to the WP:ORGCRIT which is a higher bar than WP:GNG. --DBigXrayᗙ 06:30, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

City population LTA

If you see a series of unsourced changes to population figures in Indian cities, please revert these on sight (and if possible, block the LTA behind these). Thanks. El_C 18:30, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Troublesome edits by Indian- or India-POV editors on pages of Urdu poems written by Pakistani Poets (including Iqbal)

I am very troubled by recent changes in Wikipedia pages of Urdu poems written by Pakistani poets, including Iqbal (who died in 1930 but is the national poet of Pakistan) and Faiz Ahmad Faiz. The pages are Hum Dekhenge and Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua, both sleepy little pages, until the poems became the focus of controversies in India. These pages, especially Hum Dekhenge, are being edited frenetically by Indian editors who are adding dozens of Indian newspaper citations. The thing to remember is that the pages are about the poems. If the poems have become controversial in India recently it is not a warrant for adding the Devanagari script to them, or for creating a Controversy section. All that belongs to pages on recent protests or controversies in India, not to the pages about the poem. As there are many more Indian editors on Wikipedia than there are Pakistani, these pages are unable to retain their original balance. Devanagari scripts do not belong to these poems. I appeal to Indian editors to keep these pages free from WP:UNDUE. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:09, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler, these poems are heavily used by CAA Protesters hence the fans of the ruling party BJP are busy defacing these poems trying to portray it in bad light. Vanamonde93 and User:Cyphoidbomb please see if page protection can help there. DBigXrayᗙ 09:50, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for posting this here User:Fowler&fowler. Given that this poem was written in colonial India before the standardization of Hindi-Urdu, it makes sense that both Devanagari and Nastaleeq should be given in the article. As Hindi and Urdu are standardized registers of the same language of Hindustani/Hindi-Urdu, according to linguists, the poem is widely read in the Devanagari script in India. I, therefore, don't see an issue with User:TheEshanKumar's edits on the Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua article. What are your thoughts User:Kwamikagami and User:Austronesier? I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 10:16, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Fowler&fowler. These poems are Urdu literary legacy, and the romaniziation plus English translation clearly suffice. The Devanagari transliteration of Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua is perfectly fine—if it appears in hi.WP (Fowler&fowler will agree, I guess). However, pages about pieces of art should not prinicipally exclude the impact they have in the aftermath (regardless of where this happens). "Controversy" is the wrong heading for this, when – as in the case of Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua – the artwork itself is not controversial. Notability provided (not every political debate has to creep into every article that is circumstantially related!), coverage of the use by CAA-protesters should remain topical and explicit, cf. We Shall Overcome#Use in the 1960s civil rights and other protest movements. –Austronesier (talk) 11:05, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

• Since the discussion is about the script, my personal opinion is that for Hindustani (Hindi/Urdu) poetry written during colonial times, it is better to only have the romanised lyrics. Otherwise it opens a can of worms given the number of similar works (such as Sare Jahan se Accha). I am imagining something analogous to the WP:INDICSCRIPT here.--DreamLinker (talk) 10:51, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Austronesier I agree with your very well-written post. I like the example of We Shall Overcome (although in this instance it is more akin to Madonna wearing the Bindi (decoration) at an academy award. It was written about at the time but is now long forgotten. It should not constitute a subsection of the Bindi page (which I haven't examined, to be honest. :))

Thank you DreamLinker As for Hindustani, there was never anything called Hindustani poetry. The literary language was always Urdu. Iqbal was an Urdu poet, just as Ghalib, Mir, Sauda, Akbarabadi, DaGh, were. As I have maintained elsewhere, the slow linguistic genocide of Urdu in post-1947 India (long predating the rise of Hindu nationalism) and its attenuation there into a pidgin found in Bollywood songs, does not give Indians the right to redefine the language, just because their population is bigger. Urdu literacy in India (ie the ability to read and write the Perso-Arabic script of the language) is at an all-time low.

These poems and songs have a long history both a literary one in the language, and a cultural one in Pakistan, or in the case of Lab pe Aati hai Dua, as a prayer among Muslim children in Pakistan and India, see here. Just because they have—these days—a wider topical notability in India is not a reason to instantly tack it to their pages. Nor does the dua become a song of love. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:32, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler Hindustani was the actual language which was spoken - prior to the partition and then subsequent standardised forms of Hindi and Urdu by India and Pakistan respectively. It was the language in which Amir Khusrau wrote and has been referred to as Hindavi (referring to "Hind"), Dehlvi (referring to "Delhi", where it was initially used by the sultanate) and Urdu (as it developed as the language of the soldiers camp). The language has a long association with India, despite recent attempts by Hindu nationalists to portray it as foreign or Pakistani. I agree with User:Kwamikagami that we can keep the Urdu (Nastaliq) lyrics since it is highly likely to be the original script in which it was written (The Perso-arabic script was widely used for Hindustani literature and Iqbal also composed Persian poetry, so I doubt he used any other script). However, I don't want to include the Devnagari script since it would be a transliteration and as explained, doesn't really add any value. The Hindi Wikipedia exists for that purpose.--DreamLinker (talk) 08:07, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

DreamLinker Thanks for your reply. Nasta'leeq (the a' denoting ain instead of alif) is not a script, but a style of Persian calligraphy, and today also a font. In the Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua page, in fact, the Perso-Arabic lyrics were not rendered in Nasta'leeq but in Naskh (which is the original style of Arabic calligraphy, and also a font). I have now changed them to Nasta'leeq. You can see the difference. Iqbal wrote only in the Perso-Arabic script. Hindustani was the name the British had given to a simplified Urdu, always with the Perso-Arabic script, that they had standardized at Fort William in Calcutta in the early 1800s (for their civil service officials who had to pass an exam in it) and which after 1837 became along with English the official language at first of the East India Company, and after 1858 of the British Raj. It remained so until 1947. The literary language was always Urdu. In fact, Urdu prose arose as a result of the British work at Fort William. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:25, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: I know that you are self-declared lazy if you dislike something; I remain curious even if it's to my own detriment. Click here and get ready to cringe:Bindi (decoration)#Modern use. ;)

Iqbal was not a Pakistani poet, he was an Indian poet. There was no Pakistan at the time. And there was Hindustani poetry -- this is an example. Hindustani, another name for Urdu, was Iqbal's language. AFAICT, Iqbal wrote in the Urdu script. It's trivial to convert it to Nagari, but the concerns of WP:INDICSCRIPT are relevant here. We don't need this in both scripts, just the original one. And no, not just in Roman, because the transcription conventions are often rather arbitrary and the conversion is often inaccurate. I personally would want to be able to read it alongside the original script. But though I can read Nagari more easily than Urdu, I don't see any added value here. If I wanted to confirm the Nagari, I'd click on the link to Hindi WP. So unless someone can present an actual reason why Nagari is appropriate here, I agree with Fowler that we need to remove it to avoid the kind of idiotic battle that was the reason we had to come up with the only slightly less idiotic WP:INDICSCRIPT policy.

That said, I don't see any problem with adding pop usage / controversy sections, as long as they don't violate NPOV. They may be of interest to our readers. — kwami (talk) 13:30, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: Madonna's bindi does not constitute an entire subsection by itself. It shares it with others' bindis. I said "subsection." The Indian protests are already a subsection, competing in length with the primary political and cultural significance of the poem in dissent in Pakistan, which was longlasting, which caused Faiz to be imprisoned, and eventually exiled. It is insulting to the dissent in Pakistan for which thousands paid with their blood, to present the poem, in its Indian incarnation, in anything more than a sentence.

As for Pakistan and Iqbal, I have passing acquaintance with both. (See here and here.) Britannica begins its Iqbal page with: "Sir Muhammad Iqbal, poet and philosopher, known for his influential efforts to direct his fellow Muslims in British-administered India toward the establishment of a separate Muslim state, an aspiration that was eventually realized in the country of Pakistan." His significance in Pakistan is much greater. An appreciation of his poetry both in Urdu and in Persian many orders of magnitude greater. Iqbal wrote the poems in the Urdu script. For the rest of your post, which is very well-argued, I agree with you. If Indians today are unable to read Urdu, they can read the romanized Urdu. If they are unable to read English, then as Austronesier has already suggested, they can go to the Hindi Wikipedia, or the Punjabi Wikipedia, or .... Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:35, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

PS I like: "to avoid the kind of idiotic battle that was the reason we had to come up with the only slightly less idiotic WP:INDICSCRIPT policy."  :) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:42, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

• I could justify semi-protection, but not anything more, and at the moment most of the unhelpful material isn't coming from IPs; so I don't think protection is the way to go, the pages just need to be watched by people who have read the older and higher quality source material. "Controversy" sections are obviously nonsense; material covering their use in the recent protests is necessary, but needs to comply with WP:DUE. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:54, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

The controversy section regarding "Lab pe aati hai dua" is something which happened by directly singing the poem. It deserves to be on the Wikipedia page of the same. TheEshanKumar (talk) 17:39, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for all of your comments everyone. It seems that there is a consensus not to keep Devanagari on the article and I will respect that. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. Kind regards, Anupam^Talk 18:10, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you @Anupam: for your sense of fair play. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:26, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

You're welcome User:Fowler&fowler. Thanks for your improvements to WikiProject India and WikiProject Pakistan-related articles in general. Cheers, Anupam^Talk 18:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

BTW, when I removed the Nagari per INDICSCRIPTS (and per the ideal of not cluttering the page), I kept the sections on popular use and controversy (technically I restored them, since I had just deleted them by reverting the page). That wasn't a judgement by me that they pass UNDUE, merely that I saw no particular reason to delete them. Nor that I disagree with Austronesier etc. on whether "Controversy" is the best section heading. (It may very likely not be.) So please don't interpret my edit as a vote of support for either side of that argument. Those sections still need to meet our standards for appropriateness, sourcing, NPOV, etc., and I didn't consider any of those things. — kwami (talk) 23:28, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: I have scoured the Indian newspapers, the dua didn't seem to have the critical mass for a subsection. I have reduced its reports to two sentences and moved them to the lead. There was also a sentence about the dua, or a portion thereof, featuring in a Bollywood song! That I have removed on the grounds that the dua constitutes the zeenat (زينت), ornament, decoration, of the movie, not vice-versa. The sentence properly belongs to the movie's page. I have also changed the external links. The previous links were to the same music but featuring different visual pastiches of Pakistan. I didn't want to counterbalance that by adding a video or two of India for fear of enabling the identification of more "anti-national" acts. So I have added a video of the dua being sung in the Urdu Baithak (Urdu Assembly) in California by an American who was born on the subcontinent. By that last circumstance, she has the right tallafuz (pronunciation). She also, by her stated prerequisite for audience participation, has perfect pitch. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:12, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Why not use Indic scripts?

I understand that 'you think' all Indians don't understand each others languages, but at least use 1 script of 13 major scripts from India?? what's the point of creating a country related wiki page without using/promoting their languages and culture? I suggest using pure Devanagari, since it very easy for North Indians to read because of mutual intelligibility due to Sanskrit, and is used by 500 million Indians at least. Sagnique (talk) 02:20, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

References

So, you want to do Hindi imposition using Wikipedia? All languages and scripts are equal and to avoid conflict, we use none.— Harshil ^{want to talk?} 02:56, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

@User:Harshil169 Please kid, do things you are good at, go edit Sinchan and Doremon episodes, your mental age is too low for politics. Sagnique (talk) 11:03, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

• we can use "english name (devnagari) (official language/script of the state)" for most of the articles. When the subject of the article is controversial, there used to be slow edit wars, vandalism, and disruptive editing because of that. Like, some town with disputed territory, or some saint/sage having claims of origin and/or activity in multiple regions. Although I really feel inclusion of devnagari is warranted. English is just stupid when it comes to Bramha, Brahman, Brahmana and Bramhin. Note: all the subjects are related to Hinduism, but drastically different from each-other. —usernamekiran (talk) 09:01, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

In my understanding, Hinduism topics are exempted from INDICSCRIPT? DeluxeVegan (talk) 14:23, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

As explained above, the Indic script rules are to prevent language-warring (which languages should be included/excluded, and what order they should be in), a visual mess of multiple scripts, WP:ACCESSABILITY problems, and the misuse of Indic scripts to hide praise, or insults.

As stated in WP:NOINDICSCRIPT articles about "Hinduism, Buddhism, Pakistan or any of India's neighbouring countries" are exempt, but this is specifically "about" these subjects, not all topics in the general area. I seem to recall a discussion, which I can't find at the moment, that limited how far from the core subject this covered. As far as I remember it allowed (or suggested allowing) Indic script in articles on different gods and religious concepts, but precluded Indic script from the names of physical objects, (such as towns, temples, hills and rivers) and actual people, even if they had religious connections. - Arjayay (talk) 15:39, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree with User:Sagnique and User:Usernamekiran that WikiProject India should permit scripts on related articles once again. I would accept the suggestion that both of these users offered to allow for Devanagari on all WikiProject India-related articles though I think allowing official scripts on a state basis might be a better proposal; for example, the article on Lucknow could include both Hindi and Urdu since those are the official languages of Uttar Pradesh. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 09:43, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

So what can be done? i leave the remaining process to experts, also i think there is a need of Indians specifically engaged in editing and creating Indian topics, like the [India] page, i made a request in the talk page there to add the line "India emerged as one of the first civilizations...Indus Valley" most of the response were from English people, and they even claimed 'India was created at 1947'. So i think that if had gotten more support from few 'Pro-Indian-Indians', then the edit could have been made. Also adding Tamil Script along with Devanagari will also prevent 'Tamil outrage'. Sagnique (talk) 11:03, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

CAA, NRC, NPR, Love Jihad, Religious conversions in Pakistan

Can someone re-assess the Love Jihad, CAA, National Register of Citizens and National Population Register articles? They are completely one-sided. I tried and failed - I was trying to add that Muslims in India need not worry. There is a discussion going on at the Talk page of Religious conversions in Pakistan - I request you all for comments on that Talk page. If this is not the right place to ask for help, please let me know where to ask. Thanks!— Spasiba5 (talk) 15:56, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

The Religious conversions in Pakistan article needs urgent attention as it may be deleted. There is a discussion going on at the Talk page of Religious conversions in Pakistan - I request you all for comments on that Talk page. Thanks!—Spasiba5 (talk) 05:24, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Mahavira

Mahavira, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. A. Parrot (talk) 17:57, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Access to archives of The Hindu?

Hi, does anyone have access to any archives printed or otherwise from The Hindu? DragoMynaa appears to be trying to add a reference about Neethone Vuntanu, and is trying to find the origin of this IdleBrain.com film review, so that they can source it. IdleBrain added a courtesy note that the material came from The Hindu. I've tried poking around the Wayback Machine, and even got as far as this snapshot of their 1 February 2002 entertainment page, and this snapshot of their cinema archives, but I don't see anything related to Neethone Vuntanu. If anyone can help track down the origin, or provide any other kind of help, that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 02:45, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Cyphoidbomb, User:The Drover's Wife has access to a subscription service that hosts "The Hindu" archives. They might be able to help here. Good luck. DBigXrayᗙ 21:31, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Alas when I search for that film the earliest hit I get is 2014 - seems the subscription I have doesn't go back that far. The National Library of Australia has just changed the news archive it makes available to members so I'm still wrapping my head around this one. The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:11, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

I did a bit of a search, and it seems the one we used to have, Factiva, has or had The Hindu from that time period. Factiva is a pretty standard university subscription in my part of the world at least so it shouldn't be too hard to find someone with access to it. The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:17, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

@The Drover's Wife: I really appreciate your help with this, on behalf of DragoMynaa. Thanks and regards, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 00:36, 19 February 2020 (UTC)