Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics/Archive 6

message: I noticed the following text on the Missionaries of Charity page
:Such criticisms as the auspiciously poor condition of health care may stem from cultural misunderstanding. Among some in India there is a conception of karma - the idea that people deserve their pain on the basis of the previous life, and there is no need to help them. The Misionaries of Charity on the other hand strive to help these "poorest of the poor" - people who otherwise die alone on the streets. The Sisters bring not only basic medical treatment, but much more importantly love and care. Opponents for critics of Theresa argue that such critics do so from the comfort of their Western opulence without serving the world's poor with nearly the selflessness that characterized her life.
My understanding of the Indan conception of Karma and Indians in general suggest this is a very unfair characterisation to say that some Indians feel that people deserve their pain on the basis of their previous life so there is no need to help them. Perhaps there are a few Indians who think like this but my understanding is that generally speaking, if anything for most Indians who believe in karma this would mean they should help people in pain not ignore them. But I'm not an Indian and this appears to be the best place to get the opinion of whether this text in it current form is fair, NPOV and accurate. You are welcome to discuss it here, but the talk page of the missionaries of charity will probably be the best place to do so. Also, I probably won't be taking any further part in this discussionNil Einne 14:05, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Characterisation of Indians on the [[Missionaries of Charity]] page

message: I just created a new category, :Category:Indian plays. I believe that this category should contain plays from all vernacular languages of India apart from English plays written by Indians. Old plays such as those by Kalidasa and new plays such as those by Girish Karnad, apart from several plays from the rich tradition of Marathi Theatre are notable and hence should fit well in this category. Hence, I request you to populate this category. --Gurubrahma 08:45, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New category 

message: Hi guys - I request your opinions and advice on elevating this article to FA status. I've started a peer review, and I ask for your input.
Jai Sri Rama! 
Rama's Arrow 01:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Political Integration of India]] 

message: I'd just like to bring to everyone's attention the very very very long running revert wars on Operation Blue Star and Khalistan.  Can anyone do something about this?  As we all know, both these issues are quite 'explosive' and everyone has their own opinion as to what happened and why.
It's at the stage now when both articles are a load of POV crap no matter which version they are reverted to.  They need serious collaborative work to sift through all the inaccuracies not only in the articles, but also inaccuracies reported in the media (or more commonly, little concrete information at all reported in the media).
Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 22:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Khalistan and Operation Blue Star 

message: This might interest you. Magicalsaumy is standing for Arbcom elction. Do add other Indian wikipedians candidates you might know. - 21:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Indian wikipedians on the Arbcom election

message: Please use them where you find appropriate:
:Image:Spicesindia.jpg 
:Image:Mirrorwork.jpg
:Image:Secondclassrail.jpg 
:Image:Rajghat.jpg
:Image:Jaipurgarments.jpg 
:Image:Danceindia.jpg 
:Image:Assamveggie.jpg 
:Image:Mysorepalace.jpg  deeptrivia (talk) 04:23, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New India image uploads 

message: Currently above page takes one to History of India, which is perhaps not correct. I would like to share my thoughts with the editors interested in the above topic. On the talk page of Ancient India, I had given my comments. We must strive to create a proper page for Ancient India. This is a challenging task, but not impossible. I invite further comments. Thanks. --Bhadani 15:43, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How "ancient" is Ancient India? When did that period end? That's the question that needs to be answered first. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:51, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

text: There certainly are many issues to resolve first, regarding both temporal and geographical scope of the article. An article like that would definitely mention places like Taxila, which might attract people to rename it as Ancient South Asia :). A common "end" of the ancient period is considered to be the end of Harsha's empire. deeptrivia (talk) 19:03, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Ancient India]]

message: Do India related Bots exist? I am trying to learn the Python framework for writing Bots. I already learnt how to touch a category. Touching involves making no edits to an article, but opening and saving it. If you guys need a new category that was recently added to a template touched, do let me know. I have some ideas for India related bots. Would like your ideas too. Please list below your ideas and comments.
* Census Bot: A bot that looks at Census (2001) website and creates non-existent city articles as stubs. This will help create thousands of Indian city/town stubs and reduce a lot of manual work. The bot could create a sentence in the lines of "This <town> is part of the state of <state> in India" and add a [[<state>-geo-stub]] category to it.
- GaneshkT/C\@ 17:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought about this one too, since they've done a similar thing with US towns. The only thing is, I have no clue how to write a bot. deeptrivia (talk) 17:49, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Please see User:Rambot. This bot does the same thing for US towns and cities. It would be great if someone could modify the source code of this bot to make it work Indian towns and cities. deeptrivia (talk) 19:12, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about asking at Wikipedia:Bot requests ? Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 21:07, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Which is the website that has information about all cities? Does anyone have any experience with requesting for bots? deeptrivia (talk) 03:36, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: India related Bot ideas

message: A user named user:Deepakkamboj has created a page called Deepak Kamboj which is an exact copy of Udham Singh. While he says in one place in the article that Kamboj was known as Udham Singh, that is not very unconvincing. The google hits that I get when I give both "Deepak Kamboj" and "Udham Singh" is from a Kamboj society. Does anyone know whether Udham Singh was also known as Kamboj, or if it is a vanity page ?
Btw, Udham Singh had a category 'Indian murderer' which I deleted. There is still one called 'assassin', which I am not sure about. Tintin Talk 20:01, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I doubt if this is true. None of the links provided in the article use the word "Deepak Kamboj." Most probably a hoax. --Gurubrahma 00:38, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've deleted it as user experiment/vanity/your_reason_here. utcursch | talk 10:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Udham Singh]] 

message: I wish you all a prosperous Pongal. --Gurubrahma 00:38, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Happy and prosperous Pongal to everyone from me also -- just discovering this page; will participate more in future. ImpuMozhi 01:20, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prosperous Pongal 

message: This is a question that I have been wanting to raise with other Indian Wikipedians in general and now I have found the place for it: In most English-language page dealing with some 'Indian' subject (place/person/deity/whatever), it is the custom to translate the 1-or-2 word page heading into an appropriate Indian language. Note, the whole page is purely in English, just the name is translated. What is the point in this?? What purpose is served? Whom does it help, and in exactly what way? Any argument of "clarifying pronounciation" falls flat because:
*it does not help anyone (Indian or foreign) who cannot read that language;
*people who can read that language surely already know the pronounciation? Because nothing new is being translated: just the name. 
I know that a few other cultures (Arab, for instance) do the same thing, but perhaps we could take a step towards eliminating this futile custom. The Europeans (incl. the Americas) and Africans seem to have no interest in this kind of thing. What do the other Indian WP's think on this point? ImpuMozhi 18:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think they're purely just an extra bit of information.  It has a novelty value too I suppose. If a subject relates to India, then I'm of the opinion that there should always be a translation into the appropriate language. In regards to Europeans and Afrian translations - these are done already.  See Addis Ababa and Munich for example.  Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 18:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's done on the English wikipedia with names in Chinese, Russian, Japanese, virtually every other language. I am skeptical on how many people it helps, but there's no harm adding that extra bit of information (at least people would know how the name looks like i the Indian script ^_^)  By the way, it surely helps me sometimes with some names/sanskrit words I've never seen before. The Roman script is completely ambiguous when pronounciation of a new word comes into the picture. In fact, as a result of studying history in English at school, I ended up pronouncing most names incorrectly, like Mauryaa (मौर्य), Guptaa (गुप्त), Yogaa (योग), Rashtraakutaa (रष्ट्रकूट). deeptrivia (talk) 03:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not that I mind your having gained some further knowledge, but what about other people? Also, I am wondering whether you actually got the correct pronounciations: It is not Yogaa but it is not Yog either; the correct pronounciation is Yoga (Not "योगा" or "योग्" but "योग"). Even if you were fluent in Hindi and Devanagari, you would still be reading the word as "Yog". Similarly for the other words; this serves to highlight the futility of the whole thing. ImpuMozhi 04:15, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah, basically my point was, first, it's harmless, and second, as is our common experience, Yoga, for example, is highly prone to be mispronounced "योगा" , and so on. Also think of sounds like ड़, ळ, ण, ञ, ढ़. The difference between "योग्" and "योग" is pretty clear in the devanagari script, although most people choose to pronounce them similarly for convenience, but that's a different issue than people getting confused on seeing the written word (which would happen with a word in Roman script (unless you learn and use IAST conventions)). So why not make it clear for the benefit for those who can understand?  deeptrivia (talk) 00:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Useless custom?

message: This article is on peer review. Please leave suggestions for improvement there and help in elevating it to FA status.--May the Force be with you!  Shreshth91($ |-| r 3 $ |-| t |-|) 16:38, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles and Fundamental Duties of India]] 

message: There isn't even a single featured picture related to India. I observed the selection process, and standards are quite high. But we can consider nominating some of the best pictures we have. deeptrivia (talk) 22:29, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about this one?  on Chennai. - Ganeshk (talk) 23:03, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  They certainly won't accept images of this size (They have size issues with much larger images too.) But at any rate, we should start trying, to gain more experience on the issues involved. deeptrivia (talk) 23:09, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Taj Mahal is featured. - Ganeshk (talk) 23:14, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Actually it doesn't to me any more. deeptrivia (talk) 20:40, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured pictures 

message: Hi All - I hope you will check out this article, which is an FA nominee. After much work, we've created a brilliant article on the most important series of events in modern India's history. I hope you will enjoy it, and I ask for your vote to make it an FA. Jai Sri Rama! Rama's Arrow 04:11, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: FAC of [[Political integration of India]]

message: Nichalp seems to be busy, can someone else look at this objection which has resulted in this action? -- Sundar \talk \contribs 12:06, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gangtok 

message: I may be on and off during the next few days. Can people here take care of the discussion at Talk:Tamil language#history? That would also bring other points of view. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 10:50, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for moderation 

message: Hi All - I request your help in raising this article to FA standards. I feel it would be great to have an FA status for India's most important archaeological site, and a great wonder of its ancient civilization. Please check it out. Jai Sri Rama! Rama's Arrow 21:09, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Lothal]] Peer Review 

message: Did any of you know this project existed? I came to know about it only when I planned to start one! But I think it is a very important one, and I request all of you to sign up and contribute! deeptrivia (talk) 01:56, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I will surely contribute as far as possible. --Bhadani 16:54, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject History of India]] 

message: Template:IndiaGov is up for deletion. --Pamri • Talk 06:49, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  At TFD 

message: I have added the template, , to all India related featured articles. It makes a little star appear on the top right hand corner. - Ganeshk (talk) 21:07, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was Nichalp's original idea. It was selected after a vote. - Ganeshk (talk) 22:47, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: FA Star

message: Hi All - I've inaugurated an effort to make this article a great FA. I request your much-needed advice and help. Jai Sri Rama! Rama's Arrow 07:46, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Rama]] PR 

message: Are there any naming conventions for districts and towns with the same name. Most districts in India has a town with the same name in it. For example there are two articles in wikipedia called Kottayam and Kottayam District. There is a lot of redundant information in these two pages. Is it necessary? I believe we should discuss and implement wikipedia guidelines for indian town and district articles. If this discussion has already taken place please direct me to the same. --DuKot 20:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You could take a look at Vadodara and Vadodara district for an idea on how it has been dealt with. These used to be the same article, but some work went into separating what belonged in the city page and what in the district while reducing redundancy. DevanJedi 21:30, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

text: See wikipedia:WikiProject Indian districts =Nichalp «Talk»= 07:39, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming convention for districts