Talk:Voice of India

message: This article appears as if it has been written by someone who is heavily prejudiced against the publishing company. To my knowledge, it is not as vehemently communal and "against minorities" as it has been made out to be. Some of the books published are scholarly written and worthy of acclaim. - Ravichandar84 10:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: such as which ones? If you have favourable academic recensions of any VoI books, by all means do add them. --dab (𒁳) 13:18, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality 

message: Please note: 'factual errors' need to be cited as errors, and marked as disputed, if they are based on reliable sources.
Note further: a partial list of publications is not considered standard in publishing house pages. We link to author pages; those link to book pages.
Note finally: the 'heavily' is a direct quote from the Pseudoarcheology book. 
Please try and cite your changes, rather than deleting relevant information from mainstream, reliable sources. Hornplease 09:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: seeing the nature of the firm as a lobbyist platform rather than a bona fide publishing house, it may make sense to include a list of publications. dab (𒁳) 10:07, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[WP:ATT]]

message: voi.org has been down for a few days. It used to be hosted by http://www.airband.com/ (Carrollton, Texas). dab (𒁳) 10:14, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: website

message: #"may be biased and inaccurate"
#"not emigrant", the two have lived abroad, according to their WP biographies,
#Frawley, Klostermaier are "not  New-Agers"
#Bhagawan Gidwani is not known to be a supporter of Nationalism —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Doldrums (talk • contribs) 06:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  section not verified 

message: Please try to abide by the wikipedia policy of neutrality  This is an encyclopedia, and as such should be a place for facts.  I know little about the subject which is why I've tried to draw attention to the article to see if we can get help.  If I have to be honest, the subject probably doesn't merit an article, It appears to be a vehicle for criticism, something which wikipedia is not.  We should try to clean up this article, removing the bias and ensure that it has a Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. SallyBoseman 22:12, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Sally, Voice of India is not a huge publishing company, but probably notable enough to have an article. But the editors who are owning the article are using it as a vehicle for criticism, as you point out. My impulsive edits, which you reverted, were trying to balance the criticism - criticism which is being presented as fact, but are only allegations from a couple of people. Allegations are generally unencyclopedic when made by a few individuals (with Conflict of Interest at that), unless perhaps they are kept in the criticism section, and are made by extremely notable, or reliable neutral parties. I appreciate your attempt to draw editors who are entirely uninvolved with the much larger controversy that this article is part of (see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Hindutva_propaganda). If editors who are entirely neutral could wade into this, I for one would appreciate it. Cheers, ॐ Priyanath  talk 22:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Category:Controversies? :Category:Criticisms? :Category:Debates? This isn't an on-wiki controversy, it's a real world socio-political controversy spilling over into scholarship, and we are reporting on scholars protesting bad faith pseudoscholarly publicity stunts. Wikipedia is indeed a vehicle to elaborate on political disputes and conflicts (have you ever taken a glance at Israeli-Palestinian conflict? At all? dab (𒁳) 22:28, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I have, but this page is supposed to be about a publishing company, there are very few facts on this page, just selected quotes, point scoring and invective, the NPOV is one of the cornerstones of the encyclopedia, without it wikipedia has no value.  I'm glad you mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is a well researched, on topic article and the non POV material that does appear on it is debated on the discussion page and some sort of consensus is reached, I repeat - this is supposed to be an article about a publishing company, it should be short and factual.SallyBoseman 01:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: well, more people have been working on that for longer. Nobody said this article is finished. Since we are debating on the discussion page: what do we have so far? There is this publishing company, owned by a well-known author of political titles in the Muslim vs. Hindu row in Indian politics, and it has put out a dozen titles or two of historical revisionism. Recently, academic reviews, which so far had ignored the company for being obviously outside their scope, have felt compelled to distance themselves from anything that might pretend to be "scholarly" about all this. That's pretty much the long and short of it, and the article does reflect that situation. You are most welcome to either add aspects we are missing, or edit the existing material for clarity and flow. The problem with the quotes is, anyting other than verbatim quotes will be nuked by our resident VoI representatives as "illegal synthesis". If you can paraphrase the gist of all this in simple prose and keep it stable, I'm all for it. dab (𒁳) 19:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Point of View Tag 

message: The quote from Witzel and Farmer makes an accusation against seventeen named individuals, in addition to VOI. Every one of those individuals deserves a response, not just Shendge. Perhaps better to find a quote that only maligns VOI, and then there would be no need for a response to each of the seventeen personal attacks. ॐ Priyanath  talk 13:29, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: we are quoting W&F as criticizing VoI, not Shendge. If you want to discuss the criticism and the reply over at Malati Shendge, feel free to do that. Especially since Shendge didn't defend VoI, but objected to her name being listed in such unsavoury company. dab (𒁳) 13:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Response to accusations 

message: Really what is on with this article? There is absolutely no NPOV and seems to be written by someone with practically an agenda. I have tried to rewrite this article with an NPOV, but each time my edits are reversed. Please, someone of other editors or some other guys, look over this article. To note, the introduction is written too negatively, and there is only a criticism section. Not even once is the Voice of India stand and views on the issues involved are even mentioned.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.100.12.40 (talk) 10:29, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: the problem appears to be that no independent reviewer has anything positive to say. Since this is essentially a propaganda outfit, it is essential that the introduction states this up front. Reviewing the article, I find that it may not be appropriate to discuss details of the internet domain holder in the lead. Also, the "criticism" and "list of publications"  sections may better be presented in reverse order. The "Voice of India stand and views" is stated up front for better or worse: to contradict in print, "scientifically", the Indo-Aryan migration theory. This stated intention to be "scientific", meaning peer-reviewed, does invite academic opinion on the enterprise, which is unanimously negative. I am sorry, but "NPOV" does not mean we have to represent pseudo-scholarship as anything else than pseudo-scholarship. --dab (𒁳) 11:34, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

text: As far as independent reviews are concerned of the works of Voice of India, the less said the better. As can be seen from even the section of critcism in this veryt aarticle, it consists more of ad hominem than anything else. Whether this is a propaganda unit is not is more about opinions than anything scientific. To quote just one example, the Indo-Aryan question is far from settled, and both sides can marshal enough evidence to support themselves. Hence calling one of the sides propagandist, may be OK for the oppposing side, but far from suitable for an encyclopedia. Again calling Voice of India propagadist is too simplistic. They do have authors of repute like Shourie, Goel and a former director of the ASI writing for them. Finally, even the worst of criminals does deserve a fair hearing. Sadly, this article is far from being fair.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.100.12.40 (talk) 19:12, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV concerns

message: *Agarwal, Vishal A case study in Eminent Historiography, in India's Only Communalist, ed. by Koenraad Elst (2005).
*Goel, Sita Ram
**History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1989)
**Defence of Hindu society (1994) .
**Hindu Temples - What Happened to Them (1991).
**How I Became A Hindu (1998) .
**India's Secularism (2000) .
*Elst, Koenraad
** Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991).
**Ayodhya: The Case Against the Temple (2002) .
** Ayodhya, The Finale - Science versus Secularism in the Excavations Debate (2003) .
** Gandhi and Godse - A review and a critique (2001) .
** Hindu Resurgence (1997) .
** Indigenous Indians: Agastya to Ambedkar (1993).
** Psychology of Prophetism - A Secular Look at the Bible (1993) .
** Ram Janmabhoomi vs. Babri Masjid. A Case Study in Hindu-Muslim Conflict (1993).
** The Saffron Swastika - The Notion of Hindu Fascism. (2001) .
** Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate .
**Who is a Hindu? (2001).
**Goel, Sita Ram, Catholic Ashrams: Sannyasins or Swindlers?, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1995. 
**Awaken Bharata: A Call for India's Rebirth (1998) .
** Hinduism: The Eternal Tradition (Sanatana Dharma) .
** The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India (1994) .
*Rajaram, N.S.
** Hindu View of the World: Essays In the Intellectual Kshatriya Tradition (1998) .
** Profiles in Deception: Ayodhya and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2000.
** The politics of history : Aryan Invasion Theory and the Subversion of Scholarship (1995).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Librorum Prohibitorum (talk • contribs) 12:28, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Partial list of publications

message: This article has major POV problems, mainly it seems because of  and . About 90 percent of the article is purely negative, with extensive quotes by Michael Witzel and Bergunder, and only one single pro-VOI quote. It is even in the categories Propaganda in India and Historical revisionism (political). This article is also related to WP:BLP policy because of the authors. 
Why do articles like NS Rajaram contain links to Voice of India and even Biblia Impex in the See also section? He has not only published there. I also don't put a link the publishing houses of Noam Chomsky to his article, or even a link to the Frontline magazine in the Michael Witzel article, because he published there.
I have added a little balance with this quote, but it does little to balance this extremely POV article:
The Greek Indologist Nicholas Kazanas, in a reply to Witzel, wrote: "One wonders too at the relevance of his next rather irrational comment: “Ironically, many of those expressing these anti-migrational views are emigrants themselves, engineers or technocrats like N S Rajaram,
S Kak and S Kalyanaramam, who ship their ideas to India from US shores”. What indeed has this absurd
statement to do with facts and evidence?… Then, it continues in the same tone of irrelevance and contempt,
forgetting how many Universities and Journals spend enormous funds on useless hypotheses and ostracise all
non-immigrationists: “They find allies in a broader assortment of home-grown nationalists including university professors, bank employees, and politicians (S. S. Misra, S. Talageri, K. D. Sethna, S. P. Gupta, Bh. Singh, M. Shendge, Bh. Gidwani, P. Chaudhuri, A. Shourie, S. R. Goel). They have even gained a small but vocal following in the West among "New Age" writers or researchers outside mainstream scholarship, including D. Frawley, G. Feuerstein, K. Klostermaier, and K. Elst. Whole publishing firms, such as the Voice of India and Aditya
Prakashan, are devoted to propagating their ideas”. Here two further points are worthy of note: first,
Prof Witzel obviously does not know what “New Age” writers are; second, the whole passage has the shrill
tones of McCarthyism or any totalitarian dogmatism (and censorship).
Instead of emitting such strident emotional cries and witch-hunt slogans, Prof Witzel and his followers
had better re-examine their unfounded linguistic assumptions and recall the words of Edmund Leach, who was
neither an Indian nationalist technocrat, nor a New-Age writer, but a solid, mainstream pillar of the academic
establishment.The RV Date - a Postscript', by N Kazanas. Athens, Greece. http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/english/documents/rdp.pdf  Librorum Prohibitorum (talk) 12:51, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: it's a self-declared propaganda outfit, I don't know what you want. Kazanas is not an "Indologist". I suggest you write an email to M Witzel if you want to discuss his views with him, this is a Wikipedia talkpage. "Librorum Prohibitorum", you are obviously a returning edit-warrior. I suggest you let us know your former username so we'll know if there are any standing restrictions against you. dab (𒁳) 13:09, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I will comment later on the "neutrality" of this article. I found it funny that you called me a edit-warrior, when the only one who was making reverts until then was you. Funny, on which policy do I have to say random months old details to a random user whom I met randomly. I'm making a new start and never had any disputes with you. If somebody had a dispute with me before, then it will be obviously clear for that person, and there again theres no reason to say my months old account publicly, but I could email it to that person (unnecessary). But since I don't want to spend the rest of my wikitime with disputes, I hope I'm finished soon with disputes. I want to make it a point to edit less than a couple of days per year and I can't do this with ongoing disputes.   Librorum Prohibitorum (talk) 11:46, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Major anti-VOI POV

message: Though this may be a bit much, can any of the IP's who claim the contested fact is true (if that is even what the reverting is about) provide the actual quote? Pectoretalk 18:59, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea, this should keep this page from becoming a wall of propagandistic graffiti.Pectoretalk 03:30, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: revert wars

message: This article is one of a  number selected for the early stage of the trial of the Wikipedia:Pending Changes system on the English language Wikipedia. All the articles listed at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Queue   are being considered for level 1 pending changes protection.
The following request appears on that page:
Comments on the suitability of theis page for "Pending changes"  would be appreciated.
Please update the Queue page as appropriate.
Note that I am not involved in this project any much more than any other editor, just posting these notes since it is quite a big change, potentially
Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 00:34, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Pending changes

message: Heuzé mentions VOI a few times in his book. Most of the content comes from this sentence on pp 123-124: "Les membres du groupe de la Voice of India eux-mêmes ne s'inspirent que de textes 'démocratiques' quand ils invoquent la pensée européenne contemporaine pour justifier leur 'croisade' anti-musulmane, et ils laissent délibérément de côté tout ce qui a de l'air d'extrême droite." Elsewhere, he writes on pp114-15: A l'autre bout de l'ensemble nationaliste hindou, c'est l'apparition d'intellectuels cosmopolites parfois extrêmement sophistiqués, comme G. Jain, ex-rédacteur en chef du Times of India, Swapan Dasgupta, qui travaille dans le même journal, ou A. Shourie, ex-rédacteur en chef de l'Indian Express, qui marque la scène.... Notamment regroupé autour de la maison d'éditions Voice of India de S.R. Goel, ce nouvel avatar du nationalisme hindou perd, d'une autre manière, tout côté traditionnel. Il se nourrit aux derniers thèmes de la penséee idenditariste, culturo-centrée et nationaliste européenne, russe y compris, en reprenant tout ce qu'il est possible aux polémistes laïques et démocrates.--Calypsomusic (talk) 16:01, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heuzé 

message: This list is currently far too long. This article is not a catalog. Unless significant objections are raised, I am going to prune it in the next few days. , you've tangled with this stuff before, thoughts? Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:59, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: ,  about four years later. ∯WBGconverse 15:42, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

text: FWIW, can you read French? ∯WBGconverse 15:45, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Hah, I'd forgotten about this, thanks. I cannot read French, I'm afraid. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:39, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of publications 

message: a considerably prolonged and exhaustive search, I am not seeing any decent RS that covers the topic but ain't mentioned over the article. Noting for posterity. ∯WBGconverse 19:30, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  After