Talk:India

Guidelines for editing the India page

• Text to be written in Indian English (spellings are modelled on British English)
• Units in metric.
• Only external links pertaining to India as a whole, or official government of India links are solicited on this page. Please add other links in their respective articles.
• All sections are a summary of more detailed articles. If you find any points missing, please add it in the section's main article rather than on this page to keep this page size within reasonable limits.
• You may also discuss India related matters at: Wikipedia:Notice board for India-related topics.

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Question of Map of India for Jammu & Kashir

The state has 2 capitals. Jammu is the winter capital city, Srinagar is the summer. Shouldn't the map reflect this?

-amitroy5

Cultures of the World

Could the people that edited this page improve South Asia's section in the new Cultures of the World page? Someone with good background knowledge could help a lot.

Willing to Compromise on Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh

I'm willing to make a compromise on this. I like how China did its map. We should color code the map. We should write the following examples and label my color coding:

Claimed by India, administered by China; Claimed by India, administered by Pakisatn; Claimed by Pakistan, administered by India; Claimed by China, administered by India

That's the most informative and encyclopedic way to do it. -Pgan002 09:11, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Holidays in India

Noting that sombody wanted to add more information today that seemed relevant to me, but it was quickly reverted, I thought I'd take a look around.

• The template is used only in this place. That's an inappropriate use, and hits the servers hard for no purpose. Get rid of it.
• Only 3 holidays are listed. Previous lists had:
  • 4
  • 5
• All travel sites, including those indexed by the ministry of culture, list at least 5 as national holidays.
• The ministry of personnel has considerably more!
• A lot of interesting information about the holidays and festivals has been removed,leaving a bare list.

What's going on here?

--William Allen Simpson 19:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I can't speak of the List of Festivals in India, but can comment on the others.

• New Year is *not* an official holiday. It is a working day in many parts of India.
• May 1 is celebrated as Maharashtra Day and Gujarat Day in their respective states and takes precedence over ILD.
• The pdf contains holidays that are applicable to only Central govt employees. Holidays mentioned in the pdf closely match holidays which are declared by individual states. =Nichalp «Talk»= 07:33, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Making a list of holidays in India is a dicy issue. It isn't possible to include religious holidays. I have found documents on the India Government site that only contain hlidays for single states, which means that states declare the holidays in the end. In my opinion, the section should be redone to link to the state pages, and the holdiays of each state should be listed there.

--Arjun Muralidharan 13:28 CET, January 15 2006

External Links

I have added a Link to Blog site http://indiangals.blogspot.com/ The Purpose of this blog site is to give a profile of Indian girls who have performed well in Sports, career, cinema and many other feilds of life. This is not a Adult related site. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.144.33.178 (talk • contribs) .

I have reverted your change. We will end up with a huge list of external links if this is allowed. You can add it to a new article related to that subject if you want. - Ganeshk^T/_C\^@ 20:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

:::I checked up the site. "This is not a Adult related site." Ha Ha. - Ganeshk^T/_C\^@ 20:20, 11 January 2006 (UTC) The link you had added was indiangals. You refer to it was indiangirls which is porn site. - Ganeshk^T/_C\^@ 20:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Map

please standardize maps to reflect the indian version of the Kashmir dispute, as is stipulated by the Govt. of India. The Pakistan country page is free to use their version of the map. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pizzadeliveryboy (talk • contribs) .

Interesting viewpoint. The India article doesn't belong to Indians solely, nor does the Pakistan article belong to Pakistanis. I don't understand why each country page should reflect that country's version of the map ... Wikipedia is not an Indian or Pakistani Govt site. This encyclopedia belongs to the world, should reflect issues as perceived from a neutral point of view. Thanks. --Ragib 23:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Reverted your map change. As Ragib said, this is NPOV. - Ganeshk^T/_C\^@ 00:01, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I am considering changing the map to show the Indian viewpoint. There are advocates for people to create an independent Puerto Rico. Should that be marked as disputed? Mark all land as Indian, or I will do it. Also, who recently changed the maps, they are TERRIBLE!

Oh yeah, I also have to add this. If Wikipedia is neutral, why doesn't it offer an alternate view about the Holocaust. People have provided evidence that it never happened. I'm not saying that I deny it, but you claim that "all views should be expressed." If I don't see this in the holocaust page, why should India be givin a "neutral view?" If this doesn't change, I'll add the true Indian map.

Finally, this goes to Ragib. Ragib, how do I know you aren't bias? A lot of Bangladeshis hate Indians. - —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Shellymelly (talk • contribs) .

Please refrain from making comments based on people's origins. If you want, check out my contributions. And please, sign your comments by using ~~~~ after your comments. Thanks. --Ragib 07:53, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm trying to make a point here that all parts of Wikipedia are bias to their respective country's perspective. Please read my post above and see if you agree with it. Thanks! Shellymelly

Ancient???????????????

The changes have been made in both pre colonial histories of India and Pakistan.

India and Pakistan were formed in 1947. Thats just 50+ and certainly not ancient. India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh are all third world countries, with shared histories and cultures. It's stupid for India and Pakistan to crib about 'My culture' and 'My History'.

Changes are more in Pakistan article, as whoever wrote that article seems too much bent upon proving that Pakistan was never a part of India. India and Pakistan were never together, technicaly they never could have been. Guys GET OVER IT. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cyberwizmj (talk • contribs) .

get over it?? ok burn up all our text books?? y dont u ppl get over christ saving our heathens n stuff?? Bijun 10:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)user:bijun

Too much to edit.

I suggest that a common ancient histroy page be created. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cyberwizmj (talk • contribs) .

india and pakistan were together they were bought together by the mughal empire then during the british rule they STAYED together the partition occured because jinah was anxious that muslims would not be represnted equally and therfore requested a partition with india. gandhi agreed to partition because he wanted to avoid a civil war in india from occuring.

First: the name India was given to the subcontinent by the ancient greeks - so the name has been around for atleast 2500 years, or even more. We have adopted the european version of the name of the nation for historical reasons. Moreover, the people living within what the Greeks called India have consistently been a culturally homogenous unit since the time Alexander came in here....may be not politically, but culturally, India has been a nation for that period of time.

So ya, India is ancient - get over that!!!

Pizzadeliveryboy 15:07, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

FYI: INdia has one of the oldest civilizations in the world stats: 2006

Template:India ties

I've replaced the footer templates with Template:India ties. Such templates on country articles have been deprecated for some time, after lengthy discussions at Wikipedia:Wikiproject Countries. Since most countries belong to at least a half dozen international organizations, which creates quite a mess at the bottom of articles when a box is added for each. Since my knowledge of India is very limited, I recommend you to make changes to improve this template. (See also United Kingdom and Canada for examples). CG 20:28, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

The new template needs work before it can go into the article. So I had to revert your change. I will work on merging the templates later today. - Ganeshk^T/_C\^@ 20:35, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

to pizza delvirey boy i was making a point to those who thought india and pakistan should have had a seprate page. i lived in india for 13 years and in my point i completley agree with you but i feel that india and pakistan are two ggreat nations they should share some of thier history together. i sincerely apologize if my comments hurt your feeling. thanks nihit mehta

Do some research, India was around way before 1947 or when ever, it was conquered by Alexander the Great, Kenghis Khan's Mongol's, the Mougals, some British Company, and the British Queen. After the queen took over it became a colony, so has you can clearly see if you a mind India was around for a a while.

some changes

Most of the changes have to do with punctuation and sentence construction.

I have replaced "delta islands" with archipelago, which is what the Sunderbans is.

Added a ref. to PV Narsimha Rao

The counterpart of economic size in terms of PPP is GNP.

the sentence regionally as well as globally is correct and could be used, but does not fit into the sentence construction properly even in the older version - hence removed, but can be reinstated if propely constructed.

The Sepoy Mutiny is also called the Sepoy Rebellion (BBC), though Indians call it the 1st war of independence.

The sentence on Mahatma Gandhi leading the independence movement was mangled. Split it for easier reading.

Need to use caps for describing the features of the Indian Constitution.

Expanded on the Emergemcy a wee bit, with a date.

BPO and Software are service industries

Pongal and Onam are celebrated in their resp states.

removed ref to Indian Cricket Team - more appropriate in a seperate article.

A prev version had the foll:

In 1977, a united opposition, under the banner of the Janata Party, won the election and formed a non-Congress government for a short period after the unpopular 'emergency rule' imposed by Indira Gandhi in the previous Congress regime.

First there is no explicit mentioning of the lifting of emergency. Moreover, I think the use of unpopular is a mild POV. So played around with construction, thats all.

Pizzadeliveryboy 20:20, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

change in links

I have changed the links for India's national bird and flower to the specific species

Pizzadeliveryboy 16:25, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

reverted image change

I have reverted Vastu's image change since a south indian temple is already depicted above (in the end of the history section). Moreover the argument (Perhaps a temple of the southern style would be better here?) itself is a bit queer.

Pizzadeliveryboy 14:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• It was an evasive way of saying it looks better :-) Maybe the one above then should be changed to some Orissan or Rajistani temple or something, just so that we can showcase some of the grand Chola temples for anyone interesting in learning about India? To be honest, thats what an article like this is for - people who want to learn about small temples and everyday life in India can delve into that after being impressed - no need for modesty where other nations dont show similar restraint in flaunting their greatest acheivements. Vastu

I have removed some images:

1. Please keep images relative to the section that their in. A Golden Temple photo looks out of place in the sports section
2. Try and balance the locations of the images. The page should pick 'appropriate images from different corners of India.
3. Colourful and hi-res images should be given a priority over similar ones.

=Nichalp «Talk»= 07:43, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeh its kinda hard to both balance images of India's diversity, but also show off all the best things in an article which will likely effect many people's (hundreds of thousands? millions?) knolwedge of India - perhaps the table showing the national symbols of India could be moved into one of the paragraphs, as it isnt really a picture, and odsent conform to the 270 pixel formatting of the pictures it is with - this would free up some space for an image of an Jain or Sikh monument. Perhaps also some sort of reworking could be done about the maps - they both take up a lot of space where perhaps only one map showing the states could do the job of both?

Other than that, could do with a larger version of the rupee note, just so that it will be 270px wide in the article, or could resise everything else, or remove it because the BSE building is already there, or whatever. And now that the early south Indian style temple of Raja Raja is gone, maybe there is some way we could put a nice beauty-shot of a gopuram or something somewhere, perhaps instead of a konark wheel, which is afterall just a sculpture compared to an entire monument. Ill let others decide, whats been done so far is definatly an improvement though, as there was really no need for a picture of random street vendor selling stuff, or of a poor example of mandirarchtecture.

I just dont like to see steriotypes of India being a third world nation with no culture, (which is what some uneducated people believe), being reinforced by our own article, when other countries flaunt all their best monuments first. India may have problems, and I dont give a crap about nationalism, etc, but I do care about people being educated, and presented with images that challenge such ignorances - the world is better off for it, when people are more aware that there are many cultures throughout the world equal to their own. Whatever you decide, good luck. Vastu

P.S. heres some nice stuff from wiki commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Khajuraho - of Khajuraho, which are higher res, and just as fine examples of rock sculpture as the wheel:

response to vastu

I agree that the article is and should be a show piece to create a first impression. But more importantly, it is important to depict the diveristy of India.

Hence it would be better to include some northern indian temple, not because south indian temples arent grand enough, but because there is already one instance in the article. Something like somnath or dilwara or Golden temple would be apt (there is no reason why it should be only a Hindu tenple, and not a sikh or jain templle or a mosque or church or synagogue or fire temple - think about that).

Pizzadeliveryboy 14:38, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• Yeh sounds good, only reason I suggested that type of archtecture in perticular is because in terms of being a showpiece, there is not much in India that rivals the granite temples of the Cholas - a Cathedral might show diversity, but it dosent showcase indiginous design and culture, as better examples of such edifaces can be seen in other countries - maybe the Ellora rock cut temples, although there is already an example of a Buddhist stupa... Maybe Jain temples, or the Golden Temple. Ill let you or someone else decide, theres some good stuff on wikimedia commons these days. You see, while I am not perticularily hurt by your assumption that I didnt think about India diversity in all its extent, (because frankly, there are lots of people who think like that these days, so I cant blame you for wanting to point that out), there is good logical reasons for showing off 'Hindu' or 'Indic' achievements, without neccecarily being some Hindutva nationalist ;-) Vastu

In the last line, the sentnce construction implies Hindu = Indic. Thsta srubbish!!!

Pizzadeliveryboy 17:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I assume you are joking there, seeing as most scholars would define 'Indic' religion as the four major dharmic religions, and I didnt imply anything by adding Indic achievements should be shown off too, other than what you have read into it in a sort of Macarthyan witch hunt for Hindu nationalists ^_^  :-P BTW< this debate was rather pointless to start with seeing as the only reason I did use a (oh my gosh) Hindu building, is because

a). it looks good,

b). it stuck with the topic of the former image, i.e. the majority religion of India (im an atheist)

c). those temples are world engineering marvels, with a phenomenal level of craftsmanship that nobody outside India knows about, perhaps because they have been reading articles that, ahem, dont show them off....

Anyway, heres a nice image you we wanna use, ill change it, and if you have any problem with it, change it back. It isnt the best exampe of Indian work, but I guess flaunting culture is secondary to making sure we dont offend the obiously fragile feelings of India's abrahmic minorities lol ^_^ Vastu

File:Abandoned Temple complex at Orcha, Rajastan, India.jpg

Question: Why the fixation with edifices? =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:58, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Fixation is awefully strong isnt it? I know that people will be most impressed into further reading by big objects that look good - its human nature. Also if your question is deeper, like 'why should we not show the little things', ive answered that above, and again, its a matter of what people find impressive and beutifull. Vastu

Lets brainstorm on other themes rather than edifices. Sports can have something on cricket/kabbaddi etc, history can have some famous person's photo. =Nichalp «Talk»= 11:17, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

OK efidices are out - something about sport. There is abso no mention of the PHL - I believe some good work is being done in there...

Pizzadeliveryboy 16:45, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

May I suggest now that you have removed the only decent example of a Hindu temple on the page, that you replace the konark wheel with one? It simply just wont impress anyone right now, as Sanchi, despite its historical importance, is hardly as grand as either the Rajastani complex, or the South Indian stuff - I will replace Konark with the temple, if you think there is something wrong with that, then feel free to edit it back... Vastu

Republic Day 2006

Happy Indian Republic Day 2006 to all!!! --195.229.241.187 13:22, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

granting vs. gaining

The use of "granting" implies that the British willingly, on their own accord, gave up India (and thereby 'mutually consented' in 'according a previlege or favor' to the Indians - see dictionary for correct meaning of the verb 'to grant'), without any due credit to the Indian independence movement. This is untrue since there is a long history of struggle on several fronts, which eventually led to the people of India succeeding in gaining (thereby, acquiring (through struggle)) their independence from the British.

Pizzadeliveryboy 16:50, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Official Languages

How many does India have? The info table states "Hindi, English, and 21 other languages" whereas the number rises to 24 at List_of_national_languages_of_India#Recognized_national_languages_of_India_.28Scheduled_list_for_official_use.29 --Wotan 05:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

French is not an official language of the Indian Union. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

it is in pondicherry Bijun 10:05, 27 February 2006 (UTC)user talk:bijun

Discripencies in the map of India.

The map of India that has been shown on this site is erroneous. This is so because the occupied Kashmir part has been painted in the same colour as that of Pakistan. I would like to say that this is a serious discrepency since the Pakistan occupied Kashmir is still not recognised as the part of Pakistan. The official line is that Kashmir is an integral part of India. It can be depicted as a disputed part but showing it as a part of Pakistan is not acceptable.61.246.165.179 04:24, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

The mentioned part is administered by Pakistan. =Nichalp «Talk»= 04:46, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

The disputed areas should be coloured differently; this is the most informative and encyclopedic approach. -Pgan002 09:14, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Look at how Pakistan and China portray their maps. Pizzadeliveryboy 15:12, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Hashed lines would be the best to represent Kashmir and AP. The maps need to be updates since wikipedia is moving to SVG based maps rather than standard png ones. =Nichalp «Talk»= 03:45, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

emblem

File:EmblemofIndia.png

File:Emblem of india.png

The new emblem is actually correct one (it has the motto below the figure, which the earlier one lacked), though the saffron color is a little suggestive. Does anyone have an image like the earlier version, but with the motto subscribed below, and of a higher resolution (the earlier version was too small, and when force-fitted in the template, led to a loss of resolution)??

I believe the first one is a prank. I had originally uploaded the correct emblem with the Satyamev Jayatate inscription, but it seems to have been altered. I have reuploaded. Note that India's emblem is monochrome. Eventually we would be moving to an svg version of the emblem. =Nichalp «Talk»= 04:11, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

last edit

I have reinstited some classical dance forms and classified them into south and north. all of these are patronized by Sangeet Natak Akademi and several other classical art institutions of a national level. I am not sure of Yakshaganga, but someone can verify.

As far as festivals, need to include non-hindu ones too, esp of the phrase melting pot in the beginning of the para has to have any meaning. Pongal and Onam are local south indian fests, much like GC and DP.

Pizzadeliveryboy 14:52, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

True, but we simply can't list all dances and festivals out here. I'll leave it to you to cut it down. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:31, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I guess keeping some south and some north indian items would be balanced. Same applies to festivals tooPizzadeliveryboy 00:08, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Some, but having more than six is absurd. =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:27, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

national bird

The national bird of India is the male variety of the species Pavo cristatus. The common name of the bird is peafowl, but only the male species has been granted the honor.

Please check National Bird of India search entry in Google.

Pizzadeliveryboy 15:06, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

cuisine and culture

Wondering y cuisine and culture are in the same section. Also there is no mention of folk or classical art (painiting/sculpture) - only cinema, dance and music is present. The section should actually be Art and Culture, and cuisine/eating habits/staple diet should be another section, not in culture.Pizzadeliveryboy 00:17, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

As per wikipedia:WikiProject countries, cuisine & arts is included under the =Culture= section. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:23, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

official languages of India

Wondering what are the official languages of India? How many are there, and which ones? Are all state recog off languages also off languages of the Republic of India. What about Part XVII of the Indian constitution? Any pointers to sites outside wikipedia which point to the exact number of official (not recognized) languahes?

Pizzadeliveryboy 00:32, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

22: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Sindhi, Konkani, Manipuri, Nepali, Bodo, Maithili, Dogri and Santhali. English enjoys associate official status.

--source; Manorama Yearbook 2006, pg 507, ISBN 8189004077 =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:24, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Culture sec

Considering that the culture section has distinct paras on dance, music, art and cuisine, all relevant main pages should be listed in the main article section, instead of the see also secPizzadeliveryboy 17:47, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

No, the main article is Culture of India. All other articles are linked as main in that article. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:56, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

use numerals

Using numerals for numbers makes sense since its shorter, easier to be caught while just glancing thru text, and if we stdize this across the article, the length of the article will go outta hand!!!

Pizzadeliveryboy 18:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Please note: I have only changed the 'number as a word' in the lead! The lead is supposed to ease a reader into the topic. 7,000 is an approximation of the coastline length, and so can be written as a word. It is easier to read such words in the lead and keeps it clean. =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:38, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

My point is this - If you are including information in the lead of an article, the purpose is to catch the instant attention of the roving eye - esp if the reader is out looking for statistics to hold his/her attention to. This is the reason why you have a infobox right at the beginning of the article - to get all statistics (numbers) in one place. And as far I understand it, a numeral representation (4 digits) is easily more succinct, and easier to catch within reams of text than a full wordy representation, never mind whether the stat is approximate or not.Pizzadeliveryboy 15:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

No, as any good copyeditor worth his salt will tell you, this is not done for such cases as numerals look jarring. =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:59, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Flag vandalism

Can you please change the picture of the Flag which has been vandalized. Thanx

When you say the picture has been vandalized, how exactly has it been vandalized? Green Giant 21:37, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

ambiguity between C Asian and Persian vs Afghan invasions

All reference to Afghan invasions refer to incidents involving Pashtun peoples. The incidents involving C Asian and Persian rulers involve Turkic and Persian peoples (themselves distinct), which is different from the former. Hence, they are generally classified as Muslim invasions.Pizzadeliveryboy 13:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

National costume?

Is there an official national costume for India? I seriously doubt if it's there. How about a national calendar? If these are not official, they need to be removed from the table of national symbols. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 11:35, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I dont think there is a national costume, though sari is generally accepted as one for the ladies!!! Yes the government does accept the Saka era as the national calendar, though the Gregorian calendar is accepted as an equal.Pizzadeliveryboy 13:43, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm removing Sari from that list until someone cites a source to favour its inclusion. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 09:51, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

What is the purpose of this section - to promote Indian traditional dresses, or to document the current and past general trends in apparel amongst Indians?Pizzadeliveryboy 15:22, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

national holidays

SVP Jayanti is not a national holiday, and Diwali is a religious one.Pizzadeliveryboy 00:12, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Further reading on India

...is an article listing some book sources on India for the interested persons. As it is not an encyclopedic topic, it would be better to delete that article and move the content to India article. Since India is a featured article (and I don't know how to delete an article), I am requesting to major contributors here to give this idea a thought. Thanks. Ashish G 19:01, 14 February 2006 (UTC)