Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics

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Thangal Uppapa?

Nellikunnu Muhyaddin Juma Masjid needs some local sources. Probably a Malayali speaker is needed In ictu oculi (talk) 11:33, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to India noticeboard. Sorry to see you have not got any reply. Actually there are not too many users here in WP India noticeboard who are fluent in Malayali/Arabic. I have tried to search in Arabic, but have not found any good result. Here is a reliable source on the festival! --Tito Dutta (contact) 06:29, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you TitoD. Helpful as always. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:16, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Reviving INCOTM

The Indian collaboration of the month project is lying idle for the last 5-6 months. The interested editors who are willing to take up collaborative improvement of articles related to India are requested to give their consent/support below. Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 09:08, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Very good idea! We need a volunteer coordinator to manage it! Once the INCOTM starts, its our experience the collaborators will come, :)! AshLin (talk) 14:58, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

• I agree with Aslin. T4B (talk) 15:03, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
• Yes, essentially we need the coordinator. There was a discussion in the Indian mailing list after BPositive stopped working as the coordinator. Someone wanted to be the coordinator (I forgot who) but did not have a lot of experience. But that seems ok now, I mean even without less experience, we need one coordinator. Any one? Or, we can enforce someone :P --Dwaipayan (talk) 17:32, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Who wanted to be the co-ordinator? Remind him! --Tito Dutta (contact) 06:16, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

• whoever it was ( I forgot the name) s/he is not much active in Wikipedia at present. I propose the name of Tito Dutta as the new coordinator. If Tito accepts that, it would be great. He is currently very active ( not that the coordinator needs to be very active, moderate activity is sufficient).--Dwaipayan (talk) 06:26, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

• Support Tito's nomination. Today looks like an auspicious day to restart INCOTM. I also support going back to one collaboration per month with a properly defined goal such as FA/GA status. The experiment with two collaborations wasn't very fruitful. Correct Knowledge^«৳alk» 08:36, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Support for Tito's nomination as coordinator. I also feel handling one article would be more fruitful. Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 14:55, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

• Support Support Tito's nomination as the new coordinator. BengaliHindu (talk) 12:27, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
• Support i too support the nomination.  Mrwikidor ←track 16:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

• I am worried about my Wiki future. Eexpecting a long WikiBreak soon! Sitush or Ekabhishek might be a good co-ordinator!

Tito, Please consider helping out in INCOTM even if it is for a short period only! How about for just one month to begin with! Then we can request someone else whenever you would like to discontinue! AshLin (talk) 12:18, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Indian cinema centenary celebrations

It will be 100 years since Raja Harishchandra released on 3 May this year. There have been discussions what the TFA (Today's featured article) on that day. Since Mother India passed FAC today, I, along with behalf of my fellow nominators User:Dwaipayanc and User:Dr. Blofeld propose to have it as TFA on this day. Thoughts... --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:08, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Good idea. Definite support! --regentspark (comment) 17:13, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Mother India is nominated at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 06:05, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Authenticity of "52 Hukams of Guru Gobind Singh"

Are the "52 Hukams of Guru Gobind Singh" authentic? I couldn't find any authoritative source which states that these were given by the Guru himself. Google leads to some forum discussions which question the authenticity of these "52 hukams", pointing out that the language used is modern Punjabi which was not prevalent around 1700 CE. Can anyone please confirm the authenticity? utcursch | talk 02:27, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

This book appears to be the earliest modern compilation of Guru Gobind Singh's 52 Hukams purportedly written by Baba Ram Singh at Nanded in 1708 (a later edition/translation is available here). The author of this book claims that he came across these instructions in an old manuscript which, according to various internet forums, nobody has been able to find and was probably lost in 1984. I was hoping to find a claim about such an important historical discovery substantiated in independent works, but there is nothing about it on GBooks. It also seems unlikely that if such a work existed SGPC would ignore it in its compilation of Rehat Maryada published in 1945. To me this appears to be one of the many modern day myths that become a part of popular religion but have no historical or scriptural authenticity; a bit like new Upanishads or modern day Vedic mathematics (not to be confused with mathematics in Vedic period). Correct Knowledge^«৳alk» 06:54, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, that helps a lot. I've quoted you at Talk:Khalsa#Third_opinion_needed_on_following_points. utcursch | talk 18:44, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Naming people in articles

Is there any guidance on how to name Indian people in the body of articles? We have MOS:IDENTITY but I think I've also seen something somewhere about use of patronymics etc. Generally speaking, we seem to treat the last name of an Indian person as if it were a westerner's surname and to refer to them as such after the first mention in the body, unless to do so would cause confusion. - Sitush (talk) 20:55, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

• In few articles I have seen, editors linking this article Indian name as a note in superscript to clarify Indic naming convention! --Tito Dutta (contact) 23:18, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Copyedit required

Does anyone fancy copyediting Maithil Brahmin#Organisation. Like many articles concerning Brahmin communities, this is just gibberish to non-Indians. - Sitush (talk) 08:47, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Neutrality issue: No mention of 1989 Insurgency and specific attacks against Hindu minority?

This page is transcluded to receive input simultaneously from various venues

Why is there not a single line in Kashmiri Pandit article about the eruption of armed rebellion ensuing Islamic insurgency of 1989 which has specifically targeted the Kashmiri Pandits minority in recent times and violated their human rights repeatedly?[1] Nothing whatsoever about the scores of onslaughts and human rights violations by Pakistan-backed militants, why? According to a resolution passed by the United States Congress in 2006, Islamic terrorists infiltrated the region in 1989 and since then nearly 400,000 Pandits were either murdered or forced to leave their ancestral homes.(ref: "Pallone introduces resolution condemning human rights violations against kashmiri pandits" if that doesn't work follow →[2])

They got "trained and armed" by the ISI. Ethnic cleansing continued till a vast majority of the Kashmiri Pandits were evicted out of the valley after having suffered many acts of violence, e.g. sexual assault on women, arson, torture, extortion of property etc.([3] & "Encyclopedia of human rights" p. 306)

"Many of the 250,000 refugee Kashmiri Pandits have been living in pitiable conditions in Jammu".[4]

Other sources

• Encyclopedia of human rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2009. p. 306. ISBN 978-0195334029. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); |first= missing |last= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Catherwood, Christopher; Leslie Alan Horvitz. Encyclopedia of War Crimes and Genocide (1st ed.). Infobase. p. 260. ISBN 978-8130903637
• Kushner, Harvey W. (2003). Encyclopedia of terrorism. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. pp. 171–172. ISBN 0761924086.

I am not sure whether we can add it in the article of Kashmiri Pandits but we can have a seperate article something like Kashmiri Pandit Exodus or something like that--sarvajna (talk) 15:27, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I see that there is some mention in the page, but I still feel that the event is notable enough to have an article on its own --sarvajna (talk) 15:31, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

It talks about "1948 Muslim riots" and "1950 land reforms". Just to clarify, I am not asking the content to be included verbatim as I have written it. We may modify it of course. But the real issues are A. the way it downplays the general predicament of Pandits and B. the amount of space dedicated to it. Even that section needs balancing. Such as there is no mention of the fact that only 3,445 pandits were still living in the Valley as of 2010 [5]. I am talking about the impact of the exponential rise of Islamic militancy since 1989 [6], [7]. Mr T^{(Talk?) (New thread?)} 17:14, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with all your points and I do not see any reason why someone should object--sarvajna (talk) 07:49, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I think you'll find that it was removed some time in the last two years because it was so POV-y and it unbalanced the article - the usual Hindu vs Muslim rubbish. Of course, the article is now unbalanced in the other direction. - Sitush (talk) 14:29, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

S6001271.JPG

file:S6001271.JPG has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 05:24, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

That seems to be their own work! --Tito Dutta (contact) 06:11, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Since it is used to illustrate a WPINDIA article, a replacement image would something that might be good to obtain. (just because it's up for deletion, doesn't mean that we need to keep this particular image, replacing it with a different one is also a possibility) -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 12:20, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

In light of the 2014 general elections

Hi all. I've been thinking; next year is the 16th general elections, and I reckon a lot of people will be going online to figure out who they want to vote. Considering how simplistic, partisan and/or non-comprehensive most online sources are about our national leaders and parties, I feel Wikipedia can be an excellent, NPOV resource for provide prospective voters to make an informed decision.

With this in mind, a few questions/discussion-items:

1. Would you be interested in forming a sort of informal taskforce to build these articles, as well as tackle inevitable vandalism, propaganda insertion as D-day approaches?
2. What do you think are articles that will witness high traffic come election season? Obvious ones are various leaders such as Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi; parties such as Indian National Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party. Less obvious are things like Indian general election, 2014 (which will be linked from the main page news-section as well) and any number of smaller parties and candidates.
3. Should we aim at getting a few articles to GA/FA levels or bring several articles to a just decent level to comprehensiveness?
4. Can you think of appropriate article(s) we can work to feature on the main page on election day? For eg: if I can get hold of sources, I've been thinking of getting Indian general election, 1951 to the main page on the first day. Other options include 1st Lok Sabha on the day the 16th Lok Sabha commences.

Looking forward to hear what you think, and further ideas and suggestions as well.—indopug (talk) 16:23, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

• rather than trying for FA, improving many articles to a decent level would be a better idea. The first general election or the first Lok Sabha, both will be very difficult to get to FA level.--Dwaipayan (talk) 17:51, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

files up for deletion

• file:Jawahar Lal Nehru, PM of India, in Dalhousie, 1954.jpg
• file:Cover of 4GR Officers Association Newsletter,2011.jpg

have been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 00:20, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Disruptive editing

Once again facing disruptive edits, this time by User:Mrwikidor. The user is serially nominating articles one after one for deletion, without initiating any discussion in the talk pages. Further, the user is blanking out properly referenced portions of articles without any discussion. Most importantly the user has resorted to personal attacks. Please take cognizance. BengaliHindu (talk) 12:36, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Would you mind to show us please? And, please stop making such accusation against me without showing where i did! Why didn't you messaged me or warned me before accusing here? By the way, why AfD creating problems to you? You've edited and improved the 2013 Canning riots article and removed the {{Wikiproject-Islam}} from its talk page[8] yet you didn't remove the template Template:Islamism in South Asia from the article where non-Islamic topics (according to you) are being added by a possible sockpuppet to the template[9]. You don't even bother to notify me before accusing me here! Again, this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bengali_Hindus shows your disrupting edits. But, i'm optimistic about the other Indian editors that they will understand the issue of Communalism and its curse that the India is still suffering and neutrally take decisions based on the sources provided in the articles. Best Regards,  Mrwikidor ←track 16:11, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Greetings,

PLEASE stop canvassing! Answering one by one:

#1

Mrwikidor has canvassed here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here etc.

BengaliHindu has posted here and might have posted somewhere else too. He should remember, his this posting type was criticized previously (though I didn't fully agree that time too). BengaliHindu, there is no reason to think you are right and they are wrong and if you feel you are being personally attacked, seek help in better noticeboards like ANI etc. You are a senior editor, I personally know you for quote some time now. I can understand you are frustrated a bit (most probably)... relax. (also read next paragraph, section #2)

#2

Seeing the recent AFD flooding at BengaliHindus talk page, I have a hunch EITHER he is being "targeted" (which might a form of WikiBullying) OR there is some misunderstanding. Trying to explain-

This part contains my opinion, some of those might be incorrect too.

1) The rationales given at AFD of Dainik Prantajyoti are meaningless. It is a notable newspaper of an Indian state, and a simple google search proves that it deserves a page in Wikipedia as a secondary newspaper.

2) The same issue with Hindusthan Standard AFD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hindusthan Standard

3) Another one is Dainik Yugashankha with similar issue Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dainik Yugashankha

4) I have not fully studied the Canning riot article, but, it seemed to me a WikiNews content!

5) Folkloristic Education and Research Institute should pass as a Government sponsored education institution. But, it'll be highly helpful if editors can add few secondary reliable sources

6) Very poor rationale has been given at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Protection Forum for Bengalee Hindus of Assam. They should write in details. Google web search shows multiple mentions of that ORG. They needed to mention if they followed WP:BEFORE.

That's all for now! --Tito Dutta (contact) 17:35, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

• In addition, Mrwikidor, where is the talk page link in your signature? --Tito Dutta (contact) 17:39, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

• As you can see i didn't include that in my signature and this follows WP:SIGLINK. By the way, that is out of context here too. Mrwikidor ←track

I strongly support deeper investigation into the editing patterns and disruptive behavior of User:Mrwikidor. I have made a detailed post on his talk page here requesting that he cease his current pattern of editing and follow established wikipedia rules, policies and guidelines.Handyunits (talk) 06:07, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

That implies to you actually. The 2013 Canning riots contains excessive Original Research by you which will be taken care soon and Wikipedia is not the place to promote Anti-Islamic propaganda with your views. No wonder you were a previous candidate for disruptive editing. =)  Mrwikidor ←track 20:36, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

IMO, this is not the most appropriate noticeboard to discuss this. Probably it should be taken to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard or related "User" noticeboards. Redtigerxyz ^Talk 14:47, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Avakasam

Do we have an article concerning avakasam but under some different transliteration? I've just seen a source that refers to it as a "caste-specific right" but need to read around the idea a bit more. It sounds as if it may be referring to the notion of castes having traditional occupations. - Sitush (talk) 14:38, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Native name in the infobox

What's the convention. There were a bunch of these. Let me know how it should be and I'll fix them up and advise the editor. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:51, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• Welcome to WikiProject India noticeboard. Since infobox is a part of lead and gives a summary of the article, the current consensus is not to add Indic script unless an article is covered by another country' WikiProject (for example see Surya Sen, which is a part of WikiProject Bangladesh too). You can see more details including the discussions here. I have reverted the edit fro the article. --Tito Dutta (contact) 05:10, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. So I guess these need to be fixed, right? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 07:03, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The info that you link to is slightly out of date. There was a more recent discussion concerning script in relation to placenames. While that petered out, there was a vague consensus that some sort of native name could be present (just no agreement on how to determine which one(s)!). Since that time if I have seen a native name is present for an article about a place, I leave it there because I can't make my mind up what to do! The exception is when people are edit warring about it, in which case I remove the thing in the (often vain) hope of getting some peace and quiet. I need to dig out the link for that discussion from the archives. There is also WP:INDICSCRIPT, which I guess is the formalised version of that which TitoDutta linked. - Sitush (talk) 07:16, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

But the clarification given by DQ, is "The consensus is to remove the scripts and replace them with IPA to clarify the pronunciation." Is there any other Rfc which supersedes this decision? Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 07:30, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

No. The one I refer to fizzled out. I'll support you if you choose to remove from placenames (just yell) - I just have so much on my plate at the moment that I duck the issue myself. - Sitush (talk) 07:41, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• And that creates the problem too. We can't remove Indic scripts from all articles AND WikiProject Pakistan Bangladesh allow (read "encourage") native scripts, and some new editors go ahead and add Indic scripts in other WP India articles too! --Tito Dutta (contact) 16:56, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it has been acknowledged previously that the RfC was imperfectly formed in that it should have involved the various related projects even though their variations of languages are much fewer. However, the issue certainly does not affect places/people etc who are solely within the scope of India as we now know it. Nor is the newbie issue relevant: newbies make lots of mistakes, others fix them. Hopefully. - Sitush (talk) 17:03, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Registration of mahabsabhas

Is there any requirement that a mahasabha claiming to represent a community has to register itself with regional or union government? There is a long-running series of discussions at Talk:Ezhava, among which was this comment. The mahabsabha in question - details of which were added to the article by someone else who is on the same "side" in the discussion as the poster of that message - has been reported in newspapers, including The Hindu. I am aware that there is some sort of system for registering political parties, although I am vague about whether mahasabhas are always the same as political parties and also regarding the extent to which registering such parties matters anyway. - Sitush (talk) 07:39, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

AFAIK mahasabhas are social organizations, they need to register like any other organizations (at local registrar I guess). Their can be more than one mahasabha which claims to represent one community. --sarvajna (talk) 08:24, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I have tended to loosely translate the word as "caste association" (with the emphasis on "loosely"). I wasn't aware that social organisations had to register, although I've long been aware that saying you represent a group does not make it true - that applies everywhere, not just in India. Any idea why they have to register? What is the significance of registration? - Sitush (talk) 10:39, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

If the organizations are not registered they do not become legal organization, non registration would mean just some loose bunch of people, I am not very much aware of all the legal things associated. However one thing I know is that if any Mahasabha or anyother organization intends to use public money or say government funds, they need to be registered or else there is no legal value to what they do/say. Say there is a NGO (non government organization) and I donate money to that organization, I get tax benifits, for that to happen that NGO needs to be registered under some law. Perfect example would be Ramakrishna Mission . --sarvajna (talk) 11:07, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Got it, thank you. It is not the same as in the UK but there similarities. It raises the further question of (a) how do we check whether a mahasabha is registered and (b) does it really matter from our perspective. I mean, if some vocal group of people get their name mentioned in national newspapers regarding some controversy then is their opinion worthy of note in an article even if their body is not officially recognised. An extreme parallel would be some dissident group in a dictatorship, I guess, since the govt would not recognise the dissidents but their views might still be significant. We certainly do have stuff concerning such groups but whether the same notability/weight etc can be attached to an unregistered mahasabha is something to ponder. - Sitush (talk) 16:53, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Grizzly scenes at Ezhava

There is quite a racket going on at Ezhava, can someone step in to prevent a slaughter of the dummies? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 10:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

"Slaughter of the innocents", surely? A reference to the various new-ish contributors. There are loads of admins watching that discussion. - Sitush (talk) 10:37, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I request uninvolved editors to explain to the new editors that Wikipedia policy is sacrosanct, there is an edit dispute and these new editors perceive that Wikipedia rules are thrown at them to browbeat them into submission. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 11:06, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Let them contribute in other areas of Wikipedia unrelated to the topic. They'll understand for themselves why Wikipedia's policies are sacrosanct. Right now they are on a merry-go-round and more advice won't miraculously change their perspective. Correct Knowledge^«৳alk» 11:13, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't hurt trying. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 11:59, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

YK, if you are using words like "sacrosanct" and "browbeat" coupled with links to huge essays, good luck with your trials. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 18:25, 2 April 2013 (UTC)