Talk:India/Archive 7
Religion/Spirituality was always part of the Indian breath. Am unable to find any mentioning of the same in detail in the India page, except a one liner that India has given birth to four major religions in the introduction. There should be more details about saints, spiritual leaders etc who have influenced Indian thoughts through the years. India would be incomplete without these details.
Why British English?
When going by the Manual of Style, this article should technically be written in Indian English. The article on the United States, for example, is written in (and should be written in) American English. --/ɛvɪs/ 22:45, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)
- No objection to this proposal as long as we steer clear of "What is your good name?" and its siblings. :-) -- Brhaspati\talk/contribs 23:46, 2005 Apr 25 (UTC)
- Fixed. =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 13:19, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
Location map of India
Should not the location map of India reflect a neutral point of view regarding the country's boundaries? The Pakistan/China occupied areas are shown as part of the respective countries and are not shown as disputed regions. (Sunayana 08:17, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC))
- It should. Waiting for User:Ankur to change his map. =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 03:43, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
-From amitroy5 I think we should leave that map alone. What you propose is the American prespective, which is not neutral.
Religion
Religion/Spirituality was always part of the Indian breath. Am unable to find any mentioning of the same in detail in the India page, except a one liner that India has given birth to four major religions in the intro. There should be more details about saints, spiritual leaders etc who have influenced Indian thoughts through the years. India would be incomplete without these details.
- You might want to see religion in India. -- Sundar (talk · contribs) 06:18, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
"Mother Earth"
As per a study, India also belongs to the bottom 10 percentile of countries when it comes to exploiting the planet. Its ecological footprint, a measure of how communities have used the resources in the planet, has has been .76 while the global average is 2.16 and all the top five countries have scores higher than 8. This may also indicate the reverence that people of the country have towards "Mother Earth", the way the planet was referred to in Indian ethos.
i think, this is such an important fact relating to India, in an age when the whole world is on an exploitation spree of the planet. We should metion this in the intro section itself of India.
For the study check out http://www.rprogress.org/
Someone deleted the relevant portion from the above paragraph when it was mentioned in the India page. If there is some specific reason for doing the same, please discuss the same in the discussion page.
Am adding the relevant details in the India page. Please do not delete it unless and until there are valid reasons behind the same, which should be discussed in the discussion page.
Thanks
- You got to be kidding me if that is true... please cite an actual link to the survey you are talking about.. this cannot be true LOL.... --kunjan1029 04:20, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
Hii LOL pal,
Go to the following link.
http://www.rprogress.org/newprojects/ecolFoot/faq/index.html
There is a link on footprint of Nations. Click on that.
I've repasted the study on the front page. If there is anything to discuss please go ahead.
Bye LOL
- I think that statistic is more reflective of the general economic conditions in India, rather than any special policy on the part of India. For example, more people in developed countries are able to afford such amenities as cars, etc, whereas a far smaller proportion of the people in India are able to do the same. As for pollution, I would say the laws are much laxer and the major cities can be quite polluted. I also don't believe this to be significant enough to mention in the first paragraph. srs 18:59, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
What is "Redefining Progress"? Is it a reputable international organization? Srs also has a point: perhaps a ratio between "footprint" and, say, GDP per capita, is a better indication of a country's ecological policies.-- ran (talk) 23:03, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
- I agree with u Ran... --kunjan1029 04:17, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
You have started a nice discussion, Ran. But am not sure whether calculating the ratio of "ratio between "footprint" and, say, GDP per capita" would be a better idea. The reason is both GDP takes into account consumption patterns and 'footprint' takes into account consumption patterns with reference to sustainability. So calculating a ratio between the two will lead us to nowhere. Probably you can go to the following link which speaks about the medtodology and maybe you can suggest an alternative idea. http://www.rprogress.org/newprojects/ecolFoot/methods/calculating.html
Regarding people behind Redifining Progress: Check out http://www.rprogress.org/newabout/board.shtml You can find more about the organisation, their activities, opinion in the media etc, details are available in the website.
Regarding the significance of mentioning it in the first para, i do think it is highly significant. Development indicators cannot just be based on GDP or just consumption patterns. Check out whether "development" is actually happening in the world at: http://www.rprogress.org/newprograms/sustIndi/gpi/index.shtml
I would also invite all the members here to take a footprint quiz about their own consumption patterns at http://www.myfootprint.org
Also, footprint indicator, need not just reflect the ecological policy of the country, it reflects a state of things at the country, and how people would like to lead their lives too.
Am not pasting Footprint indicator statement on the first paragraph of India page till someone comes up with an alternative. If no one does that, i would like to go forward with the pasting....
Beginning of the article
The beginning of the article is not well done. The reason is that the first sentences just talk about the rankings of India and its growing status. This seems to be rather subjective than objective, since I get the feeling that someone wanted to show India being of a high importance in the world. Not that I think it isn't but I get this impression in no other article related to countries (be it USA, Germany, Great-Britain or Japan).
I agree that the beginning is badly written.
India is not about what it is today but what it stood for in ancient times as a prosperous, very ancient, contributing and innovative in all aspects of civilisation, be it governance, theology and religion, medicine, multi-ethnicities and religions, scientific advances, literature, festivals, ....
The entire mystery and romance of ancient India is missing.
Modern India does have to be represented strongly in terms of positives as it has long been subject to negative stereotyping globally now for a number of decades. Indicating size, scope and performance through rankings and absolutes is as objective as one can get. Indians ought to remember they are selling the concept of India here and it is for them to do a good job of it unapologetically.
I think you exaggerate about India's importance in world history. Its importance is not comparable to Greece, Italy, China and Egypt whose historic influence is immense on today's world. Quote: "modern India does have to be represented strongly in terms of positives as it has long been subject to negative stereotyping globally now for a number of decades." Where are your proves for this claim? I never talked with friends (amongst them were indians) about India being an underrepresented country. India is a country like any other as well, yet I don't see that much objective background as is the case with other countries' articles.
Am not clear about the above comment "that someone wanted to show India being of a high importance in the world".
India has indeed re-awakened and may be that is what has reflected in the intro.
Rankings are anyways, defined to be objective indicators.
But then in realty, we know the fact that subjectivity comes to play when it comes to (selecting and) using statistics. If we look at a number of pages in Wikipedia, we can easily find that people have used the Wikipedia pages to pursue their own agenda which do not have any base on realty. But then as readers do not have enough time to sit and edit the matters, they let the issue go.
So if someone wants to project a reawakened India, let he/she do it. Those who do not agree to it, let them start another page.
- Without actually commenting on the intro, I would like to make a few points: The article should not be advocating any views. Forking (splitting an article into different versions depending on viewpoints) is not permitted on Wikipedia; policy is that different viewpoints should be integrated into one NPOV article incorporating all viewpoints. If one were to start another page it would be quickly nominated for deletion. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:12, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
LOL
I'm readding the paragraph. By wikipedia conventions, an aticle of this size should have two paragraphs. Whilst the para mentions India's growing status in the world, it is perfectly alright to mention the said text. If you have any further objections, please reword an alternative paragraph here so that we can all agree what can be put up on the page. =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 03:56, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
Hii Nichalp, i agree with you. Also, if/when you are changing the intro para on the India page, add the first para on the "Mother Earth" discussion too, as no one have given any other suggestion on how we can include the concept of India's Ecological Footprint being much much lesser than the global average. i haven't added the statement hoping that someone will come with a different suggestion.
discuss before deletion
Someone deleted the certain sentences -- for details check the Mother Earth part of the Discussion page -- when it was mentioned in the India page. If there is some specific reason for doing the same, please discuss the same in the discussion page.
Am adding the relevant details in the India page. Please do not delete it unless and until there are valid reasons behind the same, which should be discussed in the discussion page.
- Anon editor, please do not add horizontal lines to reply. Use the ":" to indent your replies. After replying, please sign your text by adding four "~~~~". The Mother Earth matter should not be on the page. It can however be added in the Geography of India. This article is a summary, and shouln't display needless statistics on the page. As mentioned in the guidelines above, this page is a summary, add relavent matter in the dedicated articles. Regards, =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 13:33, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
Demographics
I think demographics should include the details about racial origins of people. I know that in India, the racial origins are not very popularly identified, rather the caste and the religion but the demographics does imply racial differences. As far as I know, the mere fact that a large portion of the population is brown in colour implies that people have mixed for generations. I am from Kerala, and I feel that Kerala has so many different races, Syro-Malabar Christian, Orthodox Christians, Kanannaite Christians, Brahmins, Nairs, Menons etc... I think we should have a comprehensible page on the demographics of India. --coolmallu 04:43, 2005 May 15 (UTC)
Thanks
The demographics section in the article page is missing!! Vandalism? --coolmallu 04:31, 2005 Jun 9 (UTC)
Population size- intro
I thought that India had surpassed China as the most populous country already. am i just imagining things? YggdrasilsRoot 18:53, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
About the beginning again
Hi kunjan1029, I have reread the first paragraph. It consists of three sentences and I was counting the word "largest" 4 times. It is not a good style to use a word so often in just 3 sentences, furthermore does it always stress something as if every single aspect would be of such importance that we must say that it is "larger than anything else", or as one word "largest". Altogether the beginning of the article is poorly written and should be completely changed into something more neutral. It is one way to say that the largest country of area in the world is Russia but it is another thing to say that the largest eggplant happens to be in Bangladesh (or whatever other country), if you understand what I mean: Don't point out every single thing in a ranking.
Aryan Invasion Theory
This is being disputed widely. It should be mentioned that scholarship disputes the Aryan invasion theory and it is a contravertial view. 24.126.17.155 03:37, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
I say no to mentioning the dispute about the Aryan invasion theory. Let it stay. Anything can be disputed. People are disputing if Jesus even existed. Some say he never did. So, there are disagreements, but the evidence overwheamingly suggests that there was an Aryan invaison. A strong evidence for this is the Indo-European language tree.
Page now follows most conventions
This page should set the standards for other country articles:
- All Manual of styles are followed
- Article follows guidelines in Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries
- Infobox used
- Page size is under 30kb
- Article text is well written
- Most interwikis for a country article
=Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 20:19, May 21, 2005 (UTC)
photo added
I removed the Rs.10 note which looked soiled and replaced it with a Rs.100 note pic which I found in the RBI website. Arunkrishnan 12:56, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
the country's name
I would like to know what is the most culturally neutral name for India in order to figure out how to name the lojban "India" page. I see that Esperanto chose the word Bharat. Is that name neutral, or would that name be resented by the Tamils, the Sikkimese, etc.? Would the English word "India" be more or less neutral, or is there a third option? Sowelilitokiemu 21:39, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
- India by far is the most neutral name. Bharat and Hindustan are also popular alternatives especially among those having Hindi, Urdu, Parsi and other widely spoken indian languages (like Bhojpuri, Sanskrit, marathi, gujarati and oriya) as their mother tongue. One must take into account that there are more languages spoken in India than in any other country, so hence to derive on a culturally neutral name is difficult. For ex. Assamese wouldn't be familiar with the word Hindustan. But they account for a very less % of the total Indian population. The term Bharat is widely used in southern India (including Tamils, Kannads and Keralites) also. On the whole, both India and Bharat can be used to name the country concerned, Bharat being more popular domestically, while India internationally. --IncMan 22:50, May 26, 2005 (UTC)
- I think Bharat is quite neutral, also. It depends what standards you use for naming articles; on en, India is used as it is the most common name for the country, not because it is more neutral (as far as I understand). — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:06, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
In Archive 1 of this page, the use of Hindustan was fiercely debated and found to be a POV and now somewhat archaic. The term India is used in English, and Bharat in Hindi. In Hindi, India is rarely spoken, except occationally by Hindi sports commentators. I've been to Sikkim, so I can safetly say that there are no issues about Bharat being a POV there. I'm not even sure if it can be construed as a POV. =Nichalp (Talk)= 06:15, May 28, 2005 (UTC)
- Well, Hindustan is very much a neutral name. In ancient times, people living in the Indian Subcontinent were known as Indus (since they lived across the Indus river). The Persians weren't able to pronounce the name properly and called them as Hindus. This is how the name emerged and region was then later on known as Hindustan. The name is not being biased towards the Hindus. It is how the region is being named for centuries and has historical significance. --IncMan 15:49, May 29, 2005 (UTC)
Accusations of Human Rights - Biased version - not NPOV
In the Demographics section, there is a line mentioned regarding Human Rights violation. Though certainly some events have occurred in the past that have acted as a slur on the secular nature of India, e.g. the 1992 Babri riots, Gujarat riots, etc., they are just deviations or aberrations from the usual secular set-up in India. It is hence not fair to accuse the entire state of India (like: India has been guilty of so-and-so). At the same time that I accept that thiongs like these have occurred and have been occurring, I must also aver that it is not right to pin-point these accusations on India as such in general, on the same lines as the persecution / supression of other religions in countries like Saudi Arabia, other Islamic countries, or the persecution of ethnic minorities in countries like Turkey (that of the Kurds). This is exactly what the line under discussion, in the 'Demographics' section, equates to.
Hence I felt obliged to delete the line. I would suggest that the line may be modified to something on the lines of: "Though India is secular, certain events like so-and-so have happened in the past that have tarnished its reputation..." or something like that. It is just a suggestion. One may modify the line accordingly to bring out IN CLEAR AND CERTAIN TERMS the basic fact that such violations are not a character of India but rather deviations from its character.
The same applies to the case of 'Human Rights violations' in Kashmir. The place for the sentence accusing India of HR violations in Kashmir is definitely NOT the primary articlae concerning India, but rather another secondary article dealing specifically with the issue. I have no objections to the issue of HR violations in Kshmir being discussed, but I would just say that the promary Indian article is NOT the place to mention it.
My reasoning is simple. While many people consider that the Indian Army is violating HR in Kahmir, and India is the aggressor, many others (most Indians and many other non-Indians) think that Kashmir is rightfully theirs and it is the Islamic and foreign-sponsored terrorists who are actually killing people and causing HR violations. You see, the Point-of-View differs, and this is the specific reason why I believe that NOTHING whatsoever must be mentioned about all the issues I have talked about in the current article, should find a place in the PRIMARY India-related article on Wikipedia, even though I firmly support their being discussed in other secondaryarticles, even at length.
Thanks and cheers. --Bhuvan 11:13, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
- --> I totally agree with Bhuvan. Even I wanted to modify the sentence but wasn't able to do so earlier due to lack of time. Incidents like the Gujarat Riots or the riots following the Babri Masjid are not supposed to be mentioned in the India article because they were events whose causes were very unique. Just mentioning them might give a wrong impression to a neutral reader on the secular structure in India.
- Even if they have to be mentioned, all events leading upto these incidents must also be given in detail and the India article is no place for that.
- Human rights violations in Kashmir can be mentioned in the Kashmir article, but again in a neutral manner. HR abuses is a concern in every country. That doesn't mean that they are mentioned in the country's main article unless it iis not a very serious issue. %wise, HR abuses in India are negligible. Mentioning Kashmiri HR abuses in the Kashmir or Terrorism in Kashmir article makes sense, but not in the India article. Thanks --IncMan 12:53, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
You'd also have to keep in mind that the version that you currently are seeing, could have resulted from vandalism. =Nichalp (Talk)= 18:49, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
Vandalism
I think the frequency of acts of vandalism have increased and maybe we should consider some alternatives. I just reverted the article in which the entire section demographics was removed to an earlier one. Does anybody have any suggestions? --coolmallu 04:55, 2005 Jun 9 (UTC)