Talk:List of serving generals of the Indian Army

Requested move 19 July 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Since it was noted that a higher-ranking general is in this list, it would be a misnomer to rename this page for only "lieutenant generals". The minor rename to lowercase "Generals" → "generals" was made as suggested. (non-admin closure) Rules of enpagement  Paine   17:21, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

List of serving Generals of the Indian Army → List of serving Lieutenant Generals of the Indian Army – The Article must be renamed as List of serving 3-star officers of the Indian Army or List of serving Lieutenant Generals of the Indian Army because the list only contains information about of Lieutenant Generals only. While the present name List of serving Generals of the Indian Army is somewhat confusing. The word Generals may be used for Major Generals, Brigadier Generals, Colonel Generals (not used in India) as well. So I propose to change the name. Regards, KC Velaga  ☚╣✉╠☛  07:20, 19 July 2016 (UTC) Regards,  KC Velaga  ☚╣✉╠☛  07:20, 19 July 2016 (UTC) --Relisting. Sam Sailor Talk! 11:22, 1 August 2016 (UTC) )
 * Comment. Either way, we can cut the overcapitalization: List of serving lieutenant generals of the Indian Army. Gulangyu (talk) 07:59, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment and slight concern. Unless "Lieutenant General" is the actual title of the rank? Also, the first general link appears to be a General, if I'm not mistaken, so is the intended title destination still valid? — Andy W.  ( talk  · ctb) 16:30, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
 * "List of serving generals". Using a capitalised "Generals" makes it sound like we're talking about full generals, but a non-capitalised "generals" makes it sound like we're talking about all kinds of general officers, i.e. analogous to everybody we'd consider a flag officer in a naval context.  Presumably India uses other general ranks, so the omission of non-LGs is reason for expansion, not renaming and modifying the list's scope.  Nyttend (talk) 03:37, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Would support simply lowercasing "generals". — Andy W.  ( talk  · ctb) 17:26, 19 August 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

How does this meet our goal of providing encyclopedic information?
Concern has been expressed about the contents of this article specifically whether the level of detail is appropriate.

(If you are an OTRS agent you can see more information at ticket:2016062710009016)

The question does not appear whether we have a legal right to include information we can find in publicly available sources, but whether inclusion of this information serves an encyclopedic value.

It may be that some of these generals are notable in their own right, and if so an article about them including the rank and command might well be appropriate. However, the possibility that one or more might be notable on their own does not mean a list of serving generals serves a useful purpose.

Can we have a discussion about whether this entire article serves a purpose, and if the answer is yes what level of detail is consistent with an encyclopedia?

I suspect there are too few people watching this page to have a meaningful discussion but I'll start with this note and if discussion is not forthcoming, I'll try to convert this to an RFC. That said, I'm going to specifically ask for input from who has a lot of experience with issues such as this.-- S Philbrick  (Talk)  14:17, 27 June 2016 (UTC)


 * In response to ping
 * This list appears to contain information about individually non-notable persons, and is not of sufficient value to readers to justify the possible endangerment of non-notable living persons per WP:BLP. Similarly, I would regard a list of "people employed at a managerial level in the Indian Government" or any similar list to be improper, and at an AfD, I would absolutely have stressed the WP:BLP concerns. Lists of living people, in general, are best reserved for lists of people notable enough to warrant their own articles on Wikipedia. Collect (talk) 16:13, 27 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Agreement is strong both for the need to question this and the response. Lists on Wikipedia are of notable persons, and even lists that have a few red-linked entries are often edited to remove the red links as non-notable.  Please let me study this for a time to see if any of the other names are notable Indian generals.  I would also question whether or not the list is complete.  Rules of enpagement  Paine   13:05, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking into this. I frankly have no particular interest in this article and only raised the question because it came to my attention as an OTRS agent, so I am trying to get the ball rolling but hope someone with more knowledge and interest in the area can carry it out.-- S Philbrick (Talk)  13:34, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Found two more blue links and added them. Checked all the others using name variations, and all the rest were red links or links to same-name articles of other notable persons.  Two of the red links were previously deleted pages, LG Suresh Sharma and LG Sanjay Kulkarni.  This list has survived deletion nominations, so I don't have a clue as to what should happen to it.  Rules of enpagement  Paine   22:18, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Generally speaking (no pun intended), when we have a list article in Wikipedia, it is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all items that meet the list description but a list of all of the items that meet the list description and have an existing article in Wikipedia. In some cases, such as a list of Nobel prize winners, we might presume that anyone who has won the Nobel prize is almost certainly going to meet our notability standards, so if they do not happen to have an article they probably will at some time in the future so it is quite proper to include their name as a red link.


 * In other cases, such as a list of people earning a medal of honor, there will be many people who also happen to be notable, so will be on the list because there is an article about them, but there may be others, that wwile they engaged in an individual act of heroism deserving a medal, are not otherwise notable, and thus red links for these individuals should not be included on the list. A common email to OTRS is a request for someone's close relative to be added to such a list which I have to politely explain is not going to happen unless there is a specific article about the person. It doesn't strike me that every serving general in the Indian Army is likely to meet the notability standards. I don't have a particular opinion about whether the list itself deserves inclusion but the fact that it might deserve inclusion does not necessarily mean that every general in existence ought to be on the list. I think it makes more sense to treat it as analogous to a medal of honor list in which the list itself is viewed as notable in the list should include all notable elements but should not include generals who do not otherwise meet the notability standards. If you accept my reasoning, it would be acceptable to remove all entries in this list other than those for which there is an existing blue link or for which it is likely that an article should be developed.-- S Philbrick (Talk)  22:34, 21 August 2016 (UTC)


 * That would result in a very short list. Here is a quote from the Chief of the Army Staff (India) article:
 * "Lt Gen Praveen Bakshi, presently the GOC-in-C of Eastern Command, is tipped to succeed General Dalbir Singh when he retires on 31 December 2016."


 * So a list like this ("serving generals") also requires that retired generals be removed and promoted generals be updated. I could find no reason to believe that any of the unlinked LGs are notable enough to even warrant red links.  Rules of enpagement  Paine   22:52, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Move the page to List of serving commanders of the Indian Armed Forces
Currently, we do not have a page which is a list of the Air Marshals and Vice Admirals in the Indian Air Force and Indian Navy respectively. In my view, instead of creating a separate page for these, we could expand this article to be more inclusive. Moving the resulting page to something like List of serving commanders in the Indian Armed Forces would be more appropriate. Thoughts?


 * I agree with the premise that is indeed prudent to create a separate entity mentioning the Senior Flag Officers serving in the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force. However, I disagree with the idea of a combined List of serving commanders in the Indian Armed Forces list. A separate list for each of the three service arms would be great.VP101 (talk) 15:08, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Organisation of this article
Hello, a couple of questions about the organisation of the article 1. Is the Engineer-in-chief a principal staff officer, or a "Heads of Combat & Combat Support Arms" ? Currently, the post and the occupant occurs under both. I think he belongs to the second category, which should be renamed to "Heads of Combat Arms", as all the persons/post relate to the combat arms of the Indian Army. 2. On a similar note, should the Director General, Military Intelligence be moved to the "Heads of Combat Arms" table? How about the Director General, Military Operations? Should there be a separate table for Support arms? 3. I am looking for official definitions. I am relying on template:Indian Army arms and services, which makes absolute sense, but want "official" confirmation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ranban282 (talk • contribs) 07:02, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Doing away with the 'photo' and 'decorations' column
I don't see the need for having these two columns. So many names aren't even properly referenced, and adding these two columns just create empty cells. —Sarvatra (talk, contribs) 04:50, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:52, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Lt Gen AP Singh, AVSM.jpg

Why is "Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee" on this page?
This page is only for the army right... not tri-service positions. Shouldn't then "Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee" be on the navy and air force list too if it is here? I think the section should just be removed from this page. DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 06:41, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
 * ping, DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 06:43, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Yep, I think it should be removed. Since it's about the serving army generals, Chairman COSC should be included only if he's an army officer (Bipin Rawat will be next month). Also remove all non-army officers serving as tri-service commands chiefs. Same policy for admirals and air marshals list. Also remove "General officers eligible for appointment as COAS" section. —Sarvatra (talk, contribs) 07:20, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Should the rank columns in tables be merged or kept unmerged for the same rank?
The page is a mix of keeping the rank column merged or not for the same rank. The table for Army Commanders has it merged but the very next does not. I vote to unmerge all of them. ShazamH (talk) 20:57, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

I'd vote to merge all those tables which "definitely" include Lt. Generals. This would be Army Commanders,Principal Staff officers, and Corps Commanders. I believe they have always been so since independence, or even before. Maybe Tri-service positions could be kept merged as well. Other positions like Chiefs of Staff, Commandants of Military academies, and even DGs, which are occasionally held by 2 star officers could be kept unmerged. Ranban282 (talk) 08:25, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Im sorry but you have understood me incorrectly. I meant only the rank column. For example, in the Army Commanders table, Lt General is present only once but the the PSOs table, each row has the rank mentioned. Regarding your proposal, I do not agree. ShazamH (talk) 08:43, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

How can you disagree with my proposal if I did not understand you correctly? I understood exactly what you said, hence my proposal. This issue occurred in the Navy admirals page: Chiefs of staffs of commands initially had just one "Vice Admiral". When Southern Naval Command got a Rear Admiral as CoS, Eastern and Western commands had a merged "Vice Admiral", and southern had a Rear Adm. Now, Western's Cos is also a R. Adm, so each row has its own entry. In that page, positions held by R. Adms have been segregated into seperate tables, and further segregation has been done between "regular" and "surgeon" rear & vice adms. What I proposed was to make it consistent with the Navy (and the Air Marshal page), i.e. keep merged entries for posts which are "definitely" 3 star posts, and segregate where different ranks are possible (e.g tri-service positions(Navy) or commandants of institutions in those pages). Additionally I'd recommend that we create a seperate table for "independent" major generals, like the Navy. I wouldn't mind a "sub-merging" either ,like now in the DG Table, (between Lt and Major gens), but it results in more work while editing, if, say, a commandant of a training institute/DG/Area Commander becomes a Maj. Gen, and then later again is a Lt. Gen.

Tbh, I feel a little silly writing all this, as it's a really minor issue. Keep up the good work reg keeping the pages up to date. Ranban282 (talk) 10:33, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

I misunderstood you this time. I got confused and thought you wanted to seperate tables. Do agree in bringing consistency between the 3 services pages. ShazamH (talk) 10:50, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Do we need to include Major generals who don't head independent services
This page appears to include all 4 star generals, all 3 star generals, and major generals who're heading services/departments, hence it seems to be okay to inclde  generals who are heading nursing, postal, military police, human rights etc, who hold the rank of Major General. But why do we include Additional Director General Staff Duties and Additional Director General Administration and Coordination, when they do not appear to head their departments? Rashtriya rifles is also questionable as it has been downgraded from Lt Gen, but could be considered "independent" enough to have an entry.1 Ranban282 (talk) 08:14, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree with you, will affect this change if still needed when I'm able to edit. ShazamH (talk) 08:57, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Is Master general Sustenance a Principal Staff Officer?
There is somebody who insists on putting Gen CP Cariappa as a princiapl staff officer. Can someone confirm if Master General Sustenance is a PSO and provice a reference? I read somewhere that the MGS is supposed to report to Deputy Chief (Capability development & sustenance), and it is indeed written in this page.

More confusion: The army website [|Here] says that MGS is a PSO. However, it also says that it is one of the 8 PSOs. Saying this contradicts itself. Making MGS a PSO would result in 9 PSOs, as it is clear that a VCOAS is a PSO - says so in the article. Ranban282 (talk) 07:31, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

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 * Lt Gen Rashim Bali.jpg

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 * Lieutenant General Manik Kumar Das.jpg