Talk:Medha Patkar

[Untitled]
Medha Patkar's wikipedia entry should be restored. It was flagged as having a possible copyright issue with SAWNET bio of Medha Patkar but Wikipedia entry and SAWNET bio were written by the same person "Aravinda Pillalamari". SAWNET does not have copyright issues and authors of bio's on their website own the copyright.
 * Although the author apparently established an account on Wikipedia and copied her material here, I was unable to contact her using the email address provided. If she comes back, she is welcome to put the material back up, but should clear up the permission question. Fred Bauder 17:54, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

modified the "hunger strike" paragraph I have removed the unnecessary political POVs of the paragraph.Bharatveer 10:38, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I have modified the sentence regarding her the end of her latest fast. And why is not everyone using the discussion here when they are modifying the article????? Bharatveer 18:16, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Accusation for being a foreign mole
This is not NPOV. And this belongs to the Narmada Bachao Andolan article, not here. Also, a court notice is different from a court judgement. Supreme Court Notice to NBA was the source given. And "Accusation for being a foreign mole" is not clearly not NPOV.

I don't know if that is 'not clearly not NPOV'--but I do know that "Accusation for being a foreign mole" is not good English, and that this message is puzzling and unsigned.Drmies (talk) 04:09, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

biography
Patkar deserves a better entry than this--her main cause isn't even mentioned in the main part of the article. If anyone is moved by the spirit, let them act on it! Or I may give it a try soon.Drmies (talk) 04:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Recent Reverts
I have just reverted a couple of large changes to the article based on a somewhat flawed understanding of WP:BLP. However, I have reinstated some of the edits, as they were, in fact, necessary. There are several contentious points here, and I will attempt to answer most of them with respect to the changes I just made:
 * 1) The statement that she worked for the dam commission is sourced to the commission report itself. While this is technically a primary source, BLP does not forbid primary sources, it simply requires caution. In this case, the question is whether she was a member, and is hence not contentious; therefore, the source is acceptable.
 * 2) The statement about her parents is not acceptable as per BLP, as it is sourced to a youtube video.
 * 3) The statement about her degrees is from a self published source. However, it is published by the organization she leads, and is therefore acceptable. See WP:BLPSELFPUB. However, I have removed the unsourced statement about the formation of the NBA.
 * 4) The statement about the "controversial" NBA movement is unacceptable in and of itself, and is also sourced to SPS that are not published by the subject; therefore, I have removed it.
 * 5) The entire section about the Supreme court is unacceptable as per BLP. The sources provided do not mention her by name, and some are primary sources being used for extremely contentious material. I have purged the entire section, and far better sources are necessary before anything like it is replaced therein.
 * 6) I have tagged the NBA section for citations, because it is entirely undisputed information that is not directly about the subject, but the current sources are poor.
 * 7) The youtube sources are unacceptable, and all info sourced to them needs to be purged. I am still working on this.

Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:16, 30 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Please correct / strike-through your language as used above. Read WP:NPA. Do what you can, then I'll go through this article and make my own changes without discussion like you did. BRD has 1 R in it. You cannot restore disputed content without discussion. This is a BLP article and it needs very good sources. Landirenzo (talk) 20:25, 30 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I also removed the statement from the lead about an "alternative view." As has been pointed out, it was not sourced well enough. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:32, 30 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I have indeed read WP:NPA. I am not attacking you: I said certain sources were unacceptable to a BLP, which I am absolutely within my rights to say. I also said that certain edits were based on a flawed understanding of BLP. I have not made a single derogatory statement about you personally: if you disagree, you are welcome to report me.


 * As I said, I am attempting to clean up the sourcing while explaining each change on the TP. If you have a specific disagreement with my method, please state it here. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:32, 30 March 2014 (UTC)


 * The issues I have with your language /attitude shall be discussed on your talk page. The issues I have with the article content shall be discussed here. Are you finished ? Do you have a consistent position on SPS, BLP and PRIMARY ? The usual method is to Talk first and then revert / cleanup when another editor is involved. Also, you have no "rights" at Wikipedia. Landirenzo (talk) 20:41, 30 March 2014 (UTC)


 * It is also conventional in these situations not to insert new sources for unsourced / poorly sourced disputed content without consensus of other editors.Landirenzo (talk) 20:51, 30 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Are you disputing the fact that she won the award?Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:54, 30 March 2014 (UTC)


 * If you carry on like this we shall not be able to edit together. Now I am telling you very clearly that you are editing without CONSENSUS. I am advising you to stop editing. I ask you to confirm that you have stopped editing. I shall thereafter make 1 major edit which reduces this article to essentially acceptable text, a common minimum content. We shall resume after 24+ hours have elapsed and will not game the system. Landirenzo (talk) 21:01, 30 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Defamatory material does not require consensus to remove, as per BLP, so typing out "consensus" in bold is not helping anybody.


 * Above, you requested me to "go ahead and do what you can." That is precisely what I was engaged in. I am unsure why you changed your mind about that. I have currently removed the vast majority of poorly sourced information. If you can find more of it, go ahead and remove it. I will then determine whether is is indeed "essentially acceptable." I am done for now, and a 24 hour moratorium is acceptable to me. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:13, 30 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Needless to say, if you attempt to re-introduce the section about the supreme court, I will remove it. There is a BLP exemption to the 3RR limit; in my judgement, that section falls well within the exemption. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:13, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

The volunteer editors at Wikipedia are not competent to decide what constitutes "Defamatory" material. That is settled by the WMF's legal team. If you have a problem with defamatory/libelous content, you are supposed to email the legal team at WMF to get it removed / corrected. The content about the Supreme Court seems well sourced enough, both from the primary sources (reported judgments of SC of India are widely available) as well as the secondary (national newspapers) reporting of it. You may not like it, but WP requires all POVs to be represented with due weightage. Your "threat" to remove material I may insert is not in keeping with WP:AGF. The 3RR exemption you cite will not save you because any WP:EW can get you blocked.Landirenzo (talk) 02:11, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * If you deliberately misunderstand what I say, there is little I can do to explain my position. "Removal of libelous, biased, unsourced, or poorly sourced contentious material that violates the policy on biographies of living persons" is what the description of the 3RR exemption. It is present in wikipedia policy, so that volunteers may use it in exceptional cases. This was such. An SPS and an article that did not refer to the subject by name were used as references for material critical of the subject, putting this well inside territory where the exemption applies. If you genuinely believe otherwise, you are welcome to report me to the BLP noticeboard/ANI/wherever your fancy may take you.


 * Moreover, you cited BLP to remove an award she received that has been well documented elsewhere. In my opinion, you simply neglected to check the sources the first time, and did not wish to acknowledge this the second time. Which is why you are now filling the TP with blue links to wikipedia policy, rather than actually discussing your sources. Vanamonde93 (talk) 02:33, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Your entire approach to this dialog is that my understanding of "BLP" is flawed, and that your knowledge of Wikipedia policies is greater than mine. That is unwise. for eg. your rendition of the 7th exception to 3RR is incomplete "... What counts as exempt under BLP can be controversial. Consider reporting to the BLP noticeboard instead of relying on this exemption". The award was removed due to its "poor sourcing" and for no other reason. Furthermore, your editing history at Wikipedia leads me to suspect you are linked to Ms.Patkar's network. If so please read WP:COI. Lastly, I did not insert any of the text in the article, so my interest is to see that controversial unsourced or poorly sourced content is removed from this BLP article. I have no additional sources at the present time. Landirenzo (talk) 03:33, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Do not nitpick. I quoted a passage from the policy; I had no reason to quote it in its entirety, and so I did not. The award is utterly irrelevant here. I am discussing the section about the supreme court criticisms of the NBA, which you reinstated multiple times despite warnings from me. An IP inserted it to begin with; you reverted twice to keep it in, after citing BLP. It was sourced to a blog and a newspaper article that did not mention Patkar, ergo it was a violation of BLP.


 * If believing you have a more complete knowledge of policy makes you feel happy, you are welcome to continue believing so; your editing record speaks for itself. If you wish to fling meaningless accusations around, and by doing so violate several policies you mentioned above, you are once again welcome, though I would not recommend it. If I were to extrapolate from your editing record, I would say that you are a Brahmo Samaji with a personal grudge against Patkar, seeing as these are the only pages you feel are worthy of your attention. If you have further substantive contribution to make, I will respond to it below. I decline to respond to further insinuations about my background. Vanamonde93 (talk) 04:18, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * How droll (and way off the mark).

Supreme Court related content
Source #1: The website of the NBA (Medha Patkar's organisation) containing a scan of the referred letter, and its true text. (this is the primary document) Source #2: An article by a well known journalist Francois Gautier analysing the aforesaid primary document. (this is a reliable secondary source) for the factual claim made a former MP and Minister for Power Dr. Urmilaben Patil, wrote to the Government of India, complaining about "NBA's active opposition to all large hydel dams and especially the Sardar Sarovar Project" and provided material that Medha Patkar had "managed" the Supreme Court in collaboration with foreigners Source #3 : An Indian Express news report that NBA made false statements in SC and stood discredited. (Patkar is named in the story) Source #4 : PTI (a reputed news agency), accessed through Rediff.com Source #5 : Deccan Herald (a reputed news paper). Landirenzo (talk) 04:57, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Source 1 is a legal document, which is explicitly forbidden by BLP. Source 2 is an SPS; not RS. Source 3 only mentions her as the leader, not as directly involved. Likewise 4. Moreover, if youtube is not a legitimate source for an NDTV interview, rediff is not, either. Source 5 also only mentions her as the leader. Why don't you try this site? They would welcome you with open arms. Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:26, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Source 1 is not a legal document, it is a letter. The fact that the letter is "published" on the NBA's website means NBA admits/acknowledges that it exists. There is a secondary source (Gautier) (Source No.2), which refers to this letter and reproduces the claims made in the letter (source 1). Source No. 2 is emphatically not SPS (SPS means published by NBA/Patkar), and it is an RS (written by a senior journalist based on disclosed primary sources). Hence, WP:BLPPRIMARY allows it to be used, and the letter is neither a public record or a legal transcript or court record. NBA has never denied the emails mentioned in the letter or explained them. Sources 3,4,5 are all examples of reliable media reporting on the extended "controversy" over NBA's lies in the Supreme Court of India. The NBA is synonymous with Medha Patkar and all these reports treat them as such. Rediff is only the access-point for the PTI news report.Please don't sidetrack this issue with other encyclopedias, and abide by Wikipedia's policies. Landirenzo (talk) 10:11, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Blatantly incorrect. An SPS is the "publication of any book or other media by the author of the work, without the involvement of an established third-party publisher" and the Gautier source is very explicitly an SPS. Medha and the NBA being synonymous is a prime example of WP:OR. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:47, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Break 1
I will not edit the article until this time tomorrow, but we might as well talk now. So, first couple of points:

1) She won the Goldman environmental award in 1992. This is beyond dispute; it should be added.

2) I believe that the report of the commission, with her name in it, is sufficient sourcing for stating that she was a member of the commission. If not, then this should be sufficient to supplement it. What do you think?

3) In general, I believe these [repub.eur.nl/pub/18981/wp242.pdf] sources are a decent beginning for all NBA related information. What are your thoughts?

4) This reference should be good enough for information about her early life, as well as for the degrees she has earned. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:53, 30 March 2014 (UTC)


 * The only usable reference is [repub.eur.nl/pub/18981/wp242.pdf] and even that has to be used carefully and responsibly, and after we both agree on what can be inserted from it. Landirenzo (talk) 02:00, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * What are your objections to the Wall Street Journal and the Encyclopedia Britannica, and that for factual, non-controversial information? Or are you disputing the fact that she has a masters degree, and that she received said award? Also, precisely what is your objection to a book published by Cambridge University Press? Vanamonde93 (talk) 02:36, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Th WSJ content is on a blog, and not subject to editorial review process. E.Britannica's primary/secondary sources are not disclosed, so in their absence the entire article is simply an opinion/fiction of its single contributor. When Wikipedia itself is not treated as a reliable source I can't accept that EB is. The CUP book has a 1 line passing mention of NBA and does not cite its primary source/s. Landirenzo (talk) 03:39, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I accept leaving out the WSJ. The CUP book, however, contains 6 separate references to the NBA. Also, being a CUP publication, it reaches literally the highest standard Wikipedia has for sourcing and verifiability. We can leave out EB if you are dead against it. If all you are going to do here is to raise objections to the sources I provide, this is not going to be very productive. You need to come up with something.Vanamonde93 (talk) 04:05, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Please see WP:TERTIARY to exclude CUP and EB. Why don't you read the actual secondary sources cited in CUP like "Fisher" to see the real face of NBA :-) and Patkar. Lets include the whole of pages 196-198 suitably paraphrased to avoid copyvio. Landirenzo (talk) 05:32, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Why in heaven's name are you reverting me when I correct the link to the google book? Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:36, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
 * We shall not include those pages, as they make allegations about the NBA unsupported elsewhere. They are also out of date, and even at a cursory reading, remarkably POVish. Collaboration between the NBA and the FD? And the Morse commission? Are you seriously expecting that to pass BLP criteria? Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:45, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I think you need to seriously understand the differences between primary, secondary and tertiary sources. Wikipedia prefers secondary sources like Fisher (1995). Your admission that "the CUP publication reaches literally the highest standard Wikipedia has for sourcing and verifiability", means that Fisher (not CUP) is the best kind of source to be used in this article, as its primary sources are identified and are closest in time to the events. Obviously we would have to give much higher weightage to a source from the 80's or 90's for claims for that period, than a book written in 2000+. The allegations were made, were repeated in reliable secondary sources (which are further cited) and they seem unrefuted. This meets WP:BLP eminently as far as I am concerned - Fisher is a reliable secondary scholarly source. The fact that Fisher details many POVs and new facts on NBA/Patkar, makes it even more necessary to include them all, see WP:NPOV. Landirenzo (talk) 10:24, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

How to proceed
As it is clear that there are a few differences in perception which may prevent us from editing with consensus, I propose as follows.

There is now a surfeit of sources which show that NBA/Patkar are habitual liars. These are (a) The SC cites (n) Fisher (1995) and (c) [repub.eur.nl/pub/18981/wp242.pdf]. Since our first reverts were over the sub-section "Controversy over "misleading" and "managing" the Supreme Court of India", I suggest that you reword this sub-section carefully, and use the 5 available references, so readers get the full sense of Patkar's methods, but keep it NPOV and comply with other WP:5P. We can then move on to the other aspects. Landirenzo (talk) 18:51, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Any reasonable individual would begin with non-controversial, purely factual information. In this case, such information would consist of her place of birth (which you removed), her upbringing (ditto), the awards she has earned (ditto) and her role in the formation of the NAOM and the NBA. None of this needs be controversial. Instead, you wish to start by inserting material about how Patkar is a "liar." If you do not adopt a more constructive attitude, I intend to seek dispute resolution. You do not have consensus of any kind on your side, so you could hardly say that was unnecessary. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:53, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I removed place of birth because at 1 place it says she was born in Bombay and at another that she was born in Mangalore. So I removed both. If you cannot accept that this is a BLP article you had better stop editing at Wikipedia and stop your POV pushing. Persisting in promoting a bogus and self styled "World Commission on Dams" without sufficient RS will surely get you booted off. There is no shortage of RS to show that Patkar's NBA is a congenital liar, and has been declared so by India's highest judicial authority with an abundance of RS to back me up. The reason I am insisting on sorting this issue out first is because it is the cause of action for our interaction here. Landirenzo (talk) 00:00, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

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