User talk:Nichalp/Archive 2

To see the old archive: Nichalp/Archive 1

Uploading files
Renaming files isn't possible unfortunately. Work on redesigning the form is underway. See Test:Special:Upload. Angela. 19:46, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

Newdow
I don't see anything in the current event spot to suggest that Newman was interested in atheism. The word "god" is not used even once in the Constitution, nor is their any implicit reference to anything of a religious character, except for in the bill of rights ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or abridging the free exercise thereof."). If god was mentioned in the constitution, the constitution would invalidate itself, being it, then, a law respecting an establishement of religion. I've never heard the expression "God save America" before. Christmas is not an American national holiday. Thanksgiving is not a religious celebration.

A secular government is where religious institutions are completely separated from state institutions; i.e. neither has any power to affect, interfere with, or in any way "be in" the other's business. The first and most commonly used meaning of the word secular is "Worldy rather than spiritual." A state cannot believe in god, regardless of whether or not it is secular. A state is an abstract idea. In a perfectly secular government, the offficers of government would not let religion influence their decisions. If religion influenced their decision such that they would not have decided that way had it not, then the result of that decision, de facto, respects an establishment of religion. In effect, when a politician in a so-called secular government is playing the role of statesman, they should not be religious. Kevin Baas 00:09, 2004 Jun 16 (UTC)

"From what I make of the case, the fact is" is a contradiction in terms. of it is your 'making of the case', then ipso facto it is not a 'fact'. A fact is something that is indisputable and is directly evidenced. I am not aware of any attempts to get publicity by Newdow, nor of any resource suggestive of this. Kevin Baas 00:17, 2004 Jun 16 (UTC)

Loyalties
Interesting question. I would fight for Bhaarat were a war between the States and India to break out. But in any other case, I'd side with the U.S. I'm a citizen.--LordSuryaofShropshire 19:37, Jun 22, 2004 (UTC)

Soccer
What is the use of the center circle?

-- It marks 10 yards from the centre spot which is how far away the opposing players must be at a kick off.

Are there any major uses to the inner penalty box and the 'D' semicircle?

-- the "inner penalty box" is usually called the goal area or 6 yard box, it is the area from within which goal kicks must be taken. You will occasionaly hear that the goalkeeper has a right to the ball in this area but there is nothing like that in the rules. The D marks 10 yards from the penalty spot which is how far away all players must be when a penalty kick is taken.

-- Hope this helps Bob Palin 00:20, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Indirect kicks are awarded for minor offenses of a technical nature, things like offside or obstruction, direct kicks are awarded for more serious offenses. You cannot score a goal directly from an indirect kick, you will notice that the referee will keep his arm raised until another player has touched the ball after such a kick to make sure there is no confusion.

Bob Palin 15:43, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

-- Each team has "home" and "away" colours, England are white at home and red away. The tournament organizers decide which team is the home team for each match by some formula and thus the colours are decided. I don't know what formula was used in Euro 2004 but it is interesting that England were the away team in the 1966 WC final in England! Personally I wish England would wear red at home, it seems so much more attractive. Bob Palin 04:00, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Cricket
You have put the GFDL tempalte on the two images image:Shots.jpg and image:Positions.jpg. Firstly where did you get these images from? Are they public domain? Did you create them? Secondly, you should use slightly more descriptive names for images (Cricket_shots.jpg etc.). Ed g2s 19:11, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Oh good. Images can't be renamed. Do you mind if I clean it up a bit, remove the grey background, crop properly etc.? Or could you make some better versions (preferrable png's, so without the grass effect)?
 * What would be ideal is if you could give me the template and the overlays as separate files, but if not don't worry. Ed g2s 19:42, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Sure - or drop it in my email EJSanders at gmail dot com Ed g2s 19:51, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Got it - thanks. Ed g2s 20:16, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I just asked Ed g2s if he could edit the fielding positions image to move the gully back behind point and closer to the slips where it should be, and also remove the sweeper and move deep midwicket there instead. He said I should clear it with you before he makes the changes. Do you have any objections to those changes? --dmmaus 23:20, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Very much so, should I implement the changes suggested? Ed g2s 22:10, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * By "behind point" I mean move the gully backward of point, not deeper. Essentially it should end it between point and slips. No objectoin to keeping sweeper if the deep midwicket is moved closer, or made the same even. Thanks for doing this, both of you! --dmmaus 00:44, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Good job in India
Hi Nichalp,

You are doing a good(but unenviable:-)) job watching over the India page! I tried following it for 3-4 days, but it is too much for me. Everyone wants to keep adding their two cents worth. I don't want to get embroiled and waste my time over it. However, sometimes I feel guilty(like now) and try to contribute in maintaining a balance.KRS 14:51, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * Have added more to the history section in India:-), see my comments in the talk page. Regarding your queries, let's just say I am involved in the field of architecture in some way(which is an obvious observation) and leave it at that!:-) And yes, I am from South India. KRS 18:41, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Indian Coast Guard
Is the Indian Coast Guard page a copyvio, or do you have permission to use the stuff from their homepage? Note that even if you are planning on changing the page, if this stuff is a copyvio it is going to have to be removed from the page's history.

Also IMHO, its bad practice to leave messy pages (esp. near-orphans) scattered around wikipedia. At least Wikify stuff if you are going to throw it up, and mark it as a stub if necessary. Thats my opinion at least (

&mdash;siro&chi;o 12:20, Jul 5, 2004 (UTC)
 * I've marked Indian Coast Guard as a copyvio, and copied your new version to Indian Coast Guard/Temp, I believe it will be merged back in as soon as the copyvio is deleted, then. &mdash;siro&chi;o 02:01, Jul 6, 2004 (UTC)

India and vocabulary
You wrote: I noticed that you removed the words antediluvian, nascence & paroxysms. I use Wordweb as my electronic dictionary. Antediluvian literaly means "before the Deluge." In terms of years, it translates to before 1500 BC. Although it is derived from the great flood, it also means ancient. Nascence means birth. Paroxysms mean sudden attack (generally used for fits). The reason why I am mentioning you this is that I have improved my vocabulary thanks to wikipedia. A simple English page is a feature of Wikipedia, so if anyone has a difficulty in understanding high english, he can refer to the article there. I had put up these words so that other wikipedians could benefit. Nichalp 20:06, Jul 5, 2004 (UTC) (Re: on my talk)


 * I'm happy that you have been able to improve your vocabulary thanks to Wikipedia. Nonetheless, I think the word choices sounded a little odd. I meant no offense, I was just trying to make the english read a little less awkward. Words can have a dictionary definition which may be appropriate to a particular situation, and yet they also can have connotations which make them sound odd when used in other contexts. Any composition instructor can describe the pitfalls of misusing a thesaurus to find substitute words, which may have similar meanings, have connotations which limit their literal substitution for one another. Good luck. Also, I just noticed a careless mistake I made with paleolithic. older &ne; wiser 20:48, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Cricket Images
Hi, I just taled with Ed g2s about the new cricket positions image he suggested I talk to you (since the new image is based on your work.) I wanted to know what are the blue dots in Image:Cricket_positions.png are those not fielding positions? --Ankur 06:18, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hijra (India)
To: User:Chancemill, User:Sundar, User:Harikishoreaj, User:Nichalp, User:KRS, User:Ambarish, User:Arvindn

The Hijra article needs some help/comments. If you know more on the subject, please feel free to comment at Talk:Hijra (India). Thanks. --Rrjanbiah 04:26, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Fundamentalists
1) While you may dislike RSS, VHP and other such groups as Hindu radicals, it is also a well-known fact that there are thousands of small fundamentalist Muslim groups that work independently and in concert across the Indian subcontinent; most bombings in the country (including the railway bombings in Maharashtra) have been perpetrated by widespread Muslim groups; Muslim fundamentalism, while not bearing a single-face like the VHP, is no less prominent

2) Christian fundamentalists are well-known trouble-makers for peaceable Hindus in the North-East and in the South. THey have repeatedly destroyed temple iconography and created unrest. They are not free of blame for the secessionist movement now agitating in Nagaland and Mizoram based solely on religion. They're very much hurting Indian peace.

3) The media you speak of has also been known to be extremely Hindu-bashing in its effort to present a secular face, much like the laughable separate-but-equal codes.

4) While a Hindu fundamentalist killed Gandhi, his life is no less valuable than those lost in the bombings perpetrated by Muslims in Mumbai a couple of years ago. If we are to privilege high-profile cases (like Babri and Gandhi), done by Hindus, over the multitudinous deaths of common Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir or Bombay bombings committed by Muslims, or harrassment, vandalism and bigotry of Christians in Christian-majority towns all over the North East of India, we are being not only prejudiced but blind.

Lastly, as a brief epilogue to my points, made in only response to yours, I should add that I distance myself from rabid Hindu fundamentalism. I dislike the new-age reincarnation of McCarthyism that allows anyone who criticizes traditional Indian government or non-majority practices as 'Hindutvadi' just as much as I hate the branding of Muslims in India as fanatic pseudo-Pakistanis or of Christians as neo-British colonialists. These are silly, myopic and communalist viewpoints and should be abandoned as childish. Rather, we need to take a realistic look at these things. Maybe the India page should address this instead of presenting itself as a glorified haven of perfection and we can speak about the fearful dynamic of religion in the Indian subcontinent. Recall that demographic arguments citing oppressive 83% Hindu majorities in India are quite illogical, being that India is known as an extremely state and province-centered group, and that Pakistan and Bangladesh figure into the equation as well. It's not so simple. As I've mentioned, there are areas across India where in Hindu-dominated states one can find Muslim-majority villages. Kolkata, did you know, is 30% Muslim in population. Thus, it's not so simple as an overbearing umbrageous Hindu fundamentalism gripping the country's next. Unfortunately, it involves pockets of fundamentalists who claim adherence to many faiths, the most notable being Islam and Hinduism. Let's keep it real. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:47, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)

A post-script: I should add that most Christians, Hindus and Muslims are the model of harmonious co-existence and that Muslim weavers in Benares, Christian and Parsee enclaves in major cities (like Bombay or Delhi) and a mess of mixed communities across the country, South and North, have none of these problems. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:51, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)


 * To your responses, I say this: you have not countered the commonly-held charge that the media is extremely biased and simply insist that they speak naught but truth, a strange belief to hold about media, which is known around the world to be but one face of the prism of reality. Secondly, attributing secessionist ideas to the North East to underdevelopment is silly. Bihar is heavily underdeveloped, the worst state in the 28, and yet it does not seek separation. The Christian secessionist groups are not agitating for princely state histories but because they want a Christian country, and this is well-attested to. It is clearly based on religion. Also, the legality of Hindu groups like VHP and RSS doesn't say anything about the share of blame between Hindus and Muslims for religious unrest in India. You cannot numerically apportion blame between Hindu and Muslim groups and have one come out any better than the other. THe many Muslim groups have just as much of a combined presence as the two or three Hindu groups. I was also not calling you a bigot though your comments smack of a deeply-held conviction that any religious unrest in India today is solely on account of Hindu fundamentalists, which is the most ludicrous and baseless statement a person could make (if that is what you believe even in part). THe dynamic is much more varied than a big Hindu group bearing down on Muslims. It's very provincial, as I mentioned earlier. --LordSuryaofShropshire 21:28, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)


 * By the way, the minority of Panjab Khalistani-wallahs were agitating for secession for a land that was one of the most prosperous in the country. So I disagree strongly with your assertion that seccessionist movements globally can be charted on underdevelopment, though that is obviously a factor, since it is part of a greater equation most often based on ethnicity, language and religion, as was the case both in the short-lived "Khalistaan" movement and the on-going Nagaland and Mizoram insurrections which are both being spear-headed solely by fundamentalist Christian groups.--LordSuryaofShropshire 21:32, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)


 * Oh, as for the CHristian groups in the North East... police have confirmed extortion attempts by NLFT in Tripura, horrific harrassment of minority Hindu groups there, etc. Also, the Mizoram gov't head Zoramthanga is blatantly breaking with secular ethics by planning to send 1,00,000 missionaries across India to convert wildly. Lastly, the Nagaland insurrectionists are demanding a new 'Christland,' which leads me to believe that the Christian terrorists in the North East care less about princely dominion than separatist Christian terrorism.--LordSuryaofShropshire 21:42, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)

Worthlessness of this discussion
Nichalp: all you're doing is listing hindu radical offenses; I'm not interested in listing christian or muslim crimes and then weighing them. The dynamic is far more complicated than you portray, and unfortunately your sweeping statements about the nature of rebellions landed you in a trap of inconsistent arguments. You can talk about Christian principals and Staines, but others will respond with smashed Hindu temples by Christians and Staines' molesting recent converts (anyone ask why he was killed?). Jews and Parsees have had safe asylum in India for centuries, so claiming Hindu oppression is a one-sided and myopic idea. It's more complicated than 'Hindus' and the rest of India. You are stuck in your ideas and I am stuck in mine, though, while this is obviously my own opinion, it seems you're giving a lot less thought to this and are simply interested in indicting Hindus and absolving Muslims and Christians of their part in national dissolution. Frankly, you can keep cluttering my pages with laundry lists, but the reverse can be done using different creedal groups, and I'm not interested in what is a discussion doomed from the beginning. Peace --LordSuryaofShropshire 19:00, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)

My Final Word
You may call my reports balderdash and revel in another string of self-aggrandizing pronouncements, but I too follow the news (though I read enough to keep my eyes of the TV screen) from several sources, Indian and otherwise. My reports are accurate and come not only from personal experiene and family living across India, but friends of different cultural backgrounds residing there. I'm not going to dally with your indictments of VHP movements which are obviously fundamentalists, because the more you cite them, the more you ignore the other side of the picture. You're blind in one political eye since you only seem to see the defects of Hindus and no one else. Anyway, you can respond to this message, which I'm sure you will, but I'm done with this. You're intent on defending pre-established ideas without a base and your only responses two me are to 1) list more offenses by Hindus and 2) tell me my news sources are wrong. Neither of these are the arguments of someone who's rationally approaching the issue. Your view of Indian politics is of someone who's, as I said before, hell-bent on showing all of India's problems to have stemmed from Hindu fundies, whereas much communal hate has also been shared by supposed 'SECULARISTS' (i.e. Sikh killings in the 80s) or Muslims (bombings galore; thank you LeT and family) or Christians (multiple temple destruction incidents across India). I'm not telling you that Hindu fundies don't screw up the country's face, or act irrational, but I'm also not buying your hogwash about how one can attribute or even a majority of the blame to them. I'm not even going to talk about the religious demographics of the Indian underworld, because that would just ruin your argument. Aum Shanti --LordSuryaofShropshire 21:22, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)

I disagree wholeheartedly with your response. I do not equate Hindus and Hindu fundamentalists, and they were Islamic bombers. What you did was not to mention Hindu fanatics in a single incident, but to attribute all of India's unrest to Hindu fundamentalists in the India society section. There's a big difference there buddy. As for Zoramthanga, he's easily found in any newspaper and was quoted. The woman Staines molested came out in India so this is no secret. I'm not justifying his death, nor those of his children, but I am saying that this is not a simple 'hindus hate christians' deal. Nor is the dynamic as singular as you want it to be. Lastly, Islamic terrorist groups from Pakistan, though foreign they may be, have plenty of support in India. The origin of a group makes no difference in its activity in India. I'm done talking with you, because you're set and I'm set, and this is a worthless conversation. Just don't fill the India page with nonsense about how all of India's unrest can be attributed to Hindu radicals. --LordSuryaofShropshire 16:23, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * You seem only to be interested in conspiracy theories that support your own views. You accuse me of insulting those who don't tow my line, but apparently your idea of an 'insult' is when I disagree with you. lies you sound like angry and dismissive, dismissive of anything contrary to your own ingrained beliefs. Do some research and swallow the bitter pill of truth. You fling one argument at me, find it discredited, go to another, and then accuse of lying or say I'm being lied to. You're the one avoiding true debate. You're the one creating all the fanciful ideas about Hindu fundies being India's sole problem. Apparently, you're not able to separate your background from intelligent conversation. Try to stop insulting me and actually work out your own deeply-set issues, since you really have problems handling reality. If you actually read the India page, you'd realized your edits, while squeezing it, have also choked all the life out of the page and made it boring and unrealistic, especially with ill-chosen words like 'antediluvian' and 'eructation.' P.S. "Badinage" is light talk or playful banter, which was certainly not what I was making. Maybe you meant something different. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:38, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

Getting Lame
Hindu fundies are responsible "FOR MOST OF INDIA's ILLS IN SOCIETY": that is the most retarded statement I've ever heard. You're evidently quite unable to face the reality of multicultural India and Congress blunders through Nehru and Indira Gandhi, who were both self-professed secularists.

"You[r] hea[r]t may be in India but your body certainally isn't and that what counts to all of us 'Indian' editors. < That is once again an indication not of reason or intelligence but of childishness. If that's all that counts to you people then it's no wonder that your edits are so unrealistic and myopic. The ability to write intelligently about a place has nothing to do with the physical placement of a body.

Your charges of 'lack of evidence' are not at all objective. None of what you've said stands up to scrutiny either, especially your bold statements attributing 'most' of India's ills to Hindu fundamentalists. I hope you're not going into political science or governance, or India will really be screwed. --LordSuryaofShropshire 21:10, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

Schooling
My father's transferable job (bank CEO) landed me in Mumbai from '93 to '97. I play the violin. Anything these questions are leading to?--LordSuryaofShropshire 20:58, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)

Bold words in India
The bolding of a particular word is certainly POV, especilly when there is a link from there. For example, you had made Delhi Sultanate and Tajmahal bold, which gives someone who does not know much about India a not so subtle hint that they are more important than the rest of the links. Which is not true at all. However, the bolding of words such as Hindustan, Bharat and India in the first para is okay right now when there is no link from there.(Even if there were links, it may be okay because all three names are given equal importance). I haven't come acros this type of bolding in any pages I have seen in wikipedia. KRS 06:18, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Reply
You seem to be a very curious person:-) I belong to the female gender if thats what you mean.KRS 14:44, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

India
Thanks for your expression of support and the healthy discussions with reference to our differences in India related edits. On my part, I don't want to waste my time in talk pages with people who don't see reason. Hope to manage with edit summaries alone. KRS 02:28, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Criteria for news items, re: fire in India
The central reason for removing the link about the fire in India is that, in order to qualify for listing on the 'In the news' section (see In_the_news_section_on_the_Main_Page), an "article must be updated to reflect the new information and a have a recent date linked". Wikipedia "is not an online newspaper", the items in the 'In the news' section are more like a place that notes encyclopedic information that is relevant to current events, as it happens. The secondary, or subordinate, reason is that I do not think that this fire warrants inclusion in the article on the region of "Tamil Nadu" or the country "India" article, it's not important enough in the context of those things, in toto. It would warrant inclusion in an article on the school itself, or maybe on the town, but I have no obligation to create or update those articles--which would be a large task to do it properly--and the presence of that information is prerequisite to inclusion on the 'In the news' section. - Centrx 17:56, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Nicholas
Regarding all the talk about politics, let's leave this topic alone, since it is doing nothing but raising blood pressures on both sides and spurring harsh words; we've come to the impasse of set opinions and nothing's going to budge. Nothing constructive's being accomplished. So let's leave it at this and do our separate edits, working minor differences in articles (i.e. India) as they come. Shanti to you.--LordSuryaofShropshire 22:50, Jul 19, 2004 (UTC)

Arab
Hi, It is not allowed in the rules to make edits to protected pages except in very unusual circumstances. You should write your comment on the Talk page and then it can be incorporated when the page is unprotected. --Zero 23:17, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Redirects
Those redirects you created recently were not working - you put a blank between the # and the word REDIRECT. To make it working it needs to be exactly like this: #REDIRECT target. But no big deal, I already fixed them :-) andy 20:08, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Thanks for informing me :) &#x00b6; nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]] 20:22, Jul 20, 2004 (UTC)

Info needed on wiki specifics
Thanks &#x00b6; nichalp 20:35, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)
 * I need to know how to edit the boilerplate links eg {India}} ?
 * I once came across some wikipedia user statistics showing the most active contributors, and other such data. Where do I find it?
 * The Snow article contains records which seem to be US records? Are these the world records or US records? If the latter, can corrections be undertaken by someone?


 * Boilerplate text accessed by is in Template:India, and so on. Marnanel 20:38, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * List of Wikipedians by number of edits lists data and also links to several relevent pages, although the data listed on the current page may not be accurate. Acegikmo1 21:10, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * I moved the above from the village pump in case you hadn't seen the replies yet. Angela. 15:14, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I had already got them, thanks &#x00b6; nichalp | [[User talk:nichalp| Talk ]]