Wikipedia:Featured article review/Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles and Fundamental Duties of India/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by Dana boomer 17:29, 29 June 2010.

Review commentary

 * Notified: Shreshth91, Rama's Arrow (not notified as no longer active and cannot edit talk page), WikiProject India, WikiProject Politics

I am nominating this featured article for review because of the following concerns.

Use of primary sources. The vast majority of footnotes in the article send us to primary sources, mainly provisions of the Indian Constitution or amending legislation. Plainly, these are primary sources. Per WP:PRIMARY:
 * (1) "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources". "Primary sources are permitted if used carefully", but should not form the basis of an article's sourcing.
 * (2) "All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors".

Number (2) is the real problem here. The way that the article uses the primary sources involves analysis, interpretation and synthesis. One example: "The ten Fundamental Duties—given in Article 51-A of the constitution—can be classified as either duties towards self, duties concerning the environment, duties towards the State and duties towards the nation." This statement is sourced to Constitution of India-Part IVA Fundamental Duties. Other than being a dead link (the Indian Constitution is downloadable here), the source is obviously a set of Constitutional provisions that make up Part IVA of the Constitution. The claim that the duties listed in Article 51-A can be classified into categories is obviously original research. Article 51-A certainly doesn't categorise the duties that it confers in the way that the article says. This kind of analysis requires a secondary source. This is one example among 60 or so instances of the use of primary sources.

Quality of sources. Other than the issues raised above, some of the secondary sources used are of questionable quality. Footnote 43 takes us to a secondary school textbook and another secondary school text is cited in the "References" section.

Comprehensiveness of use of literature. The article does not appear to use the full range of secondary source material that could be used for the article. I would have thought that this book, which has a large chapter on fundamental rights, would be a useful source. As would this chapter (admittedly written after this article was an FAC).

Verifiability. Some parts of the article hang out without any sourcing at all, and they do not appear to be uncontroversial statements, eg:
 * When a national or state emergency is declared, this right [to constitutional remedies] is suspended by the central government. How? Do they have a legal basis to suspend the right, and if so, where is that basis provided?
 * Efforts to implement the Directive Principles include the Programme for the Universalisation of Elementary Education and the Five-Year Plans have accorded the highest priority in order to provide free education to all children up to the age of 14.
 * A ruling by the Supreme Court on 15 December 1995 upheld the validity of such awards [honorary titles].
 * This entire paragraph: These include individual rights common to most liberal democracies, incorporated in the fundamental law of the land and are enforceable in a court of law. Violations of these rights result in punishments as prescribed in the Indian Penal Code, subject to discretion of the judiciary. These rights are neither absolute nor immune from constitutional amendments. They have been aimed at overturning the inequalities of pre-independence social practises. Specifically, they resulted in abolishment of untouchability and prohibit discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth. They forbid human trafficking and unfree labour. They protect cultural and educational rights of ethnic and religious minorities by allowing them to preserve their languages and administer their own educational institutions.

--Mkativerata (talk) 20:27, 3 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing out these concerns. I've added two reliable secondary sources to the list of references, and removed the textbooks as well as a circular reference to Wikipedia. I'll continue weeding out unreliable sources and try and replace most of the over-reliance on primary sources with citations to secondary sources. Specific responses to other concerns will be posted here as they are addressed. (BTW, the broken ink is the result of a typo - the page is viewable here.) Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 17:38, 11 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment - There are two dabs and two dead links in the article. GamerPro64 (talk) 13:37, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

FARC commentary

 * Featured article criterion of concern are sourcing and original research.  YellowMonkey  ( vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll '')  06:38, 26 May 2010 (UTC)


 * All concerns specifically mentioned above have been addressed. Please point out any further changes required to be made to the article, and any concerns that remain. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 16:19, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the note - now that you've finished this (enormous) piece of work I'll go through it over the next few days. It would be fantastic if this is a save. --Mkativerata (talk) 18:41, 11 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep Obviously the concerns above have been addressed by an almost total re-write of the article which deserves a massive shiny barnstar. I have only one lingering concern which is whether the full range of possible sources have been used - the article now relies almost entirely on three books by two authors. I would appreciate any input from others on the extent to which this remains an issue, as I'm well aware that comprehensive use of literature is an important FA criteria. --Mkativerata (talk) 21:51, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep. The issues that prompted this FAR have been addressed, and I think the article now meets the FA criteria. Malleus Fatuorum 14:38, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.