Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics/Archive 75

Cleaning up confusions about "Singrauli State"
As part of figuring out whether there was a princely state of "Singrauli" (different from the modern district and city), I found quite a few edits from blocked account User:Uchiha Baba and his sockpuppets, that are probably not accurate; although interesting to research, I'm getting out of my depth.

The facts of which I'm confident are that Veena Singh, daughter of Arjun Singh (Madhya Pradesh politician), married a Bhuwaneshwar Prasad Singh, and they have a son Aishwarya Singh who married Devyani Rana of Nepal. At some point they converted a residence of theirs into the | Singrauli Palace Heritage Hotel. The part that is dubious is B.P. Singh's background - although his (election?) disclosures show a number of assets in the Singrauli area, there doesn't seem to be any independent source that he or his ancestors were rulers of anything at all. When you dig down around the net, the material is either derivatives of the altered Wikipedia articles, the forged maps uploaded to commons, unreliable genealogy sites, or vague claims on the hotel's website. On the other hand, some of the images floating around the net can also be seen at the hotel's website, when you zoom in on interior photos of the hotel. So I'd like to ask people to dig down on the blocked person's edits and revert anything that can be determined to be bogus. Thanks! Stan (talk) 15:50, 30 May 2022 (UTC)


 * On it. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:13, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * (I don't know anything about this politician or the hotel.) Well, my memory is already hazy, but some editor had proceeded to add "Singrauli" to quite a few maps of British India I had uploaded in 2007 from my personal collection of the Imperial Gazetteer of India (which are scanned from the old 1909 atlas and therefore, of much higher resolution than the ones you will find at for example at DSAL, University of Chicago, website), added "Singrauli" to them, most likely at the correct Lat/Long, and then replaced all the old maps with the Singraulified maps. They were also claiming that Singrauli was a princely state with the same number of gun salutes as Rewa State of the white tiger fame.  In my quick check at that time, I came to the conclusion that Singrauli was a Zamindari estate that was either incorporated into the Benares Zamindari (also not a princely state as alleged often) or somehow at the time of the EIC takeover of Benares or soon after was lost. As for the images, this sort of OR, presumably allowed by WP is done all the time.  User: Patliputra has a little cottage industry going of cutting, pasting, and modifying, images, come what may, ever onward. Here is one doozy gracing the Kushan Empire page.  The fact that the Patliputraized images only obliquely acknowledge the original upload, is less important, but look at the ghastly colors.  If I say anything, in my usual blunt fashion when Wikipedia's editors do things that are not in the spirit of the law even if they might be in the letter, what happens?  Well, they threaten AN/I and the usual stuff.  But look at this injustice, not done to me (because those maps were handed down to me by some men and women of great integrity, devotion, and care, now of happy memory) but to the images themselves!  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  18:25, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * And here is that talk page thread about Singrauli. The conversation talk page thread is below the maps.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  18:38, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The mention in the literature seem to be spotty. There is this from Hayden Bellenoit published in Modern Asian Studies, circa 2014."These extant officers could sometimes more forcefully assist the Company in ensuring payment of revenue. Udai Lal, the Kayastha qanungo of Singrauli, worked with a powerful Zamindar, Raja Adil Shah, to get the malguzars to enter qabooliyats (revenue agreements) with the Company in the late 1780s. These malguzars refused to recognize British authority, but ultimately yielded (and paid) after Lal suggested to the British Collector: ‘if you despatch a company of sepoys and a gun to punish the aforesaid rebels, the Government money will be realised’.100 Lowly masters of paper, who rarely graced the Mughal court, let alone the presence of either Cornwallis or Wellesley, were quickly becoming vital links between British power and Hindustan’s agrarian wealth. The qanungo could sometimes exercise subtle, razor like bureaucratic power. The Raja of Benares, Bulwant Singh, went as far as to destroy the qanungos’ records that contravened his claims to khas lands10" Bellenoit teaches at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. I had no idea that the USNA, where I've spent some time, had faculty with such varied interests!   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  19:13, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * PS I should have explained, I thought WP had a qanungo page but it doesn't. Never mind, here is the word explained in Platts' good old Urdu dictionary, it is related to the Arabic, qanoon (law): "A قانون qānūn (P. also qānūn; akin to Gr. κανὼν), s.m. A canon, rule, regulation, law, legislative act, statute, ordinance; — a species of dulcimer or harp: — qānūn-dān, s.m. One who is versed or learned in the law, a lawyer, jurist: — qānūn-dānī, s.f. Knowledge of the law; — jurisprudence: — qānūn-ě-dīwānī, s.m. Civil law: — qānūn-ě-faujdārī, s.m. Criminal law: — qānūn-go, s.m. An officer in each district, acquainted with its customs, the nature of the tenure of the lands, &c.; registrar of a pargana, or the hereditary registrar of landed property in a pargana; a superintendent of village accountants: — qānūn-goʼī, s.f. The office of a qanūn-go."   A qanungo was a registrar of Company_rule_in_India.  This suggests that Singrauli was a part of British India, not a princely state in which the East India Company could not have collected land tax, and it was therefore a zamindari estate, not a princely state.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  19:31, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Do I understand from zamindar that a zamindari estate would rarely if ever be part of a princely state? The fictional maps showing Singrauli always seem to have it as carveout from Rewa territory, but it's hard to imagine the Rewa maharaja being OK with that happening in real life (although I note a long regency in the late 19th century, maybe a British regent made a sketchy promise to someone). Stan (talk) 20:43, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Well there is also this paper: South Asia, Vol. XV, no. 2 (1992), pp. 29-46 RAJPUT REVOLT IN SOUTHERN MIRZAPUR, 1857-58 Troy Downs, Monash University which says, "Not surprisingly British rule was tenuous, if not non-existent. The Magistrate of Mirzapur, writing to the Commissioner of the Banaras Division as late as 1838, stated that the region remained 'little known to the Police and wholly so to myself or any European officer'.10 He also believed, incorrectly, that the Raja of Singrauli was an independent ruler whose domains fell outside British administered territory. Up to this date officials were unclear as to how far their authority extended southward from the Son and under whose jurisdiction this land should fall. Even jurisdiction over the Dudhi pargana located to the north of the Son river had been disputed between officials of the Banaras Division and those in Bihar.11 In the following decades little had changed. Up to the 1850s British rule over Singrauli had been signified by the presence of a single burkundaze (policeman).1" It has quite a bit more, some 57 mentions of Singrauli I'm seeing, which I will look at later, but it does have the crucial denial of independent rulership above.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  20:49, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll check though if there might have been two Singraulis, I doubt it, but its possible. Will also check where Rewa lay in relation to South Mirzapur, Benares etc.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  20:51, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

So, at least there are all nearby. Now I will examine a map of Rewa. Fowler&amp;fowler «Talk»  20:58, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * So, yes, Downs's seems to be the go-to paper. It seems to be a long convoluted story.

It will be easier for me to just start a new WP page Singrauli estate or Singrauli estates, which I will do in the coming days and clear this confusion. Here is some more from Downs: "By the late eighteenth century the Singrauli Raj consisted of two parts: Singrauli proper in Mirzapur, the Singrauli Rajas paying a nominal sum as tribute to the original Rajput overlords; the other far more lucrative possession was the 700 villages of Nisf Singrauli in Rewah, the Rajas being tributaries of the Raja of Burhi.44 In the 1780s the Raja of Singrauli resisted by force the overlordship of the Raja of Agori-Burhur who had been granted Singrauli as a jagir by Warren Hastings.. .... In Nisf Singrauli the Singrauli Rajas had been less successful in consolidating their monopoly over landownership. Just before his death in 1817 the Burhi Raja had adopted the Maharaja of Rewah as his legal heir. The latter allowed the Raja of Singrauli to remain in possession of his land subject to a nominal yearly payment of tribute. But in 1841 the level of tribute demanded had been increased to one-quarter of the estimated profits of the state, or Rs 6,125. In 1856 Raghuraj Singh, the Maharaja of Rewah again raised the amount demanded to Rs 8,500.50 While the Singrauli Rajas had consolidated their control over their own estates, to the east of Singrauli they sought to incorporate the fertile pargana of Dudhi into their Raj. Territorial expansion into this area had been facilitated by British ignorance of local conditions in Mirzapur during the early part of the century." I have to run now but will create a new page in the next couple of days.  Thanks for asking!  This business would never have cleared up otherwise. There is the precolonial and colonial confusion and there is the postcolonial boosterism, between those two real history lives very narrowly.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  21:22, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * One more thought. It seems there is only one Raja of Singrauli.  So maybe that might the proper WP page to start.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  21:37, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I forgot to properly answer your question about whether princely states could have zamindars. The answer is yes.  It was the Mughal system prevalent in both British India and the Princely States, of farming out tax collection to overlords, who in turn farmed it out to under lords, and so forth.  British India, of course, had had various land reforms, which I'm not sure the princely states did or when.  But here is another fascinating answer to your question.  The Great Trigonometrical Survey (GTS), which ultimately determined the height of Mount Everest, built two observation towers (stations) in 1828, one Gurwani Hill Station XXX (24° 1' N 82° 20' E)  was in the Singrauli Paragana of Rewah State, pargana being the same (Mughal inherited) land revenue unit.  This according to Downs's paper was with 700 villages, the more lucrative one.  The other was the  Gora Hill Station XXXV (24° 5' N 83° 17' E) in the Singrauli Parganas of Mirzapur District of British India.  The GTS notes (in the two links if you click) are fascinating.  Also, if you enter the two lat/longs in Google maps directions, you can see that they are 130 km by road, which must have taken the old Rajahs quite a few hours to cover (assuming they were cantering not galloping) in their rounds on horses of their two estates.    Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  00:44, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * This is OR, so we will have to find modern RS to also say the same thing, but Aberigh-Mackay's Native Chiefs ... 1877 has this page Petty Chiefs and Nobles of the N-W Provinces, with Raja Udit Narian Singh of Singrauli among other zamindars.
 * There is also this in the Rewah State Gazetteer, 1907 which also we can't use for reasons of OR: page 83, The portion of Singrauli lying in the Rewah State is now held by the Raja as a muamladar. (Well, muamla, which is really mu'amala or معاملہ is the Persian/Urdu word for "matter" or "business" a mu'amaladan would be a businessman, but a mu'amaladar I'm not sure (is it as an investor, or an investment?) or is this a special kind of revenue overlord and subtracter, an absentee landlord, perhps, as the real Singrauli was 130 km for these 700 villages in Rewah state. I can't figure out yet.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  15:54, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I've taken mentions of Singrauli with its 17-gun salutes and whatnot out of: Satna, Devyani Rana, Princely State, Bundelkhand Agency, Central India Agency, Baghelkhand Agency, and Bagelkhand.
 * Quite a few mentions they were, and a few might yet remain. Will now start a new page Singrauli zamindari estate. I would prefer not to call it Singrauli estate as the boosterism might continue, with some people thinking Estate=State.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  16:01, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Hello. Sorry, I just remembered I haven't gotten around to starting the Singrauli estate article. I have all the material I need. Will do so tomorrow.  The wait was not all bad perhaps. I have some clarity about them.  They were glorified landlords, but not princes in the sense of rulers of princely states.  They had a formal, but nominal, estate in British India, and a much larger one leased from the princely state of Rewa on which they collected rent from the tenant farmers. I'm going to make a note on my user talk page, so I don't forget again.  Thanks again for bringing up the topic here.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  04:03, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

First Anglo-Maratha War result dispute
The article First Anglo-Maratha War has been disrupted numerous times where some claim it to be Maratha victory whereas other claim it to be stalemate with no victors or losers which ended with Treaty of Salbai. After going through citations on the article, I found the quotes included in the citation templates were incorrect information about the conclusion of the war. They were rather mis-represented. Below are the exact quotes from the citations about the conclusion of the war that I have posted after thoroughly going through citations. I believe according to these reliable sources, the result of the battle cannot have any victors and should rather conclude with "Treaty of Salbai". Now if there are sources that dispute with below citations, then undeniably the result should be considered "Disputed". Can you all please provide your opinion whether you agree that the result should conclude with just "Treaty of Salbai"? Or if you have any further suggestion? According to reliable citations, the battle resulted with treaty of Salbai. Here are some quotes from reliable sources: From Richard Ernest Dupuy, Gay M. Hammerman, Grace P. Hayes (1977). The American Revolution: A Global War. David McKay Company, Incorporated. p. 247. "Hastings promptly repudiated the Treaty of Wadgaon and sent troops from Calcutta all the way across central India to strengthen the Bombay forces. One by one they captured Maratha cities. In May 1782 a new treaty was signed with the Marathas, the Treaty of Salbai. Although it merely restored the status quo ante bellum, this treaty gave the British twenty years of peace with the Marathas and permitted them to concentrate their efforts against the French and the forces of Mysore." And James C. Bradford. International Encyclopedia of Military History. Routledge. p. 867. quotes, "The company renounced the first draft of the treaty of Wadgaon, fighting on until 1782, and, despite its capture of the fortress of Gwalior (1780), the only concession that the British could win was the cession of Salsette Island, which improved the security of Bombay." M S Narvane in book "Battles of the Honourable East India Company: Making of the Raj", page 63 quotes that "Mudhoji was known to have taken bribe from Hastings and would not join a war. Mahadji, himself was anxious that his forces were not divided and separated, which war both in Malwa and in the Deccan would have entailed. Moreover, both Mahadji and Nana faced acute financial distress. Under these circumstances, peace at the most favorable terms was the only course left open. After prolonged negotiations a treaty was signed between Mahadji and Anderson on 17th May, 1782. It was known as the Treaty of Salbai, after a small village of the same name where Mahadji was in camp." M. S. Narvane further quotes that, "The main clauses of the treaty were as follows: All territories captured by the Company would be returned, including Bassein but excluding Salsette and some small islands near Bombay. These would remain with the British. Territories in Gujarat would be returned to the Peshwa and Gaikwad, Bhadoch being given to Mahadji for services rendered. Raghoba was to be handed over to the Marathas. He would spend the remainder of his life at a secluded spot in Maharashtra on a pension of Rs. 25,000 per month. Thus ended the First Anglo-Maratha war. Politically the Company was a slight gainer. They retained Salsette whereas the Marathas got back only what they had lost earlier. The main gain from the Maratha point of view was the elimination of the threat posed by Raghoba." Raghoba is Raghunath Rao. I would also like to add that there are two sources on the article that are unreliable, by Y.G. Bhave and Barbara West, where the earlier is scholar in Humanist and the latter in Anthropology. Neither are historians. MehmoodS (talk) 20:23, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Due to lack of response, inviting editors who I have found to have commented on other topics here on this noticeboard, to share their opinion:, , , , , , , , , including anyone else. MehmoodS (talk) 11:40, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Page move at Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa
Please take a look at Talk:Rameshbabu_Praggnanandhaa Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  18:59, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Kamboj
It is to notify about the recent addition of caste POV and badly written content in the Kamboj article. These edits might be coming from a sock puppeteer since most of their edits are restricted to this topic area. Requesting project members and admins to have a look at this. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 18:47, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

was Ballabhgarh a princely state or estate/ jagir ?
There is article named Ballabhgarh State other than Ballabhgarh  town page. The first suggests in the lead that it was a princely state but here - on page 161-162, it is written jagir and estate after Ballabhgarh. Request for inputs ? Akalanka820 (talk) 13:18, 11 June 2022 (UTC)


 * on page 161 in the book named: "Grass in their Mouths: The Upper Doab of India under the Company's Magna Charta, 1793-1830" - Akalanka820 (talk) 13:30, 11 June 2022 (UTC)


 * on page 162 in the same book- Akalanka820 (talk) 13:42, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
 * It is "estate," eventually confiscated by the British after the chief was hanged for being complicit in the Indian rebellion of 1857. See Imperial Gazetteer of India, Ballabgarh town.  Please move the page to Ballabgarh estate.  This is not something you need to post on the talk page as the name is an aspect of the boosterism found in Indian royalty or overlord pages.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  11:56, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Sandeep Unnikrishnan
Is he "killed" or "martyred" ? — DaxServer (t · m · c) 11:00, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * This might be helpful on this, according to the article, they use variety of other terms (given in the article) but not martyr. Sajaypal007 (talk) 15:19, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Municipal Corporation functions cruft in individual corporation articles
(unrelated to the above one) For example, see this edit - all of these are additions by @Gardenkur. As @Toddy1 put it in his revert, these are general functionalities of a municipal corporation [in India], not necessarily what a specific corporation does. The references are also general references and not to a specific corporation. If this text is not a copyvio from somewhere else, should this text be okay in all these articles, or be moved to Municipal corporation (India) ? — DaxServer (t · m · c) 12:28, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi DaxServer. Hope you are keeping fine. The edits are done in all articles of Municipal Corporations to get consistency and uniformity in the articles. The functions of Municipal corporations is to develop a town with more than 1 million people. Let me know if I am wrong. Thanks. Gardenkur (talk) 12:37, 19 June 2022 (UTC)


 * @Gardenkur instead of copying on every page, I think is better to link the functions section of MC (India) from these pages. Only unique functions should be listed on individual MC pages. Venkat TL (talk) 13:22, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Venkat TL. Nice to see your inputs. However, I feel for informational purpose each article should have its own notability. Public members will not see referenced article and collect information. There are also comments in some articles of not having sufficient references or they miss important information. My effort is only to get uniformity in similar articles. If iam wrong please correct. Thanks. Gardenkur (talk) 13:31, 19 June 2022 (UTC)


 * @Gardenkur I guess such addition would come under WP:UNDUE why would you discuss the functions of Nagpur MC in Cuddalore MC? Similarly we dont discuss the functions of MP or speaker in their biography page. Just a link to one page where it is discussed is sufficient. Venkat TL (talk) 13:50, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Venkat TL. Thanks for your prompt response. Going by your suggestion did you mean I will add section as Functions in each article and link it to main Municipal Corporation for defining the same. However as you refered, an individual is different from entity. The entities are governed by state level Municipal Corporations Act which are generally same, except their official details vary which is more important for general public. Hope Iam clear. Gardenkur (talk) 13:58, 19 June 2022 (UTC)


 * @Gardenkur Thank you. In such cases, I believe those unique functions of Maharastra MC according to MC Act, should be discussed in a Maharashtra subsection of Functions section on MC (India) page. Normally you will not need to add a function section in the individual MC page. A link to the "Maharashtra subsection of Functions section on MC (India) page" can be added in the lead or history section as a sentence. Only if there are too many unique functions of a particular MC, then a functions section should be created, otherwise it is undesirable. Venkat TL (talk) 14:04, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Venkat TL. Thanks again. There are no unique functions from state to state. The functions are uniform and similar. But will do as you suggested. As Wikipedia editor, I was doing on the interest of general public as per its policies. I was also observing the remarks for each article. Gardenkur (talk) 14:17, 19 June 2022 (UTC)


 * @Gardenkur thank you for understanding. The interest of the general public can be served by adding a link to the MC (India) page where the functions are discussed. @Toddy1 and others also feel the same. Venkat TL (talk) 14:59, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
 * if you copy text from one Wikipedia page to another, you are meant to give attribution in the edit summary. See Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia.


 * One of the sources cited in the text you cut and pasted said: Not all the functions mentioned in the schedule are obligatory for civic bodies across the country as different states have enacted legislations to delegate functions across various departments. So what is stated for functions for each municipal corporation needs to be back by citations that actually mention that that municipal corporation does those functions. -- Toddy1 (talk) 16:01, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Toddy1. Thanks for pointing the statements. However, as I read it, each place has its Municipal Corporation and Development authorities created to improve infrastructure of the town. Inserted references gives the functions which are uniform across states. Hope Iam clear. Please let me know if it needs elaboration. Thanks again. Gardenkur (talk) 16:08, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Venkat TL. If I want to add Functions in this article,can you suggest how to add as per your inputs. Thanks. Gardenkur (talk) 11:13, 20 June 2022 (UTC)


 * @Gardenkur, see this diff where I added the functions. If there is any novel function then please post your proposal on article talk page and ping me from there. Venkat TL (talk) 11:20, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Venkat TL. Thanks and will update the functions likewise in all articles where that part is missing. However, to have information on the same will need reading of all states Municipal Acts which I dont think relevant now. Gardenkur (talk) 11:23, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Are Indian laws copyrighted?
More specifically does the officially approved text about the functions of a parliamentary committee (a state assembly) in this case as published on assembly official nic.in website comes under copyrighted text or Government of India Open Data license or Public Domain? I believe it is free, as they are published as government gazette for public use. Please guide. Venkat TL (talk) 07:08, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't know the answer to your actual question. The main problem is that the bottom of the page says "© Punjab Vidhan Sabha, All Rights Reserved." You can get around the problem in two ways:
 * quote the actual act (with ref) that brought this committee into existence. Hopefully, it mention the duties of the committee too.
 * write about the functions of the committee in your own words. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 07:24, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * @MPGuy2824 thank you. I believe the © was added as a standard sign, (may be in error by site operator without applying thoughts) and it does not apply to this passed law. I am raising a fundamental question that still needs resolution (not just workarounds). How are law books publishing these laws on books and websites if they are copyrighted? Venkat TL (talk) 07:39, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * They are not copyrighted. Reports tabled in the Parliament are also in public domain. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:36, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
 * @Kautilya3, @MPGuy2824 thanks, I believe so, but @Diannaa has responded on my user talk that they are coprighted. Venkat TL (talk) 13:20, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Government works in India (including legislation) are copyright for 60 years from publication date. Check in this document: Copyright law of India, where it says so on page 17 — Diannaa (talk) 14:29, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I misstated it. Section 52, subsection (q) states that such documents can be reproduced. That is what I meant. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:22, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia's license goes beyond reproduction, allowing the content to be reproduced, altered, or even sold. So that's not liberal enough for the content to be copied here in my opinion. See also Commons:Copyright rules by territory/India, where they clearly state that govt works in India are copyright-protected for 60 years. — Diannaa (talk) 18:35, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

English Wikipedia follows only U.S. copyright law, and the U.S. does not recognize copyright on edicts of government, even those issued by foreign governments. So the text of any law is fair game. Random text from a government website, not so much. Toohool (talk) 19:31, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Regardless of US copyright law, I wouldn't call copying any copyright text as "fair game", as our copyright policy says not to do it. — Diannaa (talk) 23:23, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
 * It is fair game. Our copyright policy follows U.S. copyright law, and laws are not copyrighted under U.S. copyright law. Toohool (talk) 05:12, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Municipal Corporation: Unnecessary categories added and relevant category removed
Eg: Special:Diff/1093849666

I have asked @TheAnonymousWikiEditor to undo their mass edits. Someone will have to undo all of these. Venkat TL (talk) 07:17, 19 June 2022 (UTC)


 * @TheAnonymousWikiEditor has not replied yet. Most have been reverted by @Anas1712 and me. Venkat TL (talk) 16:34, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry,
 * I haven't seen that there was a discussion. It's just that I've seen that the category "Municipal corporations in India" is too much crowded and that the articles are double-tagged with mother/daughter categories. I was quite sure that it wasn't so overpopulous, but I've decided to clean-up that. In addition, many India-related articles are regurlary doubled-tagged.
 * Anas1712 (talk) 16:44, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

==Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indian politics § Proposal : Wikipedia:Naming conventions Indian constituencies== You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indian politics § Proposal : Wikipedia:Naming conventions Indian constituencies. Venkat TL (talk) 16:54, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Amrita Bazar Patrika
The newspaper-archive was digitized under the Endangered Archives Programme of British Library and is available here. I wish to know if there is any way to search by a text-string as possible in Newspapers.com etc.? TrangaBellam (talk) 06:40, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * When I previously used another archive from EAP, that feature (text search) wasn't available. Still, good for references and old photos. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 08:01, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Which means that I have to bulk-download and OCR them? Thanks, TrangaBellam (talk) 10:15, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * No point OCRing them because they can't be used as references. The Patrika was a major Indian newspaper, but the archive covers the period 1870–1949, and is too old for WP purposes. Using it would constitute OR, except perhaps in supportive citations to other modern reliable citations in instances involving dates or names.  Pictures are another matter, but they'd have to be compliant with  and   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  11:07, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Whether they can be used a references or not, depends. I agree with the part about "supportive citations".
 * For an use-case, it is fine to source a factoid about the part. date when Mr. X was elected as President of some organization XYZ from ABP when other reliable sources confirm that he was indeed elected as the President of XYZ. And, so on.
 * Tbh, they can even be used for un-supportive purposes, as long as the claim is not remotely exceptional or controversial. TrangaBellam (talk) 13:49, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, the factoid part may be OK, not not interpretations, even small ones. For they can add up and become UNDUE. ABP 1890 or 1920 cant be cited for interpretation.  I mean sure you can.  But your OR will lie neglected.  It might make GA is no one is paying attention, but it will not pass FAC.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  16:17, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * That is especially true for broad scale articles for which modern books published by serious academic publishers are available. Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  16:22, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I am in absolute agreement that such sources cannot be used for interpretations of any kind. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:58, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

2022 Maharashtra political crisis
The Wikipedia page is also in crisis, Some more eyes on the article and talk page will help improve the article. Venkat TL (talk) 08:03, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Singrauli estate (reposting from the archives)
Many apologies, because of various distractions, I was not able to finish what I had set out to do on the Singrauli Estate. I am reposting the talk page thread, so I can make the necessary changes in full and open light. Fowler&amp;fowler «Talk»  02:26, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Cleaning up confusions about "Singrauli State"
As part of figuring out whether there was a princely state of "Singrauli" (different from the modern district and city), I found quite a few edits from blocked account User:Uchiha Baba and his sockpuppets, that are probably not accurate; although interesting to research, I'm getting out of my depth.

The facts of which I'm confident are that Veena Singh, daughter of Arjun Singh (Madhya Pradesh politician), married a Bhuwaneshwar Prasad Singh, and they have a son Aishwarya Singh who married Devyani Rana of Nepal. At some point they converted a residence of theirs into the | Singrauli Palace Heritage Hotel. The part that is dubious is B.P. Singh's background - although his (election?) disclosures show a number of assets in the Singrauli area, there doesn't seem to be any independent source that he or his ancestors were rulers of anything at all. When you dig down around the net, the material is either derivatives of the altered Wikipedia articles, the forged maps uploaded to commons, unreliable genealogy sites, or vague claims on the hotel's website. On the other hand, some of the images floating around the net can also be seen at the hotel's website, when you zoom in on interior photos of the hotel. So I'd like to ask people to dig down on the blocked person's edits and revert anything that can be determined to be bogus. Thanks! Stan (talk) 15:50, 30 May 2022 (UTC)


 * On it. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:13, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * (I don't know anything about this politician or the hotel.) Well, my memory is already hazy, but some editor had proceeded to add "Singrauli" to quite a few maps of British India I had uploaded in 2007 from my personal collection of the Imperial Gazetteer of India (which are scanned from the old 1909 atlas and therefore, of much higher resolution than the ones you will find at for example at DSAL, University of Chicago, website), added "Singrauli" to them, most likely at the correct Lat/Long, and then replaced all the old maps with the Singraulified maps. They were also claiming that Singrauli was a princely state with the same number of gun salutes as Rewa State of the white tiger fame.  In my quick check at that time, I came to the conclusion that Singrauli was a Zamindari estate that was either incorporated into the Benares Zamindari (also not a princely state as alleged often) or somehow at the time of the EIC takeover of Benares or soon after was lost. As for the images, this sort of OR, presumably allowed by WP is done all the time.  User: Patliputra has a little cottage industry going of cutting, pasting, and modifying, images, come what may, ever onward. Here is one doozy gracing the Kushan Empire page.  The fact that the Patliputraized images only obliquely acknowledge the original upload, is less important, but look at the ghastly colors.  If I say anything, in my usual blunt fashion when Wikipedia's editors do things that are not in the spirit of the law even if they might be in the letter, what happens?  Well, they threaten AN/I and the usual stuff.  But look at this injustice, not done to me (because those maps were handed down to me by some men and women of great integrity, devotion, and care, now of happy memory) but to the images themselves!  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  18:25, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * And here is that talk page thread about Singrauli. The conversation talk page thread is below the maps.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  18:38, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The mention in the literature seem to be spotty. There is this from Hayden Bellenoit published in Modern Asian Studies, circa 2014."These extant officers could sometimes more forcefully assist the Company in ensuring payment of revenue. Udai Lal, the Kayastha qanungo of Singrauli, worked with a powerful Zamindar, Raja Adil Shah, to get the malguzars to enter qabooliyats (revenue agreements) with the Company in the late 1780s. These malguzars refused to recognize British authority, but ultimately yielded (and paid) after Lal suggested to the British Collector: ‘if you despatch a company of sepoys and a gun to punish the aforesaid rebels, the Government money will be realised’.100 Lowly masters of paper, who rarely graced the Mughal court, let alone the presence of either Cornwallis or Wellesley, were quickly becoming vital links between British power and Hindustan’s agrarian wealth. The qanungo could sometimes exercise subtle, razor like bureaucratic power. The Raja of Benares, Bulwant Singh, went as far as to destroy the qanungos’ records that contravened his claims to khas lands10" Bellenoit teaches at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. I had no idea that the USNA, where I've spent some time, had faculty with such varied interests!   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  19:13, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * PS I should have explained, I thought WP had a qanungo page but it doesn't. Never mind, here is the word explained in Platts' good old Urdu dictionary, it is related to the Arabic, qanoon (law): "A قانون qānūn (P. also qānūn; akin to Gr. κανὼν), s.m. A canon, rule, regulation, law, legislative act, statute, ordinance; — a species of dulcimer or harp: — qānūn-dān, s.m. One who is versed or learned in the law, a lawyer, jurist: — qānūn-dānī, s.f. Knowledge of the law; — jurisprudence: — qānūn-ě-dīwānī, s.m. Civil law: — qānūn-ě-faujdārī, s.m. Criminal law: — qānūn-go, s.m. An officer in each district, acquainted with its customs, the nature of the tenure of the lands, &c.; registrar of a pargana, or the hereditary registrar of landed property in a pargana; a superintendent of village accountants: — qānūn-goʼī, s.f. The office of a qanūn-go."   A qanungo was a registrar of Company_rule_in_India.  This suggests that Singrauli was a part of British India, not a princely state in which the East India Company could not have collected land tax, and it was therefore a zamindari estate, not a princely state.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  19:31, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Do I understand from zamindar that a zamindari estate would rarely if ever be part of a princely state? The fictional maps showing Singrauli always seem to have it as carveout from Rewa territory, but it's hard to imagine the Rewa maharaja being OK with that happening in real life (although I note a long regency in the late 19th century, maybe a British regent made a sketchy promise to someone). Stan (talk) 20:43, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Well there is also this paper: South Asia, Vol. XV, no. 2 (1992), pp. 29-46 RAJPUT REVOLT IN SOUTHERN MIRZAPUR, 1857-58 Troy Downs, Monash University which says, "Not surprisingly British rule was tenuous, if not non-existent. The Magistrate of Mirzapur, writing to the Commissioner of the Banaras Division as late as 1838, stated that the region remained 'little known to the Police and wholly so to myself or any European officer'.10 He also believed, incorrectly, that the Raja of Singrauli was an independent ruler whose domains fell outside British administered territory. Up to this date officials were unclear as to how far their authority extended southward from the Son and under whose jurisdiction this land should fall. Even jurisdiction over the Dudhi pargana located to the north of the Son river had been disputed between officials of the Banaras Division and those in Bihar.11 In the following decades little had changed. Up to the 1850s British rule over Singrauli had been signified by the presence of a single burkundaze (policeman).1" It has quite a bit more, some 57 mentions of Singrauli I'm seeing, which I will look at later, but it does have the crucial denial of independent rulership above.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  20:49, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll check though if there might have been two Singraulis, I doubt it, but its possible. Will also check where Rewa lay in relation to South Mirzapur, Benares etc.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  20:51, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

So, at least there are all nearby. Now I will examine a map of Rewa. Fowler&amp;fowler «Talk»  20:58, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * So, yes, Downs's seems to be the go-to paper. It seems to be a long convoluted story.

It will be easier for me to just start a new WP page Singrauli estate or Singrauli estates, which I will do in the coming days and clear this confusion. Here is some more from Downs: "By the late eighteenth century the Singrauli Raj consisted of two parts: Singrauli proper in Mirzapur, the Singrauli Rajas paying a nominal sum as tribute to the original Rajput overlords; the other far more lucrative possession was the 700 villages of Nisf Singrauli in Rewah, the Rajas being tributaries of the Raja of Burhi.44 In the 1780s the Raja of Singrauli resisted by force the overlordship of the Raja of Agori-Burhur who had been granted Singrauli as a jagir by Warren Hastings.. .... In Nisf Singrauli the Singrauli Rajas had been less successful in consolidating their monopoly over landownership. Just before his death in 1817 the Burhi Raja had adopted the Maharaja of Rewah as his legal heir. The latter allowed the Raja of Singrauli to remain in possession of his land subject to a nominal yearly payment of tribute. But in 1841 the level of tribute demanded had been increased to one-quarter of the estimated profits of the state, or Rs 6,125. In 1856 Raghuraj Singh, the Maharaja of Rewah again raised the amount demanded to Rs 8,500.50 While the Singrauli Rajas had consolidated their control over their own estates, to the east of Singrauli they sought to incorporate the fertile pargana of Dudhi into their Raj. Territorial expansion into this area had been facilitated by British ignorance of local conditions in Mirzapur during the early part of the century." I have to run now but will create a new page in the next couple of days.  Thanks for asking!  This business would never have cleared up otherwise. There is the precolonial and colonial confusion and there is the postcolonial boosterism, between those two real history lives very narrowly.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  21:22, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * One more thought. It seems there is only one Raja of Singrauli.  So maybe that might the proper WP page to start.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  21:37, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I forgot to properly answer your question about whether princely states could have zamindars. The answer is yes.  It was the Mughal system prevalent in both British India and the Princely States, of farming out tax collection to overlords, who in turn farmed it out to under lords, and so forth.  British India, of course, had had various land reforms, which I'm not sure the princely states did or when.  But here is another fascinating answer to your question.  The Great Trigonometrical Survey (GTS), which ultimately determined the height of Mount Everest, built two observation towers (stations) in 1828, one Gurwani Hill Station XXX (24° 1' N 82° 20' E)  was in the Singrauli Paragana of Rewah State, pargana being the same (Mughal inherited) land revenue unit.  This according to Downs's paper was with 700 villages, the more lucrative one.  The other was the  Gora Hill Station XXXV (24° 5' N 83° 17' E) in the Singrauli Parganas of Mirzapur District of British India.  The GTS notes (in the two links if you click) are fascinating.  Also, if you enter the two lat/longs in Google maps directions, you can see that they are 130 km by road, which must have taken the old Rajahs quite a few hours to cover (assuming they were cantering not galloping) in their rounds on horses of their two estates.    Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  00:44, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * This is OR, so we will have to find modern RS to also say the same thing, but Aberigh-Mackay's Native Chiefs ... 1877 has this page Petty Chiefs and Nobles of the N-W Provinces, with Raja Udit Narian Singh of Singrauli among other zamindars.
 * There is also this in the Rewah State Gazetteer, 1907 which also we can't use for reasons of OR: page 83, The portion of Singrauli lying in the Rewah State is now held by the Raja as a muamladar. (Well, muamla, which is really mu'amala or معاملہ is the Persian/Urdu word for "matter" or "business" a mu'amaladan would be a businessman, but a mu'amaladar I'm not sure (is it as an investor, or an investment?) or is this a special kind of revenue overlord and subtracter, an absentee landlord, perhps, as the real Singrauli was 130 km for these 700 villages in Rewah state. I can't figure out yet.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  15:54, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I've taken mentions of Singrauli with its 17-gun salutes and whatnot out of: Satna, Devyani Rana, Princely State, Bundelkhand Agency, Central India Agency, Baghelkhand Agency, and Bagelkhand.
 * Quite a few mentions they were, and a few might yet remain. Will now start a new page Singrauli zamindari estate. I would prefer not to call it Singrauli estate as the boosterism might continue, with some people thinking Estate=State.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  16:01, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Hello. Sorry, I just remembered I haven't gotten around to starting the Singrauli estate article. I have all the material I need. Will do so tomorrow.  The wait was not all bad perhaps. I have some clarity about them.  They were glorified landlords, but not princes in the sense of rulers of princely states.  They had a formal, but nominal, estate in British India, and a much larger one leased from the princely state of Rewa on which they collected rent from the tenant farmers. I'm going to make a note on my user talk page, so I don't forget again.  Thanks again for bringing up the topic here.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  04:03, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

RfC Discussion at Proposal : Wikipedia:Naming conventions Indian constituencies
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indian politics § Proposal : Wikipedia:Naming conventions Indian constituencies. --Venkat TL (talk) 13:18, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § Improper acceptance of a new proposal as policy
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § Improper acceptance of a new proposal as policy. —usernamekiran (talk) 06:52, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
 * This is related to Constituency titles. —usernamekiran (talk) 06:52, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Seems to be resolved with the start of RfC at Proposal : Wikipedia:Naming conventions Indian constituencies --Venkat TL (talk) 13:31, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Raja Balwant Singh College (2nd nomination)
Project members may wish to comment at this discussion.4meter4 (talk) 02:15, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Aurangabad
There is a move request at Talk:Aurangabad (Aurangabad to Sambhajinagagar) not showing up at INAAT, so requesting here to take part in it. has commented that - "the name has not been changed officially since the state legislative assembly has to present the bill for changing name to the parliament, it cant be done without a recommendation from the President. The procedure is same for city's rename like any other bill. In the end, president approves the bill. In which case the request for move will not be valid. Requesting all for comments here as well as the talk page. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 19:11, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Osmanabad_district
Same applies to the move request at Talk:Osmanabad_district (Osmanabad district → Dharashiv district) and possibly Osmanabad (city article) → Dharashiv. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 19:22, 29 June 2022 (UTC)


 * That was the city being renamed, not the district, sigh — DaxServer (t · m · c) 20:39, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Closed. --Venkat TL (talk) 17:15, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Kashmir delsort
I am currently aiming to finish setting up all the delsorts for the remaining states of India, as well as some of the more populated union territories. However, I am not sure if Indian-controlled Kashmir should be handled in the delsort system with the Pakistani- and Chinese-controlled parts, or if all the regions of Kashmir should be handled separately. More discussions at WT:DELSORT. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 00:19, 28 June 2022 (UTC)


 * @LaundryPizza03 Instead of dividing over state lines, it should have been done into 4-5 regional lines. Like North, S, E, W, NE India. There are no participants from some states. Venkat TL (talk) 17:17, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * To Venkat's point about low/no participation from some states: If we are going to keep the state delsorts, shouldn't they also be under the India delsort, just like the Europe one? -MPGuy2824 (talk) 03:34, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Küzholüzo Nienü
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Küzholüzo Nienü that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ~Styyx Talk ? 18:47, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Looking for proof that this India village exists
Does the village Sankhalapadar exist? In response to Template:Did you know nominations/Shanti Devi (social worker), I can only find references that mention the village in relation to Shanti Devi (social worker). It seems strange. SL93 (talk) 05:44, 6 July 2022 (UTC)


 * The census name is "Sanakhilapadar." Best, TrangaBellam (talk) 05:53, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Now it seems strange that I can't find "Sanakhilapadar" in relation to Shanti Devi. Maybe those with more access to such sources would have better luck. SL93 (talk) 05:57, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * SL93 (talk) 05:58, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Media had regurgitated the GOI press release; propagation of errors etc. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:02, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * a misspelling was my guess; I had trouble believing the entire village didn't exist. Regardless, yeah, the eradication angle does not have sourcing heft. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 08:45, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * If it is found to be true, it does look like nine other people should be mentioned alongside her. The award certainly doesn't seem to be for the disease thing anyway. SL93 (talk) 09:20, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Use of Puranas (mainly) in the origin section.
Hello, Editors. I am a little bit confused about the usage of the Puranic or scriptural sources as a source in the origin section of the caste community. I would request you to see the origin section of the Baidya article. The complete section is mainly based on these Puranas. These mythical origins are explained in too much detail. The technical terms, that are used in the section would rarely help a normal common reader. My query is that should The Puranas be used as a source that are inconsistent for centuries without any interpretation for some terms and information as well. My query has arisen after the instructions from the Moderator of WP:DRN, regarding the Karana Kayastha connection. You can check it, after this I have removed all such discussions and ultimately gain consensus. Thanks, Satnam2408 (talk) 14:45, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Nomination of Sharanya Ari for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Sharanya Ari is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Sharanya Ari until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished. User4edits (talk) 00:51, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Scrutiny required for People_of_Assam section
This section is heavily synthesised, mostly based on hypothetical scenarios and contains failed verification. Please give some attention to the section. Thank you. Northeast heritage (talk) 03:20, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

distracting usage of regional units of measure: crore, lakh, etc
Howard from NYC (talk) 08:14, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Q: given there are 6 billion non-Indians it would be reasonable to either:

(a) discontinue the use of these terms on wiki articles in favor of thousands-millions-billions-trillions which are more universal

(b) offer equivalences next to each such number... example: "7.6 lakh (76,000) meters of plastic pipe" ... or should that be "(760,000)"?


 * Hi Howard from NYC What should be done, is covered in some detail in MOS:CRORE which includes:-
 * "the South Asian numbering system is conventionally used for certain things (especially monetary amounts) .... This is discouraged in Wikipedia articles by ". "When it is done anyway":
 * "link the first spelled-out instance of each quantity (e.g., which yields: crore)" and "For example, write three crore (thirty million)"
 * This, therefore. broadly accords with your suggestions, the problem is that attempts to enforce the western numbering system, especially in Indian film articles, are almost always reverted. - Arjayay (talk) 13:54, 8 July 2022 (UTC)


 * @Howard from NYC I find pound, ounce and such outdated units especially distracting. What shall be done? Venkat TL (talk) 14:04, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * let's agree that rather than exclude anyone we'll include everyone... 1 troy ounce (31 grams)... 11 pounds (5 kilograms)... etc Howard from NYC (talk) 14:03, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Subroto Das
I'm wondering whether anyone from WP:INDIA might be willing to see if there are any non-English reliable sources which have written about Subroto Das and which might also be considered significant coverage. There are articles about Das on Punjabi and Egyptian Wikipedia but they also don't seem to be very well sourced. Given that Das' career as a cricketer seems to have pre-dated the Internet age, perhaps there's some coverage of him in offline sources like old newspapers or magazines. -- Marchjuly (talk) 12:50, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Draupadi Murmu
is the leading candidate in the presidential election so it is an important article. Refs for some claims are lacking. Needs attention. Venkat TL (talk) 17:18, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Notability of Director general of police of India
Is DG level officer, with experience of heading notable scam investigation, serving as Special director general of SSB, asInspector general at National Security Guard and as Inspector general at Special Protection Group not notable IPS officer??? Also, the same was the first Commissioner of Police of a state, prevented Vishva Hindu Parishad ex-chief Pravin Togadia from attending their party meeting (while BJP was in power of Central Govt), arrested ruling party's MLA. With President's Police Medal for "Meritorious Service" and President's Police Medal For "Distinguished Service" the officer is not notable? Moreover, taking a voluntary retirement, even after promoted to DG level officer leaving his last 2 years service which could have designate as something more, criticised the central government's government's bureaucracy policy, such IPS officer is if notable then who is?? I am placing the issue for discussion as wiki pages of many DG level officers of India getting deleted or tagged with Notability template. If Scotland's Mr. David Allan (police officer),a very lower level police officer in comparison to India's DG level officer, can be notable, then why India's DG level officers are not notable?

Indian Wikipedian with knowledge in this field are requested for open discussion to update Notability of higher ranked Indian Police Service officer here in Wiki. A fair policy by Wiki about India's bureaucrats' notability should be updated. - Signed by NeverTry4Me Talk 17:30, 10 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi @NeverTry4Me, Can you refer me to the specific officer and his page you are talking about. Thanks, User4edits (talk) 04:37, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

WikiProject Vital Articles is back
The WikiProject Vital Articles is now back in business, after a long hiatus. Many India-related topics are on the vital article list such as History of India, Mahatma Gandhi, Bengali, Hindustani and India itself, which both projects would certainly love to improve upon. To join the project, click here to go to the member list. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 09:33, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * History of India is not a vital article. It is garbage, an avenue for POV promotion by people who can't get the garbage into the history section of the FA India.  Hindustani is worse. How Bengali is more vital than Sanskrit is anybody's guess. It probably has to do with what label someone stuck on the talk page.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  10:48, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Because it is garbage, we need to improve it; just to clarify, "Vital" here just mean how all-encompassing and broad the topic is, it has nothing to do with article quality. Ultimately, the list is subjective, but it's good enough, considering we have wasted 1 and 1/2 decades on choosing what article is and isn't vital. It's time to make these articles GAs and FAs. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 10:55, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I know what it means. Perhaps you should look at the endless time wasted on FAC talk lobbying for "vital."  Good luck, especially with History of India and Hindustani.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  11:04, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry I'm coming across as cynical, which is not my intention. I think what I mean is that all the articles you have listed except the FA India are basket cases whose problems are pernicious POV maintained by editors who cannot be dislodged.  Please see the reams and reams of discussion I've had on the talk pages of both. In India's current Hindu nationalist dispensation, reflected now to some extent in the editing POV of editors of WP's India-related pages, it will be harder to dislodge the POV. It will be much more productive if you choose other topics such as Sanskrit, Languages of India, Indian elephant, Rhesus macaque, Monsoon in India, Geography of India, Bay of Bengal, and the like where the POV pushers have less leg room.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  11:22, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree and understand your intentions, I knew you aren't trying to be cynical :) Right now, I'm trying to be a bit more realistic with the plan and trying to gain experience by work on other articles first, as they are not as badly righting-great-wrongs as India-related topics (Science is now on the GA nom page, United States is currently in progress nicely). I may try to come around to do these India topics, but I think it would be much more effective if we can collaborate and ward off those POV pushers than if we do it alone. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 11:41, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * That's true. Will ping you in due course then. I'm preoccupied right now with the Darjeeling FAR or pre-FAR.  After our initial exchange, I went and looked and it turns out it is a level 5 vital article! So, I'm doing my bit. :)  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  12:05, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * and, among the articles CactiStaccingCrane mentioned, Gandhi and Bengali language used to be featured articles years ago. Certainly It is very difficult to get the featured article status back. Among some previously featured (and of high importance) articles are Delhi and Kolkata. --Dwaipayan (talk) 05:17, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Rukma Roy
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Rukma Roy that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 09:27, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Move request at Sudeep
Requesting people at WP:INB to take part in the move request Talk:Sudeep. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:29, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Nomination of Society of Indian Law Firms for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Society of Indian Law Firms is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Society of Indian Law Firms until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished. User4edits (talk) 12:55, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Request for article improvement
Greetings,

In a misplaced attempt of whataboutism a user (probably sock)  pointed out at some references (communicating in my personal user space). In any case, in good faith, I noted those @ Talk:Rape in India. Requesting users to improve India related articles if those refs are suitable taking into account relevant Wikipedia policies.

Thanks and warm regards

&#32;Bookku, &#39;Encyclopedias &#61; expanding information &#38; knowledge&#39; (talk) 08:37, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

August 2022 Women in Design editathons
The National Institute of Design in India is organizing an event with editathons focusing on Women in Design from 8 to 12 Aug 2022 with support from Art+Feminism. More details here.--Ipigott (talk) 08:20, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Rajputs of Nepal
This article, i doubt, is hoax. It was created by an IP and uses almost 90% of sources from a particular publication or site called Regmi research site.Is it based on reliable source? Also, do the source say same, as the article portrays, i doubt, as can't have access to source. They claim that all ancient dynasty of Nepal like Lichhavi to be of Rajput origin. This is itself a big reason to believe that someone have used WP:SYNTH misused sources to write it. Can anyone tell? Admantine123 (talk) 20:35, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Just saw the start of this article; it says the dynasty of Nepal like Lichhavi were of Rajput origin and cites this source:
 * It is possible to a great extent that someone has put their own view and portrayed article to be sourced, hence, it was saved from scrutiny until now -Admantine123 (talk) 20:52, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
 * While this source seems fine and is available with preview, it's talking about Thapas and nothing written in linked page about connection with Rajputs, seems someone have misused source here.-Admantine123 (talk) 21:03, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
 * While this source seems fine and is available with preview, it's talking about Thapas and nothing written in linked page about connection with Rajputs, seems someone have misused source here.-Admantine123 (talk) 21:03, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
 * While this source seems fine and is available with preview, it's talking about Thapas and nothing written in linked page about connection with Rajputs, seems someone have misused source here.-Admantine123 (talk) 21:03, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Also, i checked Thapa dynasty, someone has inserted the word Rajput in the sentence and the source used donot say anything about it. Page 34 of the source talks about some person who claim Rajput origin, but he claims. Article should be rewritten at some places. Someone distorting these Nepali article -Admantine123 (talk) 21:13, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Hoysala Empire Featured article review
I have nominated Hoysala Empire for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  02:43, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Featured Article Save Award for Darjeeling
There is a Featured Article Save Award nomination at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/Darjeeling/archive2. Please join the discussion to recognize and celebrate editors who helped assure this article would retain its featured status. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  01:52, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Feedback needed at list article regarding official status of Tamil
Should India be considered "a country where Tamil is recognized as an official language"? In a list article, this may depend on how the list criteria are defined or interpreted. Your feedback would be appreciated at this discussion. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 02:44, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Draft:Ajit Mohan
On behalf of Indian executive Ajit Mohan, I've submitted a draft article at AfC as part of my work at Beutler Ink. Given my conflict of interest (which I've also disclosed on the draft's Talk page), I will not publish the article to the main space and ask independent editors to review for accuracy, neutrality, and verifiability before going live. For this project, Mr. Mohan provided feedback to ensure accuracy of the entry, which is based on reputable secondary coverage. I am happy to address any questions or concerns that may arise during the review process. Might someone here be willing to take a look?

Thanks in advance for your consideration and help. Inkian Jason (talk) 15:02, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Veera Madakari
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Veera Madakari that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 15:31, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Darjeeling at the top of WP Main Page India's independence day
Darjeeling will appear as Today's featured article/August 15, 2022 at the top of Wikipedia's main page on India's independence day on 15 August 2022. Please watchlist the page until the following day and help out in keeping it vandalism free. Thank you. Fowler&amp;fowler «Talk»  13:29, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

RfC on a reconstruction of the Lion Capital of Ashoka
Your comments or votes with justifications are invited at Talk:Lion_Capital_of_Ashoka Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  03:11, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Bengali alphabet listed at Requested moves
A requested move discussion has been initiated for Bengali alphabet to be moved to Bengali script. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 22:45, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * To opt out of RM notifications on this page, transclude, or set up Article alerts for this WikiProject.

Jews of Color
Please contribute to this new article draft on Jews of Color.--Coin945 (talk) 20:11, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Redirect of Malayalam 'Vaanku', Requesting inputs
Requesting inputs @

Relisted, see Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 18

&#32;Bookku, &#39;Encyclopedias &#61; expanding information &#38; knowledge&#39; (talk) 07:23, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Jammu and Kashmir categories
We have three pages describing administrative units called "Jammu and Kashmir"; Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu and Kashmir (state), and Jammu and Kashmir (princely state). These units did not coexist at any point, and are distinct in their territorial boundaries. However, we have any number of categories that refer to "Jammu and Kashmir" without disambiguation; this is, needless to say, dreadfully inaccurate. Combined with our tendency to use categories imprecisely, this lack of precision has made the category meaningless. Fixing this will be a bit of an exercise, I suspect, so I'm posting here in the hopes that some folks will take it on. Vanamonde (Talk) 10:47, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think i got what you are trying to say, since these seem to be mostly redirects. Can you do a correction and link the diff here, so that folks can understand what is needed to be done, along with the scope of the issue. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 10:55, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I am referring to things like Category:Massacres in Jammu and Kashmir, Category:Disasters in Jammu and Kashmir, Category:Human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir, and Category:Terrorist incidents in Jammu and Kashmir, all of which contain events that occurred in two or more of the administrative units I mentioned above. I think the only reasonable way to handle these would be to split each category (so, for instance, Category:Disasters in Jammu and Kashmir would become three categories: Category:Disasters in Jammu and Kashmir (princely state), Category:Disasters in Jammu and Kashmir (state), and Category:Disasters in Jammu and Kashmir (union territory) and then recategorize all the items in each of them. Vanamonde (Talk) 11:08, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Seems to be a bigger conversation. Maybe you can start a CfD for one of the above categories. That would ensure a wider participation. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 11:17, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't see why a CfD is necessary unless such splits will be contentious; does anyone here object to this idea? Vanamonde (Talk) 11:30, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Very good idea. Will it help if all the pages have the year(s) of occurrence fronting their names?  E.g. I just moved Amshipora murders to 2020 Amshipora murders.  Misclassification in the new categories you suggest will then be easy to spot.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  12:50, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * It would make it easier, but WP:PRECISE actually advises against including the year when it isn't needed, so I'm not sure it's something we can do to all the articles. I'm sure there's a technical way to flag pages that are categorized wrong by looking at year/geography cross-categorization, but I haven't the expertise to do it. We may need to ping some folks more well-versed in AWB. Vanamonde (Talk) 14:23, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

I think the simplest solution would be to let all "non-political" categories refer to the present day geographical subunits of the Kashmir region that the refer to. If they spanned multiple subunits, they can be added to the categories of those subunits as well. For political categories, e.g., Category:Chief Ministers of Jammu and Kashmir, it would make sense to separate the princely state and Indian state references. This is not that different from British India→India transition. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:32, 18 August 2022 (UTC)


 * But most of the members of each category are from before the Union territory was created; so we're still going to have to split, or simply remove some categories. Perhaps a CfD is indeed the best solution. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:58, 18 August 2022 (UTC)


 * CfD started; please provide your thoughts at Categories for discussion/Log/2022 August 20. Vanamonde (Talk) 14:01, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Chittoor Nagayya
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Chittoor Nagayya that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 05:13, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Rinku Singh (wrestler)
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Rinku Singh (wrestler) that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 08:12, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Golconda diamonds
Want to share and let you all know that Golconda diamonds is now GA. :) Omer123hussain (talk) 14:37, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Kashmir maps again
The maps of Kashmir region have come up for discussion here off and on, but I don't recall any clear proposals being made or gaining WP:CONSENSUS.

Yet I notice that made an edit request in July to replace the map that goes into the infoboxes, changing it from the Kashmir region map to a union territory map. The infobox maps of all other subunits of Kashmir have also been changed similarly.

I am bringing this up here now because this is an undiscussed global change. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:54, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Nila Devi
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Nila Devi that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 15:30, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Ezhil (programming language)


The article Ezhil (programming language) has been proposed for deletion&#32;because of the following concern: "The 'Ezhil' programming language is a non-notable programming language. I would categorise this programming language as one of those toy languages that university students implement in python/JS for hackathons or semester project. Nobody really uses these kind of Run-of-the-mill side project languages. This language doesn't deserve a Wikipedia page. It is about a 10 year old language but has only about 150 stars on Github. see https://github.com/Ezhil-Language-Foundation/Ezhil-Lang I'm not implying that GitHub stars are everything but this language is clearly not popular. Also the citations on this article are primary sources and not reliable to establish notability. Also as per the article, https://www.thehindu.com/features/education/school/making-computing-in-tamil-easy/article6713408.ece, the creator of this toy-language, Muthiah Annamalai, studied at National Institute of Technology, Trichy and University of Texas. The user who created this article has edited(see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) both of these institutions Wikipedia pages. The person who created this article maybe known to creator of this toy-language, Muthiah Annamalai, and maybe received undisclosed payments. The author of this article has also made very disturbing edits such as, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Indian_Americans&diff=prev&oldid=89881402, they were trying to paint an entire community as 'Sexual Predators' ."

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. சுய நாசீசிஸத்தை நிறுத்துங்கள் (talk) 06:50, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:List of Australian High Commissioners to India
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:List of Australian High Commissioners to India that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 07:17, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 07:17, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Self-assessment of articles
I'm new to assessment. I am the creator and/or main editor of several articles that are rated Start-class. From reading the WikiProject India Assessment Guide (Part 1) my understanding is that self-assessment is okay up to C-class and B-class. I would appreciate confirmation. --Tagooty (talk) 10:36, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, self-assessment upto B-class is ok. But, an editor who disagrees with your assessment could downgrade it. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 10:42, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks Tagooty (talk) 13:52, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Economy of ancient Tamil country is a mess
Some very poor sources for a start. I don't know how reliable the publisher is for Balambal, V. (1998). Studies in the History of the Sangam Age. Delhi: Kalinga Publications. but I do know he's got at least one self-published book. Husaini, Dr. S.A.Q. (1962). The History of the Pandya Country. Selvi Pathippakam, Karaikudi. Two books by him with"generic" publishers make me doubt him as well.

Much of it seems original research with irrelevant information even when reliably sourced. 81% was written by one editor in 2007 when standards were much laxer. Doug Weller talk 14:39, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 * It looks pretty fantastic compared to Economic history of India! Johnbod (talk) 14:54, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Interesting. The Tamil country article was written by an editor named Lotlil during six weeks in the summer of 2007. Lotlil retired soon after. Their page says they are Tamil. The article I have to say is very easy to read.  For reasons unbeknownst to me, the Tamils and the Sri Lankans are able to speak (and write) better English than the rest of South Asia.  It seems they can get to the point faster and make it quickly.


 * Palliyadutal referred to the process of removing weeds using a toothed implement attached to a plank and drawn by oxen. Lower-class peasants used stone sling devices to scare animals and birds away from the standing crops. Sickles were used for harvesting mature rice paddies.[5] Since the rivers of the region were not perennial, several irrigation techniques were developed to ensure an adequate and continuous supply of water. Farmers used a bullock-propelled device called Kapilai for bailing out water from deep wells and a manual setup called Erram, for shallow wells.


 * I was about to correct "bailing," when I remembered that buckets were once called "bails." Maybe an old spelling has survived in places where the English language arrived 350 years ago.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  17:00, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Doug you are correct about the sourcing (and the lax standards). John is right too about the Economic history of India article.  One paragraph of its lead was all it took to turn me off.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  17:28, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Opinion on Tribal casteism and Tribal multiculturalism?
Those two (short, but dense) articles were created by, the first one popped up on my list at WP:NPP. I know next to nothing about the caste system or anthropology, so, for all I know, those articles could be anything among the following options:
 * a brilliant summary of recent literature
 * batshit crazy things you would fail Anthropology 101 for submitting as a student essay
 * an opinion piece advocating for changes to the legislation surrounding the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes

In any case they both look somewhat WP:OR-ish to me (I will post a notice on WP:ORN). For instance, Ethnographic analyses of (...) [have] focused on tribal casteism in the domains of [A], [B], [C], ... is quite WP:SYNTH-ish (topics A, B, C do have references attached, but who can ensure that whoever wrote this has fairly represented the whole body of literature on the topic, and not picked their favorites?).

It’s not like we are drowning in Indian anthropologist editors, so it would be good to preserve the content of the articles if it has any value, but I am not able to evaluate that. Any thoughts? Tigraan Click here for my talk page ("private" contact) 15:33, 30 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi Tigraan, sorry I've never responded to a wiki editor before. Am I supposed to defend the entries I created in this forum? I can assure you they have value!
 * In my opinion, the entries are the first thing you mentioned ("a brilliant summary of recent literature") and not batshit crazy. I am an anthropologist of South Asia (I don't know if that's relevant here but if you google "Stephen Christopher University of Copenhagen" you can see my work bio and publications.
 * To address your points: what I wrote is not OR-ish, if I understand that correctly to mean lacking sourcing. I have generously cited everything I wrote. And it's also not SNYTH-ish, if that means a generalization that isn't sourced, because the 2020 peer-reviewed article I cite on Scheduled Tribe Dalits explicitly states what the wiki page is stating.
 * I'm a bit confused about the process. Can you kick these entries to a South Asian anthropologist editor to check so they can be published?
 * Thanks,
 * Stephen Interstice101 (talk) 16:53, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Hello and thank you for responding. I will post a few general answers about process/vocabulary on your user talk page (User talk:Interstice101), in order not to clutter this page with stuff that the old-timers know.
 * The problem I see is not lack of sourcing, but that you use several sources to make an argument that is not made by any individual source. That is known as synthesis, or WP:SYNTH in Wikipedia jargon, and is not allowed (see that link for details, including an example where the same two sources allow to support opposite conclusions).
 * In the case of your Wikipedia articles, I think a lot of it does make some synthesis. I gave the most blatant example above - asserting that a certain scholarly field has focused on aspect A, B, C might be cited to multiple studies for each of A, B and C, but we cannot be certain that you picked A, B and C neutrally. That kind of assertion is acceptable in review papers, because on one hand review papers are allowed to include the personal opinions of the author about the direction for the field (in addition to a fair overview of the literature), and on the other hand reviewers will point out if certain points are missing or overemphasized (e.g. you missed important papers about D, or misrepresented C as significant where it was really a couple of outlier studies).
 * Note that if you have made that argument in a review paper published elsewhere, you can cite it in Wikipedia. It might sound a bit schizophrenic, but that’s the way it is. (Just don’t cite yourself too much.) Tigraan Click here for my talk page ("private" contact) 12:50, 31 August 2022 (UTC)


 * user:Tigraan: This does look like OR to me, or at least ORish. I don't have time for this, but perhaps someone else can take a stab at it. The usual thing to worry about in such stances, let alone such articles, is they not be aspects of the caste Hindu reaction to criticism of the caste system. On WP you often see it in attempts to write articles on Caste system among Muslims, Christians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, ... the world, so that by comparison the Hindu caste system, the paradigmatic case, the root of much violence, discrimination, hierarchy, and racism in India&mdash;seems innocuous by comparison. There might be some of the same here.  Not all Gorkhas in Darjeeling, for example, will have a real shot at Scheduled Tribe status, usually only the Lepcha, Limbu, Bhutia, Sherpa, and the Tibetans (who came before 1959) do. Although some of them are included in the broad grouping Gorkha for reasons of Nepali-language speaking ethnic unity, most did not migrate from Nepal. So, someone else, please take a hard look at it.  I don't think the sourcing is that great either. Anyway, this is all I have time for.  Thanks,  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  01:08, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 * PS If this is indeed an article written by a recent PhD, then all I can say is that encyclopedias, and even WP, are generally conservative. The author should first attempt to add such an article as a paragraph, maybe a section, in a bigger well-established article on a slightly larger topic, and see how it shapes out, what sort of reaction it receives from the regulars. These kinds of topics are not material for standalone articles off the bat. Often, they languish in the wilderness, and eventually end up here.  Volunteers have to be elicited. As a section in a larger much-trafficked article, they would receive critical feedback in the normal course of events. If and when they outgrow the size that is apt for a section, a spin-off standalone article can be written and summarized in the well-established article.    Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  01:27, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I am from Northeastern part of India, inhabited by numerous tribes. All tribes have self-designation and own language, and some tribes have lost their tribal language and assimilated into a new community like Indo-Aryan speaking Assamese people. These unassimilated tribes are keen to maintain distinctiveness of identity and culture but I don't know any kind of tribal casteism. I found the article name WP:UNDUE. Northeast heritage (talk) 17:51, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Chambhar/Chamar
Aren't these the same topic? Usedtobecool ☎️ 02:07, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

AfD
Articles for deletion/India that is Bharat (book) (2nd nomination) - Will appreciate eyes esp. in light of the previous AfD. Ty, TrangaBellam (talk) 07:00, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Could use some eyes
So, we've got an article at AfD: Articles for deletion/Battle of Jammu (1399). It's a pretty big, pretty good article. The thing is, not only is not referenced, we basically can't find any references. It's been suggested that it's a hoax. Except there's tiny reference. It's just odd. It's a nice article otherwise, we hate to just dump it. There's more at the AfD. None of us can read any Indian languages. So if anyone here can take a look at it, that'd be nice, thanks. Herostratus (talk) 00:21, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

RfD of 2019 Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly election
Is there someone knowledgeable of the subject who can help at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 September 4? -- Tavix ( talk ) 17:12, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Bania (caste)
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Bania (caste) that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 18:33, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

"Kanchipuram" vs "Kancheepuram"
Our article-titles on this location—Kanchipuram district and Kanchipuram—both use "i" spelling. The district article has a mix of "i" and "ee" spellings. And the website of each (as linked from their infoboxes) uses "ee". At a minimum, each article should be self-consistent. Should each unify on "ee", or is there a WP style note or some more-reliable (for English speakers) ref that supports "i"? DMacks (talk) 17:01, 28 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @DMacks both are acceptable transliterations of the Tamil word. But for the sake of consistency we use the spelling used by the Government. which is ee. Feel free to change all usage of i to "ee" Venkat TL (talk) 13:40, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I'll update them. DMacks (talk) 19:39, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * And now I see in Kanchipuram: "The municipal administration was renamed Kancheepuram, while the district and city retains the name Kanchipuram" cited to various refs. What I mess! I'll step back until we get a newer ref that it's different, or more editors chime in here. DMacks (talk) 19:53, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Akalapuzha River
Could somebody here look at Akalapuzha River? We've had an article since 2009 describing and categorizing it as a river, exactly as one would expect based on the title, but within the past week it's gotten substantially rewritten (mainly by anonymous IPs) to describe and recategorize it as a lake, without actually changing the title at all. So could somebody with more knowledge about it than I have confirm whether it's actually a lake or a river, and fix either the text or the page title depending on which of those two things is wrong? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 20:05, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia in India
I think this is the first Wikipedia article presenting a regional description of Wikipedia engagement. We have articles on Wikipedia language versions, but not currently other regions.
 * Wikipedia in India

Check it out.  Bluerasberry  (talk)  21:28, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Constituent Assembly of India
Our article claims (unsourced),

Is this accurate? I will like to be pointed to secondary sources which detail upon different aspects of the "election" to the Constituent Assembly of India from various provinces. TIA, TrangaBellam (talk) 10:54, 5 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi, TrangaBellam, The standard reference text for this is Granville Austin's book, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of A Nation, and if you have access, chapter 1 details the election process for the Constituent Assembly. You can also take a look at Udit Bhatia's edited volume, The Constituent Assembly (the first chapter, by Arvind Elangovan, will contain details on how the Constituent Assembly was created), and also has some useful critiques of Austin. If you're looking for primary references, B. Shiva Rao's 6 volume compilation, The Framing of the Indian Constitution has the source documentation. I don't have time at the moment, but if you would rather leave this, then in a few days I can work on the Constituent Assembly page, as I have access to all of these texts. - Naushervan (talk) 04:26, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks - this helps to some extent. More at your t/p. TrangaBellam (talk) 10:40, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Why protected
Why is the Next Karnataka Legislative Assembly election article too early protected? I request someone to remove protection. 2405:201:D01B:6A77:1C89:9CF5:C272:7261 (talk) 14:34, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Your presence is once more needed here. 2405:201:D01B:6A77:1C89:9CF5:C272:7261 2405:201:D01B:6A77:1C89:9CF5:C272:7261 (talk) 14:36, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
 * You have made a request in the proper forum; please do not ping every available admin you can find. Thanks. 331dot (talk) 14:38, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
 * thanks am pinging only who handled this issue 2405:201:D01B:6A77:1C89:9CF5:C272:7261 (talk) 14:42, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Because you've been asking this all over the place like a kid desperately looking around for a place to go to the bathroom ... You and other IPs have been repeatedly adding unsourced material to the article. I semi-protected for 3 days; when that expired, you went back, Jack, and did it again ... Wheel turnin' round and round, you went back, Jack and did it again (Cue the electric sitar solo; this noticeboard would be perfect for it). The reporter suggested it should be protected through the election, and I realized we don't want to keep going back, Jack ... well, you get the idea. As has been noted elsewhere, you can always use the talk page to suggest edits, which you do not appear to have done. At all. Daniel Case (talk) 20:50, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Dinesh MN
Dinesh MN looks like the longest start-class page you will find on WikiProject India. It needs to be cut back to perhaps one-hundredth of its present size. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:35, 6 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I've turned it into a stub, anyone who wishes to expand it is welcome to salvage verifiable content from the history. The stuff I deleted was dreadful; poorly sourced, poorly written, violating most content policies we have. Vanamonde (Talk) 11:28, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

List of chief ministers of Tamil Nadu
List of chief ministers of Tamil Nadu is currently a featured list, but is unlikely to remain so if nobody cleans up the prose summary. The table seems to be in decent shape, so this shouldn't be difficult work. Vanamonde (Talk) 11:23, 8 September 2022 (UTC)


 * @Vanamonde93 I have checked. It is very informative article. What are the problems you found? It will be helpful if you can post them on the article talk page. Venkat TL (talk) 13:50, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
 * , the issues aren't complicated; I don't think a long post is needed. There's content without references, and the pre-independence material isn't in the lead. Vanamonde (Talk) 14:31, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Violating the draft of state emblem of India
as clearly drafted the usage of state emblem of India. We must to create that vectorisation of the emblem as per Indian government. We need improve the vector images. We are revert back to latest and more refined vector image. ChiK (talk) 03:56, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

yoga-template update suggestions - pls review - thx
I've provided a draft of possible updates to the Yoga template. Could you please check and comment on this - thx Frank Samyamananda (talk) 12:42, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Template talk:Yoga

The Afghan border
The page Borders of India states:

So what do we about this? Should we also start writing about Pakistan's claimed border with Tibet and China's claimed border with Nagaland? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:25, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Ashok (actor)
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Ashok (actor) that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 19:41, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Famine in India
This article needs some attention and work up. Edits such this are a bit concerning — DaxServer (t · m · c) 21:33, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Four month old draft
Draft:Vettuva Gounder has been waiting to be reviewed at AfC for over four months now. Would anyone at this WikiProject be willing or able to assist in reviewing the draft? TipsyElephant (talk) 16:40, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

FAR for Flag of India
I have nominated Flag of India for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Hog Farm Talk 20:19, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Quick question about an edit request
I'm looking at Talk:Daivadnya and it seems legit to me to remove Christianity from the infobox, as that seems to be historical. The tone of the request makes me think there is context I'm unaware of, however. I'd appreciate any input anyone could offer. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:23, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Merging Bhagalpur Municipal Corporation into Bhagalpur
An article of interest to this WikiProject, r.e.: Bhagalpur Municipal Corporation, has been proposed for a merge with Bhagalpur. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Felix QW (talk) 14:48, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Vindhyavasini
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Vindhyavasini that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 04:26, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Need help cleaning up Amitabh Kant
The article has been repeatedly subject to MOS:PUFFERY by several new accounts, including one named Amitabh Kant. Despite warning each of these new accounts about the MOS and potential conflicts of interest, a new account is created almost every week and attempts to update the article with the subject's personal website, a long list of non-notable facts (e.g. a list of TV appearances on news debates, none of which are individually noteworthy, random magazine rankings, etc), and there have also been one or two incidents of unexplained content blanking. Last week I had to remove three separate sections that were created by a new account, all of which linked back to promotional content related to the subject's website. I requested semi-protection but it was not granted. I could use some help from an experienced editor in cleaning up the article and removing promotional/irrelevant content. Thanks. - Naushervan (talk) 05:03, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Additionally, several of the edits have been from an IP address belonging to the National Informatics Centre, suggesting some edits are coming from Indian government offices. I have no idea what is going on here, but it needs cleaning up. - Naushervan (talk) 05:27, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Naushervan feel free to remove promo edits. Venkat TL (talk) 08:58, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks - I have done so in the past, but I'm flagging this because there have been sustained efforts by multiple accounts over months now, and hopefully someone else can also chip in. - Naushervan (talk) 05:51, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * , can we have the page semi-ed? TrangaBellam (talk) 06:18, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much for cleaning it up, appreciate the help. - Naushervan (talk) 10:30, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:A. Mohan
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:A. Mohan that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 18:13, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

BLP violations
List of Yadav people is full of WP:BLP violations, as self-identification is missing in most cases. In fact, the page has become a free-for-all, as editors are adding entries where "Yadav" doesn't seem to even appear anywhere, let alone self-identification or even providing a reliable source for caste verification. It seems an editor removed most of the BLP violations a few months ago. But someone again added a large number of them. Pinging to see if they are familiar with this list, especially the cleanup edits. If yes, then that version should be restored. At the very least, it needs extended confirmed protection. Otherwise, there is no way to fix it. So pinging and  as well. - NitinMlk (talk) 20:47, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

PS: List of Yadav politicians also has the same issues! - NitinMlk (talk) 20:50, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I didn't notice that Fylindfotberserk hasn't edited for nearly one month. So the ping was unnecessary. - NitinMlk (talk) 21:05, 17 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Some suspected sock puppet moved Yadav (surname) to List of Yadav people without any discussion, which made the page full of BLP violations. So I guess the page needs to be moved back to the original title, i.e. Yadav (surname). After that, we can recreate the List of Yadav people with proper sourcing, i.e. with sources verifying caste of nonliving people and showing self-identification in the case of BLPs. And the List of Yadav politicians should be redirected to the appropriate section of List of Yadav people till that section become long enough for a standalone list. Sitush seems to be taking a wikibreak and I can't remember any active editor who is experienced in dealing with this caste stuff. Maybe can give some input here. - NitinMlk (talk) 21:25, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I've moved it back and move protected it. LMK if it needs ecp. --RegentsPark (comment) 12:19, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I guess when the caste list (List of Yadav people) will be created, the list of Yadav politicians can be merged/redirected to that one. Anyway, thanks again for reverting the suspected sock's disruptive page move. - NitinMlk (talk) 20:05, 20 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Just had a look at List of Yadav politicians. A truckload of unsourced cruft. Hope someone with time on their hands can take care of it. utcursch &#124; talk 07:36, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Is Raju Srivastav a look alike of Amitabh Bachchan
There is a dispute on Talk:Raju_Srivastav where some users are using claims of Srivastav to add in Wikipedia voice that he is a look alive of AB. Please see. Venkat TL (talk) 16:47, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

text of Ved Prakash Sharma should be in English
Our article on author Ved Prakash Sharma has a list of almost 200 of his works, in Devanagari characters (Hindi, I'm guessing.)

Can anybody put this into English?

Thanks - 2804:14D:5C59:8693:68DD:6E9:A6D6:8D46 (talk) 02:49, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Removed. We would almost never feature a list of 200 works; some form of selectivity needs to be applied. A small number of authors are notable enough to have complete bibliographies featured on Wikipedia, and those are usually crafted as separate lists. Vanamonde (Talk) 03:43, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Simranjit Singh Mann § Indian Express seems to have copied this article
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Simranjit Singh Mann § Indian Express seems to have copied this article. Venkat TL (talk) 17:19, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Death and state funeral of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Death and state funeral of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 10:50, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

That probably was cryptic... why do we care about that? This RM involves about 50 state funeral articles, including at least one that is related to this WP. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:17, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Peringottukara Devasthanam Sree Vishnumaya Swami Temple
Perhaps someone from WP:INDIA could take a look at Peringottukara Devasthanam Sree Vishnumaya Swami Temple and assess it? It was created directly in the mainspace. It needs some formatting fixes and other cleanup, but the main problem have to do whether it meets WP:GNG. I'm not sure whether there is a specific WP:SNG for temples or other places of worship, and I'm not sure if such subjects are treated primarily as buildings, organizations or a combination of both. FWIW, I came across this via WP:THQ and the creator is a relatively new WP:SPA whose only edits so far have been related to creating this article. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:58, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Comment on Sino-Indian War
Does anyone here know very much about the Talk:Sino-Indian War? There is a section on the Indian government's treatment of Chinese people, yet does not mention China's treatment of Indians? Does anyone here have any insights or sources regarding this particular issue? Obiwanbridget (talk) 10:59, 8 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I have answered at that talk page.  Briefly, there is no evidence that there were any domiciled Indians in China in any notable numbers in the 1950s or early 1960s.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  11:32, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Reinventing history & truth
Hi guys, having seen some articles about historical events and persons that are not very widely known, I've realised that most of it is extremely unreliable. Normal nationalist POV-pushing happens usually in popular articles, but the less known ones are victims of caste-warriors, who will make their caste win a war without any reference. Not just IPs, who are usually caught due to patrollers, but long-time editors too. Look at my reversal of a hoax. It's easy to introduce hoaxes using names of real books, thinking who would ever read that, patrollers miss out on that (see article history), until someone actually reads the book. This isn't one or two articles, according to Wikipedia, the Battle of Malpura has been won by Jaipur & Marathas & Rajputs (who aren't mentioned in belligerents but whatever) at different points of article history. Sorry, but somewhere we've failed and niche historical Indian topics are more unreliable than they are reliable. (Also, keep an eye on (used no ping) who I believe is one such caste-warrior, read userpage.) &#8212;CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 21:03, 30 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Oh and did I mention how even a well known article (Indo-Pakistan War of 1971) was hijacked by caste-warriors right at the first image of the infobox until reversal. &#8212;CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 21:07, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Caste, or more generally the promotion of identities, sometimes ever-newer identities, religious, regional, or national, has been the bane of Wikipedia's India-related pages from the get-go. Editors who promote these edits are often not able to succeed stably or explicitly in the more well-watched pages, so they resort to flying under the radar in various ways. My compliments for noticing and fighting the trend. Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  11:46, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Last names or surnames, advertising a caste were not used much in India until the first British censuses in the latter-half the 19th-century. That trend has increased in my anecdotal evidence since, not just among Hindus and not just among "names" added by Wikipedia's caste warriors. There are more legally-changed surnames of the sort "Rajput" for Hindus who were formerly Singh or Thakur.  Even among Muslims, there are "Pathans" who were formerly "Khan," signifying an Afghan origin. I can't be sure but I suspect strongly that the parents or grandparents of Sushant Singh Rajput or Irfan Pathan were not born with those last names.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  11:58, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Fowler&fowler: So I did a little search, and all hits for SSR's father points to the name K.K. Singh. Apparently, he was indeed not named Rajput. Times of India, India Today, Jagran, NDTV, Republic World. &#8212;CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 15:47, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @CX Zoom you are right. Not just war but every Rajput related page is corrupted with hoaxes and poorly sourced nonsense. These users have even managed to create an entire Hoax article Rajput resistance to Muslim conquests (as if such a thing existed) by duplicating refs from Muslim conquests in India. Venkat TL (talk) 17:46, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Only if we had a policy to pre-emptively tag caste-warrior-attacked articles as "potentially wrong" or something along those lines, but then, everything on Wikipedia probably belongs to the same family. &#8212;CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 19:41, 15 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I think editors also need to look at this article Battles involving the Jat. This is even more shocking to me as it includes Battle of Dograi 1965, between India and Pak armies mentioned as Jat battle just because one of the unit involved was 3 Jat from Indian Army. These are even more serious, some of the other battle context are even wrong. It is written that Bharatpur or Dholpur were fighting Mughals when in fact in most cases it was one Mughal governor against other Mughal governor and they were choosing sides. There are other articles like this Murho Estate, none of the better reference mention it as Zamindar estate. It wasn't even a large or mediocre estate, I don't know whether every one village or two village holders etc needs article. I am tagging for inputs.Akalanka820 (talk) 04:50, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm tired right now. There's a newish editor Packer and Tracker, who pushes Rajput-POV and vilifies Muslims on various pages.  I had to remove a part of the article in Muhammad of Ghor and will need to rewrite the lead of Delhi sultanate, both of which are linked to the FA India. One headache after another.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  05:12, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I am not a pov pusher and not newish either (over 4k+ edits) as a matter of fact I created articles about Md Ghuri which do not have anything even remotely related to the Rajputs - Siege of Lahore (1186) and Battle of Andkhud are related to his campaigns against the Ghaznavids and Khwarezmians. Your own tertiary (high-quality tertiary sources) mentions those instances:- Kulke&Rotherbond 2004, Peter Robb 2011, Barbara D. Metcalf (pp:- 4), Ludden 2002 etc.
 * If you stop about bragging of your FA India article which is equivalent to finding a core for the cancer - then something relevant can be discussed.
 * Your uncivil behaviour at every article, battleground mentality (whenever your pov don't find a relevant direction) and branding of others as Hindu Nationalists and accusing others for vilifying Muslims spreads on several front apart from historical pieces which troubled several reputable WP editors - diff and diff.
 * You have been involved with this editor in past - what you make of this ? Is it tolerable now ?
 * '''PS:- I never edited the Delhi Sultanate page on a major scale, so do there as you wish. ∆ P&#38;t ♀√ (talk) 05:39, 16 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I went through the discussion, I think you have very well explained it with writer's Barbara D Metcalf reference on that discussion page, I will comment on it when I get time. I am strictly not in favour of temple destruction part etc to be mentioned in a military leader or commander's page. Sometimes any controversial topic has many context ( like you explained there). Though I think it could be a case of religious perspective ( sometimes it can happen) and not as such any community. I have seen editors with soft religious corner but having different perspective on community pages and vice-versa. Lastly, good thing it did looked a healthy discussion and all sides took to discussing it. Akalanka820 (talk) 05:42, 16 October 2022 (UTC)


 * The article like Battles involving the Jat (one of its kind, didn't find any such article for Kamma, Reddy etc), same case for Murho Estate case, they definitely need a relook. Lately, I have seen a lots of pages including Delhi Sultanate rulers like Khizr Khan of Sayyid Dynasty and its related page etc, where constant attempt is made to add word "Jat" by some using the angle of various possibilities in one way or the other. Similar attempts were made on Tughlaq dynasty page and others related to its rulers. I think basic things should not be allowed to get changed just because a writer talks of new possibility. We should differentiate between very wild possibility and general history. Akalanka820 (talk) 11:12, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Your feedback requested at Gautama Buddha move request
Hello. Your feedback would be appreciated at Talk:Gautama Buddha. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 11:19, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Disambiguation of links to Muslim Students Federation
Could you help to disambiguate links to Muslim Students Federation? The links shown here should either go to All India Muslim Students Federation or Muslim Students Federation (I. U. M. L.) (or possibly Muslim Students Federation (Kerala unit)) but without specialised knowledge the context sometimes makes it difficult to see which.&mdash; Rod talk 17:54, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Kerala sacrifice case
Whether recent superstition related case has already been covered in any article? If not then I shall propose the same to be covered in Superstition in India article.

Thanks

&#32;Bookku   (talk) 09:46, 15 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Here is a case of different superstition from another state of Madhya Pradesha. Idk WP users would be ready to consider  timesnow mirror news as reliable source  do suggest &#32;Bookku    (talk) 12:14, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * https://www.timesnownews.com/mirror-now/in-focus/scary-screams-rituals-web-of-superstition-lakhs-gather-at-ghost-fair-of-mp-article-94439439    &#32;Bookku    (talk) 12:14, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Bookku Times now part of WP:TOI in particular and Godi Media in general should not be used on Wikipedia. Especially not for politics or history related topics. Venkat TL (talk) 14:12, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This above referred specific news seems non  political relating to social issues. Still I will go as per wp community opinion. Thanks &#32;Bookku    (talk) 17:42, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Ayurveda § Indian Supreme Court on Wikipedia article on Ayurveda
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Ayurveda § Indian Supreme Court on Wikipedia article on Ayurveda. Venkat TL (talk) 19:23, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Bharat Jodo Yatra
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Bharat Jodo Yatra. 2405:201:D01B:60BD:48E8:C100:A581:C74 (talk) 12:52, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

FAR notice for Political integration of India
I have nominated Political integration of India for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:37, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Nawabs of Bengal and Murshidabad
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Nawabs of Bengal and Murshidabad that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 13:05, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Very low quality articles on villages
Hi, I haven't used wikipedia much in the past few months, so I apologize for any mistakes. I've noticed that pages on villages of India are quite low-quality. Many use sources on the spam blacklist (for example, as of making this post, 275 articles use villageinfo.in). A lot have poor grammar, though this could be just due to the fact that I'm an American reading Indian English. Others have useless trivia, and read more like a travel guide (For example, the page of Elappally talked about a waterfall in a very travel-guide like manner, which I have improved). Others have long lists of nearby villages, many of which don't seem to serve any purpose. I've tried to do what I can to improve articles, but the fact that I'm on a school computer, lack the knowledge of India to factually correct it, and the simple fact that there's so many of these pages has made it difficult. Any suggestions or help would be much appreciated. Eridian314 (talk) 14:23, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Not really! This is just the way things are I'm afraid. As you say there are a huge number of them. Most are probably more or less factually accurate, and written and rewritten (as well as read) by locals. They sometimes give an idea of the place that a more po-faced article might lack, but sometimes show bias of one kind or another. Johnbod (talk) 14:53, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Understood. Thank you ^^ Eridian314 (talk) 15:47, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Maratha Confederacy as a nation state
Is it kosher, as here, to say that Agra was in an entity known as the Maratha confederacy at the time of Ghalib's birth? According to the history section of the Agra page, Agra was under the influence of the Marathas (also, apparently, Jats, Rajputs, et al) but does that translate to a nation state entity? --RegentsPark (comment) 15:26, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It seems ok to me. I'm not sure any early Indian state is exactly a "nation state" in the modern sense, but they don't need to be for this purpose.  Johnbod (talk) 15:48, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I was under the impression that the Marathas were more of a "raid and retreat" polity, at least in their northern battles, rather than an empire establishing one. The question, I guess, is were these places in northern India (Agra, Delhi, etc.) where they defeated the Mughals in battle ever actually under their direct jurisdiction (tax collection, administration, etc. etc.) or did they continue to stay nominally under Mughal control? --RegentsPark (comment) 20:07, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The map on the right seems quite clear even though I don't know how accurate it is. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:09, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
 * When Ghilib was born in 1797 the Marathas had controlled the Agra region for 40-odd years, & you can be sure they got the taxes. It was the Mughals who had retreated, to inside Delhi. The Marathas lost control after the Battle of Delhi (1803) I would imagine. Johnbod (talk) 22:57, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The "Maratha moment," as Burton Stein termed it, began in the late 1680s, well before Aurengzeb's death. It ended in 1761 when Ahmad Shah Abdali (also Durani) defeated the Marathas in the third battle of Panipat. From then until the Battle of Patparganj incorrectly titled Battle of Delhi (1803) on Wikipedia, across the Jumna from Delhi in 1803 (to which Johnbod correctly upper-bounds the last echoes of the Maratha moment) there was only a loose confederacy of pseudo-independent kingdoms ruled by chieftains that had been created by the Peshwas: the Scindias in Gwalior, the Holkars in Indore, the Gaikwads in Baroda, and  the descendants of Shivaji in Nagpur.  At the time of Ghalib's birth, the former Mughal capital Agra was nominally under a Maratha overlordship, for there was a British merceneray (Heston or Hessing; I'm forgetting the name) who was stationed in Agra by the "Maratha Confederacy," But what presence did the Marathas really have in Agra beyond the hegemony of Gwalior? They left no presence in Agra, no monument, no culture, no cuisine, and no Marathi words were inducted into Agra's Urdu.  I think it is best to leave it as born Agra, India  That is what Britannica does (in effect)  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  17:14, 23 October 2022 (UTC)


 * John Hessing, d. 1803, actually a Dutchman from Utrecht. Johnbod (talk) 14:57, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * So, I was wrong about the monument part, the Scindia hegemony in Agra did leave one, even if a Dutchman's from Utrecht. Hessing was a man who like Defoe's great character of nearly two centuries before (in turn the naturalized son of a man from farther east&mdash;Bremen, but still speaking a Germanic language) had preferred the wandering life for the "middle-station." Hessing's article is a nice one, a small article on a disregarded subject that is the real justification for having Wikipedia.  Created by Tom Radulovitch, it has contributions from Charles Matthews and you, Jb.  I tip my hat to all  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  16:24, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks! The tomb, a miniature replica of the Taj Mahal, is indeed rather splendid. I think we know where at least some of the local taxes went anyway. Johnbod (talk) 16:43, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Welcome. I looked for some sources. The taxes now and over the years for maintaining the Catholic cemetery in which the red Taj is located, Yes. But not the Scindia's 200 years ago.  For it was paid for by his estranged widow according to this article from the Deccan Herald.  The headstone and other inscriptions are in Persian. I wish some Wikipedians from Agra would take more pictures of this monument (echoing s request below for the monument to the Battle of Delhi.)  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  17:04, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Sure, but his widow's money no doubt came from Hessing's cut of the tax take. Trickle-down economics in action! Johnbod (talk) 17:13, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I hadn't thought of that. Hessing had first gone to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) then under the Dutch, the period that gave us the Dutch Burghers whose modern legacy is Michael Ondaatje, though Hessing was not a Burgher, nor even domiciled. But he did serve other princely clients in India before he began to work for the Scindia's in 1794.  So, yes, some of the taxes, very likely.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  17:28, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, trickle down has been around for a long time, not just a term invented during Ronald Reagans tenure. Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  17:31, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Although Shivaji's descendants for a few generations accepted Mughal sovereignty in the fortified towns, they never did lose the loyalty of the rural areas.  From these, they collected a 25% tax, or chauth and sardeshmukhi (another 10%).  The tax-collection was very efficient and contributed to the Maratha military strengths.  Under the Peshwas, the tax collection was the responsibility of territorial chiefs (deshmukhs), village headmen (patils) and tax accountants (kulkarni)s&mdash;the first two from peasant Maratha backgrounds and the last brahmins&mdash;extracted  1/3 of agricultural profits.  These regional and village officials gradually became more powerful.  Not just the rulers of the pseudo-independent kingdoms, later the princely states of the Central India Agency, rose from their ranks, but so did the base of what became the middle-class of  a large region in the late 19th -century, the job descriptions Deshmukh, Kulkarni, and Patil becoming the new surnames after the British censuses began in 1871.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  19:14, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I had this feeling that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had its origins in India :) But, seriously, I think you're right that we should leave it as Agra, linked to History of India. Perhaps for most, if not all, historical places because the system of rule, even during the height of the Mughal empire, was largely organized around the principle of tributary states rather than direct rule. For example, I see Jai Singh I who was born when Jahangir was the emperor and Amber was a tributary state of the Mughals, is listed as born in Amber, Kingdom of Amber rather in Amber, Mughal empire. That may be inconsistent with the Maratha designation of Agra. --RegentsPark (comment) 19:35, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I took a look at Battle of Delhi (1803). Bit of a shame that there is, apparently, a standing memorial at the site but no picture. Delhi based editors, you need to grab your cameras!--RegentsPark (comment) 19:50, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

K. R. Narayanan
Hi, I nominated the article @ Articles for improvement/Nominations. IMO the article seem to have scope and reason for further level of improvement, if some more users can pitch in. &#32;Bookku   (talk) 05:20, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Chadhaibhol
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Chadhaibhol that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 21:59, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

An interesting lawsuit
I came to know from The Signpost that one "Tuhin Sinha" — involved with the Bharatiya Janata Party — has filed a defamation suit against Wikimedia Foundation and all (?) of its administrators as a reaction to the community's March 2022 decision to delete the article about him. Interested audience can navigate to this official website, fill DLSE010052712022 in the CNR field, and solve the captcha to remain abreast of the day-to-day proceedings. The Foundation has been issued summons and the next hearing is scheduled for 15 December 2022. TrangaBellam (talk) 08:43, 31 October 2022 (UTC)


 * , the article was recreated about a week ago by an autopatrolled editor. G4-able despite being ref-spammed and I think the auto-patrol flag (3 article creations in the last six years) needs a relook. Should have been salted pursuant to 's nom. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:32, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Frankly, I am speechless. You delete multiple reviews in The Hindu, a newspaper of record per WP:RSP, with the edit summary "non-reliable sources" ...?
 * By the way, whether or not the subject is suing the WMF is neither here nor there in terms of notability. If the article hadn't been deleted in the first place this whole sorry affair would not have reached this point. The man is clearly notable. Andreas JN 466 15:01, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * If notable, the AfD participants did not corroborate. You probably should have worked in the Draftspace and have put it thru AfC, given that it has 2 AfD nominations that resulted in delete — DaxServer (t · m · c) 15:44, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The second AfD seemed very slapdash to me, and the first one was started by an indeffed sockpuppet. If someone has half a dozen reviews in The Hindu alone, which is a newspaper of record, then they are notable. Andreas JN 466 16:10, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Half-a-dozen? I spotted two. And, maybe a half. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:11, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Neither of us can count apparently. Two of them are mere mentions, I grant you, and the last one is a report you also removed from the article – which seemed odd, because if the Hindu reports on it, why shouldn't it be in the article? Regards, Andreas  JN 466 16:23, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 6 - 2 (mere mention) - 1 (report) - 0 / 0.5 (supplement coverage; as I noted in the edit-summary, their real book reviews used to be published at The Hindu Literary Review) = 2 / 2.5. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:51, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry, can't resist:
 * 6 - 2 (mere mention) = 4; 4 - 1 (report) = 3; 3 - 0 / 0.5 = 2.5 / 3.
 * The fact that the Hindu used to have "proper reviews" elsewhere does not make the other kind of review in The Hindu uncitable. I am glad to see you restoring material to the Reception section, thank you. Best, Andreas JN 466 18:16, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * By the way, I write for the Signpost. That is why you know about the article ... and frankly I take exception to the term "ref-spammed". If you mean by this that I looked for references and added content based on them, then you would be correct, but I think this is how this place is supposed to work. ;) --Andreas JN 466 15:02, 31 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Apparently, to counter[] systemic bias, the Foundation is even looking at using oral testimony. Andreas believes this to be a valid defense of his usage of questionable sources (including a matrimonial website and a publication, declared unreliable by the Indian Cinema Task Force) and goes on to propose that Indian sources be held to lower standards of reliability derived from Alexa ranks. I do not know whether to be genuinely concerned or feign concern; so, leaving it to the wisdom of fellow INB-editors/admins like, , and others. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:07, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I have no investment in the Shaadi Times, but where do you think Indian romance novels are likely to get a review? As far as I am concerned, it's perfectly endearing. I'm sure as hell not going to edit-war over it, but what's the harm here? Regards, Andreas JN 466 17:56, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't want to get deep into the weeds here, but at the moment there is no basis in policy for lowering our standards of reliability by geography. Consensus, common sense, and ONUS still apply. Shaadi.com is not reliable, and in general a source that has not been previously discussed, and isn't a priori reliable, needs consensus for inclusion, not exclusion. Andreas, you've been here long enough to know that. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:45, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Vanamonde93, Well, IWMBuzz.com has been explicitly held to be unreliable in a discussion (featuring longstanding contributors like Cyphoidbomb, Praxidicae etc.) but Andreas proposes that we cut it slack since it is a top-3000 website. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:50, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I assume you're just expressing frustration, TB, because that's exactly what I'm saying isn't acceptable, and so we're not in disagreement. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:55, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The most recent RSN entry for IWMBuzz is here, which points out that the source is used in hundreds of articles. The proposal to give it a yellow (not red) listing at perennial sources was not taken up. There is no bright line here.
 * To make this discussion a little more productive: Can we first of all agree that the man is notable, based on the totality of fifty sources assembled here, which include
 * seven references in The Hindu,
 * one in the New Indian Express,
 * two in The Indian Express,
 * two in The Pioneer (India),
 * one in The Tribune (Chandigarh),
 * five in The Times of India,
 * three in The Telegraph (India),
 * one in Man's World (magazine),
 * two in Firstpost,
 * one in Business Standard,
 * two in India Today,
 * one in the Financial Express (India),
 * one in the Deccan Chronicle,
 * one in The Week (Indian magazine),
 * two in news18,
 * one in Rediff,
 * and passes WP:N? In my view, he clearly does, and there was absolutely no need for this whole sorry lawsuit in the Indian courts which will cost Wikipedia donor money, based on an AfD filed by a now ArbCom-indeffed sockpuppet.
 * All the rest – which sources are good enough for a book review of a thriller or romance novel in a "Reception" section and which are not – can be sorted out later. Regards, Andreas JN 466 17:51, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * NB: Of the thirty-three reliable sources listed above, TrangaBellam has deleted seventeen from the article. Andreas JN 466 18:03, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Again, not interested in getting into the weeds. I'm not contesting notability here. That Wikipedia articles use a source is no evidence of reliability; we use garbage sources all the time until they're put on the spam blacklist. You need to establish consensus for any borderline source you wish to use. Finally, I'm not sure you intend to suggest that the editor community is somehow responsible for that lawsuit, but if you do that's rather inappropriate. BLPs are deleted on a daily basis, and any subject of such could file a similar lawsuit. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:30, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Precisely. Also, he counts The Week op-ed and similar columns, which are by Sinha himself, in the "totality of fifty reliable sources" that contribute to Sinha's notability. (Btw, I was uninvolved in the last two AfDs and as of yet, do not opine on whether the subject passes our notability barriers given the secondary sources and book reviews.) TrangaBellam (talk) 18:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * You are right, The Week should not have been there. I've removed one reference to The Week, one to news18.com, one to Firstpost and one to India Today above. That leaves 29 third-party sources in the above list, of which you appear to have removed fourteen – about half. I don't agree with some of those removals, but as you're still editing the article, I'll leave you to it for now. Best, Andreas JN 466 18:56, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

What makes the man notable? His novels? Or his spokesmanship, c.q. his role in BJP-politics? I guess the last, given writings like this, which seems to me to be an apology fo religious violence. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk!  20:00, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * WP:GNG establishes notability; none of the things you mention factor into the decision.
 * I lived in Varanasi for a year and walked past the Gyanvapi Mosque 100 times. The conversion of non-Islamic places of worship into mosques is a thing here for Kashi Vishwanath Temple. When Buddha founded Buddhism in the city he did so because Varanasi was already well established as a Hindu holy city, which it still is today. The mosque is on the site because that site is important to Hindus. If there were a mosque in St. Peter's Square or a Hindu temple or church in Mecca then perhaps someone would comment upon that also; there is plenty of room for friendly conversation.
 * If you are not familiar with the issues I understand why you may see the discussion and wonder if there is an aggressor. The answer is sometimes yes on any side, but also, friendly conversation is possible and the only way forward.  Bluerasberry   (talk)  20:34, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * there was no "Hinduism" at 500 BCE. And Sarnath is not Varanasi. Joshua Jonathan  - Let's talk!  21:41, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Just the fact that there is a significant amount of coverage of him; most of it is about his writing, a little is about his being national BJP spokesperson, and a little is about the way his writing and his politics have combined (e.g. his books about/co-authored with Nitin Gadkari (now deleted) or the national awareness campaign he was involved in, getting a book of short stories on road safety together); this latter too was deleted from the article last time I looked:
 * In 2016, Sinha acted as project advisor on the national #HaveaSafeJourney (#HASJ) awareness campaign, a joined road safety initiative by the Mahindra Truck and Bus Division and the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. This involved a writing contest for short stories related to road safety issues, which were published the following year as a book and promoted by Sinha. Notable writers contributing stories to the project included Anand Neelakantan, Kiran Manral and Pankaj Dubey; Gadkari, as the Minister of Road Transport and Highways, provided the foreword.
 * That content was cited to Motorindia (also syndicated on the Times of India website), Telegraph India and Times of India. If I wrote the exact same thing about Jeremy Clarkson, cited to Autocar, The Times (UK) and The Daily Telegraph (UK), no one would bat an eyelid.
 * As for penning an "apology for religious violence", as long as that is not a subject of reliable sources, it is neither here nor there for us. If someone publishes such a critique in a reliable source, then it can and should be added to Sinha's article. But we shouldn't try to withhold recognition of notability because of a religious or political sentiment. I'd submit that that is ultimately counterproductive. "Just the sources, madam." Regards, Andreas JN 466 20:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Andreas, The MotorIndia and TOI "articles" are just a company press- release republished as is. Original here. The ToI group is well know for such undisclosed sponsored content (see this New Yorker article that discusses this practice) and should therefore be used as a source with great care. Abecedare (talk) 20:49, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, but are you actually suggesting that there was no such awareness campaign in India and it is all made up? Sinha is evidently close to Gadkari, the Indian government minister responsible for roads and transport, witness the two Gadkari books, so what reason is there to doubt the facticity of the report?
 * Some highly notable Indian authors contributed to the short story collection that was part of this initiative. You can buy the book here:  Is that not of cultural importance in India?
 * I can't help feeling that we are applying standards of moral purity here to Indian sources that we don't apply to Western sources. As someone who follows reporting on Wikipedia and the WMF, for example, I am vividly aware that the WMF places reports or interviews in "friendly" reliable sources to coincide with the start of fundraising campaigns; that is why the WMF has an expensive PR consultant. It may be done more subtly, but the timing is unmistakeable and the effect is the same.
 * No one here would argue that such an article in a major newspaper would therefore be unreliable as to easily verifiable fact like the publication of that book, just like the Telegraph is citable here even though it is the Torygraph and the UK has a Tory government (well, sort of ...).
 * Thanks for the reading tip, will check. Cheers, Andreas JN 466 21:01, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Andreas, does WMF pay those "'friendly' reliable sources" for publishing WMF press-releases and do those publications bury the disclosure of those payments in generic fine-print? If so, those are not reliable sources and such advertorials shouldn't be used as sources on wikipedia.
 * Here's one relevant bit from the New Yorker piece with emphasis added:
 * "The Times of India sees itself not as an agenda-setter but as a bulletin board, a mirror to what happened yesterday. The first section had many ads, and there were several advertising supplements.... The paper’s innovations begin in its eight-page second section, which is titled the Bombay Times but is known in-house as Page Three. ... Jain explained that, like the surrounding stories, it was written by members of the reporting staff and paid for by the celebrities or their publicists. Most of the section was filled with ads, or with stories that were ads; a similar section appears in each city in which the Times is published. An internal company report in June lauded the strategy as “so important that today nearly all Bollywood movie releases pay for promotional coverage ahead of movie releases, and actors/actresses pay to develop their brand through coverage in the paper.” Tucked under the section’s masthead, four words in small type inform the reader that the contents are an “advertorial, entertainment promotional feature.” Jain insisted that this meets the transparency test. “It’s on my masthead,” he said. “It says ‘advertorial’ clearly. All newspapers in the world do advertorials.” But in the Jains’ newspapers the advertorials are written by staff reporters, and a reader needs a magnifying glass to be alerted."


 * We shouldn't lower our standards to make such content acceptable as sources, just because we are writing about Indian subjects. Or what an eminence had called, "soft bigotry of low expectations." :) Abecedare (talk) 21:24, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This was an Indian government initiative (with a commercial sponsor) for a national road safety campaign. Much the same facts were also reported in The Telegraph (India). To my mind, this is slightly different from a Bollywood ad. Regards, Andreas JN 466 21:41, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Sinha speaks quite earnestly about road safety here, by the way: --Andreas  JN 466 21:45, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I am not questioning Sinha's sincerity on the topic, or even whether the road safety initiative should be mentioned in the article (if enough independent secondary sources cover Sinha's involvement in it, which can be discussed on the article talkpage). My only contention, similar to what Vanamonde has said earlier, is that our sourcing standards shouldn't be lowered for this or other India-related articles. Abecedare (talk) 22:00, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I understand your point, but think that some allowances are appropriate. Put another way, I no longer see a point in this reasoning if it means that the addition of clearly factual and germane content, as in this specific case Sinha's involvement in a government campaign, gets bogged down in discussions of Bollywood ads. Regards, Andreas JN 466 23:11, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

... of India
I see that there are numerous occurrences of terms like "Home Secretary of India", "Foreign Secretary of India" etc. similar to the corrsponding terms used for the US or UK. This is entirely inappropriate. These are bureaucratic positions, not constitutional positions. The corresponding "of India" titles can only be applied to ministers in India, not to bureaucrats. The correct language is either "Home Secretary in the Government of India" or just "Home Secretary".

On the other hand, "Comptroller and Auditor General of India" is ok. It is a constitutional position. See this clean-up edit, for example.

I would like to urge everybody to avoid such terms, and remove them whenever they run into them. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:56, 21 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Good point, I'll keep an eye out for this language from now. - Naushervan (talk) 11:59, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

FAR for Satyajit Ray
I have nominated Satyajit Ray for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 16:54, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Indian currency and number system
Has there been a previous discussion about which of the following formats is preferable? and I have differing opinions on the topic, with them preferring the second option based on MOS:COMMONALITY ("ten million is preferable to one crore (Indian English).") and I, the first one based on "better matching the sources and more accessible to both Indian and non-Indian readers." To be clear: in instances where only one number system is being presented, I completely agree that million, billion etc should be preferable to lakhs, crores etc. Abecedare (talk) 23:43, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) inr 10000000000
 * 2) inr 10000000000

Article Sabitha Beegam @ AfD, Any Malayalam sources?
Article Sabitha Beegam is @ deletion discussion,  likely to be one of first Muslim woman mayors  in  India. There seem to be lack of sources. Can some one help find helpful sources including Malayalam and help salvage the article if possible.

Also help @ WP:RD/H @ Muslim women mayors in India (post 1947) is requested. &#32;Bookku   (talk) 10:18, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Lakh (and crore)
There is an RfC at talk:2022 Morbi bridge collapse about the use of lakh (and crore) that might have wider implication than that specific article. Thryduulf (talk) 02:53, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This is an interesting topic and I agree with Uanfala that the particular discussion might not have needed a large-community discussion. However, I trust that they are trying to resolve it in the best way. Some general observations English counting is in every three-digits sequence (three-digit comma), i.e. 1→ 1,000 (103)→ 1,000,000 (106) → 100,000,000 (109) so a comma will be after every three-digits from the right, and the terms are thousand, million, billion etc.


 * Now, in Indian counting it is two-digits, so those numbers also need to be defined, and here there are lakh (105) and crore (107). So, usage of comma, and digit-separation are directly connected. --Titodutta (talk) 03:17, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Non-vegetarian, Requesting inputs @ WP:DUE
An input request about 'Indian Non-vegetarian food culture' @ WP:DUE

&#32;Bookku   (talk) 07:57, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Non-vegetarian Delete, move or merge?
Above mentioned discussion @ WP:DUE is moved on to consider whether topic   Non-vegetarian deserves an independent article at all? Do share your inputs @ @ WP:DUE. 12:29, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Paddu
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Paddu that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 15:23, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Salvatore Babones
I have been reading his columns recently and then he got invited to a Q&A at the India Today Conclave, where he managed to explain better what he is talking about. Please do watch it. It helps us interpret the media and academic coverage of India. His previous column is here: -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:58, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Salvatore Babones | Demonising A Democracy? | India Today Conclave 2022
 * Indian Democracy at 75: Who Are the Barbarians at the Gate?, Quadrant, 5 August 2022.


 * Quite interesting. The centrality of victimhood to Indian politics — once perpetuated by the Left, and now weaponized by the Right — has facilitated unprecedentedly shabby work to masquerade as neutral commentary or worse, scholarship. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:43, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I didn't realize that he was prominent. His Google scholar page suggests he is a quantitative analyst. It can be useful for certain things, but also obscure others. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:08, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * His work on Trump suggests that he struggles with qualitative and thoughtful understandings of politics. I think it is quite reckless to say his work can "help us intepret the media and academic coverage of India". The column you linked makes ludicrous claims: ("These amendments were passed unanimously by both houses of India’s parliament, so they can hardly be considered controversial.") - essentially validating the failure of parliamentary procedure as proof of democracy; his understanding of the CAA is demonstrably superficial and premised on the BJP's stance that discriminating against Muslims is validated by the sheer fact of the existence of other Islamic nations. Cherry picking one example off each index to suggest that they are quantitatively incoherent is lazy at best and actively misleading at worst, especially when there are already more rigorous and thoughtful critiques of the indices mentioned by far more qualified people (see, e.g. Steiner on the impact of US policy on Freedom House rankings). I'm surprised to see you recommend it, he seems on par with Ben Shapiro to me. - Naushervan (talk) 13:33, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * His work on Trump suggests that he struggles with qualitative and thoughtful understandings of politics. I think it is quite reckless to say his work can "help us intepret the media and academic coverage of India". The column you linked makes ludicrous claims: ("These amendments were passed unanimously by both houses of India’s parliament, so they can hardly be considered controversial.") - essentially validating the failure of parliamentary procedure as proof of democracy; his understanding of the CAA is demonstrably superficial and premised on the BJP's stance that discriminating against Muslims is validated by the sheer fact of the existence of other Islamic nations. Cherry picking one example off each index to suggest that they are quantitatively incoherent is lazy at best and actively misleading at worst, especially when there are already more rigorous and thoughtful critiques of the indices mentioned by far more qualified people (see, e.g. Steiner on the impact of US policy on Freedom House rankings). I'm surprised to see you recommend it, he seems on par with Ben Shapiro to me. - Naushervan (talk) 13:33, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Another talk at the Nehru Centre in London, much more detailed. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:15, 17 November 2022 (UTC)


 * I heard a short segment and this is not even amusing.
 * Babones believes that since USA has banned horse slaughter, organizations based in the country cannot have any moral ground to take umbrage with BJP's maneuvers on cow slaughter. Never mind that the politics of meat in USA and S. Asia have little in common and are almost antiparallel. On anti-conversion laws, he concedes that there is some truth in the narrative that presents them as tools of Muslim persecution but concludes that a "law passed for political purposes by a political party" means that the democracy is working. Btw, he has also discovered that claims by western media about the Indian government indimating academics is all bunkum - how? "Times Higher Education Supplement" profiled only a single case since 2016 when there should have been hundreds to come at par with USA, Australia etc. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:44, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
 * TB, the talk is titled "International evaluations of Indian democracy". The first part of his talk, roughly from 07:00 to 21:00 was all about this topic. Apparently the "short segment" you watched was outside of this bit. Your defensiveness makes you sound almost as if you were one of the intellectuals surveyed by V-Dem! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:19, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * My defensiveness has got more to do with the abhorrence of repugnant individuals and their shabby discourse. The segment that I watched had him explain why claims of government intimidating academics or passage of Love-jihad laws (?) which are cited by international organizations to support their downgrading of Indian democracy has no basis and falls apart on scrutiny. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:35, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Ananya Vajpeyi
One editor is objecting to the use of Vajpeyi on the Rajput page. She has been used extensively on the Bhonsale page. Descriptions of Rajputs in Dharmashastras is discussed in great detail in Vajpeyi. I find this source very reliable given her qualifications as well as the publication.

When I added this section here [] it was reverted here. Their initial objection was ''The whole page has been bombarded with the particular way of writing the content. We have already discussed the community using various Historians on the subject.''

Their next objection was the Vajpeyi is not reliable. When I explained her qualifications, the next objection was she has not been cited. Then I showed that the specific paper that discusses Shivaji, Rajputs and the Dharmashastras is cited ten times, their objection now is that her opinion on dharmashastras has not been cited in a tertiary source hence she is unreliable.

Here is the quote from Vajpeyi's paper: (source:Traditions in motion:Religion and Society in History(Ananya Vajpeyi, 2005),Oxford University Press, editors=Supriya Varma, Satish Saberwal)

Moreover, her observation in the Dharmashastras is also supported by a secondary source and a tertiary source(textbook):
 * source: Social Life in Ancient India (Sudhakar Chattopadhyaya, 1965, pg 18)
 * source:(textbook)Unit-14 Social structure and gender relations: c. 700-1200 CE	Kumar, Prem; Kapur, Nandini Sinha(historian)

and Fowler&amp;fowler , is it fine to use her on the page for Rajputs in Dharmashastras - a topic that is missing? Do you have any objection? This topic has also been discussed in a tertiary textbook. Of note, the editor who is objecting has a pattern of deleting text or opposing adding text that makes the Rajput community appear in a bad light. Interestingly, he had no objection to my addition of the section on Rajput or Rajput - those sections are full of praise. Thanks for your input. LukeEmily (talk) 17:55, 19 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Is this a joke? Ofcourse, Vajpeyi — whose current book-project is on a similarly themed topic — is a distinguished scholar and reliable. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:16, 19 November 2022 (UTC)


 * , Vajpeyi, is MA in English and Linguistics, M Phil and PhD in South Asian Languages. And as explained on the talk page of the article, there is contradictory statement wrt Ugra in other references here [] We need a WP: Tertiary in that case to specify there., your indirect comments are borderline attack on me. I have already said the article definitely has problem. Rest we can discuss on conduct of editor but this is not that place, and it may include your past behaviour. It is better we stick to the topic.Akalanka820 (talk) 09:57, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I am no Luke Emily and will take you to AE shall you persist in disruption. Vajpeyi received her PhD from SALC, UoChicago on what made and unmade Sudra communities in pre-modern Maharashtra; do not write clueless things like "PhD in South Asian languages." TrangaBellam (talk) 10:16, 20 November 2022 (UTC)


 * ,see here-[], it does says PhD South Asian Languages and Civilization, rest She is MA English, Linguistics, M Phil which can be checked from other sources, her lines on Ugra connection is being contradicted by other references of the writers, I just asked a broader tertiary sources where her work on this community has been quoted. I politely replied it, there is no need to be harsh on me. I am tagging and others as well to it. Akalanka820 (talk) 10:42, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * South Asian Languages and Civilizations (SALC) is the name of a highly reputed department at UoChicago. Their self description goes:TrangaBellam (talk) 11:01, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, I wonder if it is the usual garden-variety misogyny that drives you to refer to Dr. Vajpeyi by her first name (1), downplay her qualifications (alongside Dr. Rosalind O'Hanlon's) (2, 3), and claim that her scholarship has no takers in the academia (4, 5). TrangaBellam (talk) 11:29, 20 November 2022 (UTC)


 * I have no personal issue with any particular writer. The arguments that I have made there, some of it I have shared it, I won't comment on other off topic. Akalanka820 (talk) 11:33, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I have been pinged. I did use Vajpayee in Lion capital of Ashoka. She is more rigorous than are, say, the historians Upinder Singh or Nayanjot Lahiri, or the art historian Kavita Singh, who  I personally would not cite in edits, but not as rigorous as, say, Himanshu Prabha Ray (ancient India), or Barbara D. Metcalf (modern India) or Catherine Asher (medieval India) or Susan Bayly (caste), or Francesca Orsini or Ulrike Stark (Hindi/Urdu), or Kate Brittlebank (Tipu), or Kama Maclean (Kumbh, Bhagat Singh), Frances Pritchett (Urdu) ... I'm racking my brains ... or Bina Agarwal gender rights, or Seema Alavi (Jamia; Company rule), or Sarah Besky (tea) or Kim Plofker (Indian mathematics), all of whom I have used and very likely  would.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  16:36, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't know about Vajpayee's work on Sanskrit or Rajputs. In the context in which I used here, she did make errors here and there, but not too many errors of POV or cultural defensiveness.  Use your judgment.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  16:39, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I just realized that I have cited Upinder Singh, though what I cited was her more recent book on political violence in ancient India, not her textbook, which is not as insightful as Romila Thapar's earlier one. So, authors don't consistently slacken the reins of rigor. Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  17:14, 20 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Dear Sir, Thanks for you nice explanation on it. The problem is what should be the approach if two different writers are using same or similar primary references ( like in this case Dharmashastras) to come to a different  conclusion ( as unlike the case above, many writers view the same primary references for Ugra community as the text itself uses word "Ugra"), how to solve such situations out? Akalanka820 (talk) 10:04, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Are you referring to her book, Righteous Republic? Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  10:27, 21 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Dear Sir, it is content from this book -Traditions in Motion: Religion and Society in History (2005) here-[] that has been recently added on Rajput page. The section Rajputs in Dharmashastra in that book by Dr Ananya Vajpeyi is used on the page. The particular section in the book is written mostly while discussing Shivaji's case as that is the central theme of her article in the book. The issue I raised was the primary references of Dharmashastra texts is interpreted differently by other writers ( like some pointing it out that it is for Ugra Community), even the lines used says- Children born from Kshatriya father and Sudra mother are called Ugra. I did provided references to it here [], but it was reverted as I was told I cannot discuss it here. Akalanka820 (talk) 10:40, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I would simply use Susan Bayly in this matter, not Ananya Vajpeyi's chapter in the edited book. The Rajputs page's section on community formation has too many references for each sentence.  No matter how many references we can cite and how many quotes we have in each citation, we ourselves cannot summarize the balance of sources, i.e. in instances in which the secondary sources do not agree; otherwise, we risk WP:FALSEBALANCE Due weight is best assigned by a tertiary source, by which I don't mean an encyclopedia, but an introductory textbook, per WP:TERTIARY.
 * Metcalf and Metcalf's A Concise History of Modern India, CUP, 2012, 3rd ed, a widely used textbook. It mentions only Bayly in this regard.  So go to Bayly instead of Vajpeyi.  This article does not need to get in the weeds with the dharmashastras, most of which were written long before there were any Rajputs.
 * I will take a look at Vajpeyi's other book, Righteous Republic, Harvard, 2012, which I do possess, and have used.  I will leaf through it and give you a slightly more detailed opinion of her reliability in that instance.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  11:34, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Exactly, I also pointed to Luke about how Dharmashastra was written before this community even existed as such said by most historians. It is surprising by inserting this content of Luke using Dr Vajpeyi we are contradicting some of the writer that it started off as prestigious title open to gain in and around 6th-7th century AD and probably got closed at the time of Mughal rule. Rest I have nothing more to say here. Akalanka820 (talk) 12:38, 21 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Fowler&amp;fowler «Talk» , TrangaBellam has trimmed it into two lines already. Tertiary sources(including Indian textbooks) DO mention this issue. We are not going to the details of the dharmashastras at all on the page. The point being made is that Brahmins themsleves were opposed to the Kshatriya claims and Vajpeji is very explicit.  BTW,  is misreprenting the issue of Dharmashastra. There is no contradiction as I explained here to him. [] Frm Tertiary source by Nandini Kapur: .LukeEmily (talk) 11:49, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If tertiary sources do discuss Rajput then why are you citing a chapter by Vajpeyi in an edited book? You should cite that tertiary source.  I don't know the historian Nandini Kapur.  What introductory textbook is this?
 * Ananya Vajpeyi's Righteous Republic, I am discovering, has issues, even though I cited it. Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  11:58, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Since I was pinged: I failed to make out much of the dispute from the talk-page except that LE has written a quite-undue paragraph (tbh, much of his recent additions to the page are undue) sourced from Vajpeyi while his opponent went on a spree about how Vajpeyi was merely a MPhil and not a scholar of repute. I trimmed the content down to two lines and they are uncontroversial to the extent of being citable to half-a-dozen scholars.
 * Fwiw, I disagree that editors can assess the reliability of scholars - be it Vajpeyi or anyone else - on their own, absent critical reviews by other scholars. I have not heard of Nandini Sinha Kapur but from the looks of it, replacing Vajpeyi with her makes no sense. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:13, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Dear Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk», really admire your knowledge and depth in this realm. We are using secondary source Vajpeyi as per WP:TERTIARYUSE The distinction between tertiary and secondary sources is important, because Wikipedia's no original research policy states: "Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if that has been published by a reliable secondary source." Thus, such claims cannot be cited to tertiary or primary sources.. It is possible I am misunderstanding this statement. Nandini Kapur is  PhD in history  as per her linkedin.  The textbook is a university textbook that they use in India and the chapters are contributed by several historians. "History Of India From C. 300 To 1206" Since it is a tertiary source and not a secondary source, we are not using it. The specific dharmashastra is written in the early 1600s when Rajput did exist. I agree with TB about the comparison between Nandini Kapur and Dr.Vajpeyi.LukeEmily (talk) 12:24, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Dear Sir, my point was primary references of Dharmashastra is being interpreted by other writers for other community like Ugra Community of Bengal. Now I should be allowed to be heard, as Luke has already posted their side of story, Here-[] is another one from very reputed reference, page number 208, 209-, this is another one from Ms Lindsay Harlan's book- From the Margin's of Hindu Marriage in the Chapter The Effectiveness of the Hindu Sacrament (Samskara): Caste, Marriage, and Divorce in Bengali Culture, page number 148.[] -  on Page 159, the writer clarifies that it is Ugra community locally called as Aguris-  Here is another A  R Desai page 453 in State and Society in India- , there are multiple writers who are saying otherwise using same primary reference of Dharmashastra and Ancient texts. So, it becomes important we seek WP: Tertiary. This was my main argument. We have already given 25 pages on Rajput Origin including various opinions. I request bigger editors like you to definitely look at this case here. Thanks and Regards.Akalanka820 (talk) 12:34, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Listen everyone.
 * First Akalanka820, please don't dump long quotes; I don't have any interest in them.
 * Second, TrangaBellam, that is not what I said. I said that if there is a widely used introductory textbook such as Metcalf and Metcalf, then either such a textbook, or a review/survey of the literature, i.e. a "tertiary sources" as mentioned in WP:TERTIARY should be used for due weight.  It is Wikipedia policy.  ( Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources. Policy: Reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources and may help evaluate due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other )
 * Third, LukeEmily, We are talking about due weight here (for which tertiary sources are needed), not reliability (for which secondary sources are): you are the one who is claiming that Nandini Kapur is such a tertiary source. My response was simply that: if it is indeed such a tertiary source, say, comparable to M&M, then why are you citing a chapter by Vajpeyi from a not very well-known book published in 2005 and cited in the 18 years since only 8 times on Google scholar.  I'm not sure any of those 8 citations are to Vapeyi's chapter.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  13:04, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I have no interest in all these meta-discussions. If anybody (you or someone else) believes that the unexceptional content sourced to Vajpeyi is undue, they are welcome to make their case at the article t/p. TrangaBellam (talk) 13:34, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Meanwhile I will remove that undue section on the dharmashastra and you can then show on the talk page per WP:ONUS that it is due. Please don't edit-war with me. Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  15:39, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Removed. Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  15:46, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The ONUS is on people who add something, not the ones who remove it. Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  15:47, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Dear, Dharmashastra is not one text. What you are referring to is the Manu Smiriti and not the text written in the 17th century. And as explained, there is no restriction for ugra to not apply to differnt castes in India. Anyway, tertiary source clarifies that the statement is WP:DUE.LukeEmily (talk) 12:43, 21 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Luke, Ugra is a community in India and I think you should know it. I am not getting into the merits and demerits of using ancient texts like Dharmashastra. The point is we editors cannot decide, if it is broader opinion of Kshatriya father and Sudra mother children Ugra is referred to Rajput then we can add it, the fact is the part is not used except by one or two. Secondly, the ancient text lines are exactly same Kshatriya father and Sudra mother children is Ugra. Again repeat can't ignore it. Akalanka820 (talk) 12:57, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That is not true Akalanka820. I have given several quotes on the talk page from other sources and that is irrelevant as per WP:HSC. The broad opinion is proved beyond any doubt by the WP:TERTIARY . In the specific text used the sanskrit word is rajputa. There is no interpretation, it is a direct translation. I am OK with trimming content as TB has done (into simply two sentences) but not OK with removing it completely.LukeEmily (talk) 13:06, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Now, you are going to  decide broad opinion by yourself. Akalanka820 (talk) 13:20, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I have taken a quick look. Vajpeyi's Chicago thesis is: Ananya Vajpeyi, Politics of Complicity, Poetics of Contempt: A History of the Sudra in Maharashtra, 1650-1950 CE. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2004. UMI Proquest Digital Dissertations, Ann Arbor, MI, 2004, -291 S. UMI Publ. No.: AAT 3136552.
 * She is not a Sanskritist. I know the Chicago department very well. Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  13:21, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Who was her advisor - Pollock? TrangaBellam (talk) 13:47, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * , I have no issues using Nandini Kapur since she is a PhD in history. The specific chapter by Vajpeyi has been referred to by even Dr 'O Hanlon and referred to 10 times - hence it was used - please see this. The book by Kapur is a university textbook, and that is the reason I called it tertiary. If a similar statement is made by Kapur in a university textbook, we can assume it is WP:DUE. Secondly, it is not contradicted.LukeEmily (talk) 13:53, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * She may have been Shelly Pollock's student. She thanks him effusively at the end of the book. He left Chicago a year after her PhD.  But she is a English major lit-crit type who dabbles in a lot of different fields, not a Sanskritist, who would need a lot more training than just in the coursework for a PhD. The writing in the book is sloppy, sadly.  I used her, but it was during edit-warring, and I wasn't paying as much attention then.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  14:39, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Her PhD thesis was not published, but I have taken another look at her Righteous Republic, Harvard, 2012. It has many more errors (and much more loose prose) than I had previously thought.  A few examples:
 * >>>Gandhi's Hind Swaraj (1909) takes the swaraj already extant in Congress as well as extremist nationalist circles throughout the 1890S and 1900S,
 * "Extant" has the main meaning "still surviving." Doesn't work with "already," which has the meaning of "before this time."  A meaningless construction.
 * >>>The building in New Delhi where Gandhi was to hold his last prayer meeting, on January 30,1948, and where he was shot dead at point-blank range by Nathuram Godse, is called Birla House.
 * Gandhi was not shot in or at the "building" but in on a raised lawn behind the building. Compare, prose with Herbert_Reiner_Jr..
 * >>>s. The entire design originally rested
 * on a base shaped like an inverted bell-shaped lotus, but that floral portion
 * is not included in the emblem. The original Lion Capital is imposing, but
 * not enormous; two and a half millennia later, its texture remains smooth;
 * the stone used is a kind of granite, chocolate brown in color, flecked
 * with black.
 * "a base shaped like an inverted bell-shaped lotus?" See Lion capital of Ashoka.  Why would anyone read her book when a much more lucid WP article is there?
 * It is over 7 feet tall. I'm 6' 2 '' it towered over me at the Sarnath museum.
 * chocolate brown is more like Chocolate_(color)?, not the capital, which is more like tan, khaki, beige, and a host of lighter shades of brown.
 * The book is littered with imprecise descriptions. It can be cited, but judiciously and selectively, not randomly.
 * . Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  14:30, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * General recommendation Remove that entire subsection cited to Ananya Vajpeyi, unless you can cite it instead to Susan Bayly's Caste and Society in India, CUP. 1998? 200? Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  14:55, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * A General Principle I observe (though WP's requirements are more lax) is to create academic biographies only of people who have retired or nearing retirement.  I have created some articles, such as Patrick Olivelle, Judith M. Brown, Thomas R. Metcalf, but they were all in their 60s or 70s then.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  15:11, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * WP biographies of younger people can create false notability, in that editors can cite their degrees (which every academic has) as sufficient warrant for the edits. Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  15:32, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Sir, I did removed it and ask them to wait for discussion to end but instead of it that was restored by them and I have been taken to admin for edit warring. I don't know how someone can have a healthy discussion if can't restore it before the newly added content. Akalanka820 (talk) 15:13, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Classical languages
There are six languages that the government of India has given the designation "classical language" (see Languages of India). These include for example Odia and Kannada. For some of their speakers, this appears to be a source of immense pride, and they come to Wikipedia and insist that the fact should be stated very prominently in the respective articles. So, I'm requesting opinions on the best place for a language article to mention the classical designation.

Half of those articles used to go for it right from the first sentence (e.g. "X is a classical Dravidian language of India.") That's bad for a number of reasons. First, for the great majority of readers, the term "classical language" evokes images of antiquity and languages that are long dead. That's hardly the best impression to give in an introductory sentence (five of the six "classical languages" of India are alive and thriving). Also, this designation is pretty low on the list of salient facts that are worth mentioning from the get to (like language classification, region where spoken, number of speakers, official status, writing system, etc.). So, in my view, the "classical language" stuff should absolutely be kept out of the first paragraph of the lede.

Should it be mentioned later in the lede though? For five of the six articles, it currently is. I'm less certain here, though I don't think I see that as a good idea either. It seems much better for an article to comment on aspects of the fundamental reality that led to the designation (i.e. the old and extensive literary tradition) rather than flaunt the designation itself, which doesn't seem to have much of an impact on things in the world (in contrast to, say, a scheduled status). So, thoughts anyone? – Uanfala (talk) 22:17, 24 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Since we regard governments as WP:PRIMARY, they should always be attributed mentions. I would put it somewhere towards the end of the lead: " The Government of India designated Kannada as a classical language." where the footnote can be the text at the bottom of Languages of India. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:44, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, please ADD LINKS if you are going to mention articles! I'd say in the lead (I'm guessing most are too short anyway) but not in the first sentence - last para more like. Johnbod (talk) 04:54, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Odia language's lead is too short but gets this about right. Johnbod (talk) 04:56, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Tamil and Sanskrit were labeled so by the Indian government a year or two before I arrived on Wikipedia, i.e. before 2006, and Kannada was soon after. To the extent that classical languages are generally dead ones with diglossia, none except Sanskrit and probably Old Tamil (see this) are.
 * "Classical language of India," as K3 suggests is a Government of India designation. If memory serves me right, the first designation, the one for Tamil in 2004 or 2005, was the price the Indian National Congress had to pay for the support of one or more of the Tamil Nadu parties before the Indian general elections of 2004.  Unsurprisingly, after the Hindu nationalists came to power no such has been awarded. The lord forbid Kashmiri from becoming classical with a Perso-Arabic script, i.e. better not to have any elections there.
 * In my view, the designation is only a hair more notable than a state government's designation of language X to be official as Himachal Pradesh has done for Sanskrit.  I mean how many users of Sanskrit are there in HP? Ten? Many towns in Maharashtra, or neighborhoods in Madurai, or back alleys in Varanasi, have more.
 * Summing up, I agree with Johnbod. If it is mentioned it should be in the last paragraph of the lead, and not more than one sentence.  I agree also with K3. It should say X was designated a "classical language of India" (in quotes but with a link) by the Government of India's Ministry of Culture.
 * Finally, in the instance of Sanskrit no mention should be made anywhere in the article. Why would you want to bring down the prestige of a language that has long been regarded as classical the world over by recording the vote of politicians most of whom don't know the language? To the extent I had something to do with writing the lead of Sanskrit, I will fight any such move there tooth and nail. Luckily, it hasn't happened yet. Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  14:25, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
 * And, sure enough, "the UPA committed itself to declare Tamil as a classical language of India. Tamil has already been declared a classical language of India. It is beyond doubt that this was a price that the UPA had to pay for its Tamil partner," has been memorialized in at least one academic source, p 38.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  14:33, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Your input awaits at a Request for Move at The Buddha
The page which had been Gautama Buddha was unsuccessfully proposed for a change to Siddhartha Gautama, then successfully changed to The Buddha, and is now being proposed for a change to Buddha. Your input and expertise would be most welcome at: Talk:The_Buddha Best,  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  04:02, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Expand reception section
Hello, I'm asking for assistance to expand the critical reception section for Middle Class Love and Nazar Andaaz. Hope to get positive response soon. Thanks for your consideration. C1K98V (💬 ✒️ 📂) 05:06, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Merge/Redirect of The Battle for Sanskrit to Rajiv Malhotra
Please participate at this discussion where I propose to merge The Battle for Sanskrit to the article of Rajiv Malhotra, the author. Thanks, TrangaBellam (talk) 19:05, 4 December 2022 (UTC)


 * FYI, since you have edited the article. I have not pinged Victoria Grayson, the creator, who has not edited Wikipedia since 2018. Ty, TrangaBellam (talk) 19:14, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I am facing some perceived subtle racism on Wikipedia.
I am facing some perceived subtle racism on Wikipedia. The editors seem to have fixed notions that Indian news sources are paid / bad / unreliable / low grade etc. One of them called me a PR professional. The discussions are at Talk page of Draft:Ronnie Lahiri and Teahouse - Draft Ronnie Lahiri. Any suggestions how to deal with this ? Lord Alan B&#39;stard (talk) 01:12, 5 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Here is one suggestion. Do not make accusations of 'racism' from contributors unless you have very strong evidence to back it up. And don't make such accusations here. That isn't the purpose of this noticeboard. If you have actual evidence of racism, you need to discuss it with an admin. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:25, 5 December 2022 (UTC)


 * In the talk-page you wrote (emphasis in original), Such being the case, there is no need to market the subject over Wikipedia either using fawning language. TrangaBellam (talk) 05:11, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

5 notable of colleges of Varanasi were removed recently
The following colleges from Varanasi had been recently redirected to another article with little information about the colleges:
 * Vasant Kanya Mahavidyalaya
 * Vasanta College for Women
 * Mahila Maha Vidyalaya
 * DAV Post Graduate College
 * Arya Mahila Mahavidyalaya

I have reverted the edits. However, how do they not satisfy WP:UNIN? Thanks, User4edits (talk) 10:00, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
 * , see my merger proposal on the BHU talk page. As to your question, I quote from that proposal: In the edit summaries, they cite WP:UNIN as their justification; they seem not to have read the full policy, in which case they would have encountered WP:NFACULTY. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:13, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Indian Diaspora (Overseas Indian)
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Indian Diaspora (Overseas Indian) that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 02:14, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Sanjay Kumar Singh (politician)
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Sanjay Kumar Singh (politician) that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. &mdash; Mdaniels5757 (talk &bull; contribs) 18:29, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Need more input at WP:Articles for deletion/Purna Chandra Jamatia
Requesting more input at this AFD which is, in part, trying to determine if elected members of Autonomous administrative divisions of India meet WP:NPOL. S0091 (talk) 17:57, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

"Contentious topics"
Can somebody explain what the ARBCOM just did? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:40, 21 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Nothing significant except taking away the power of admins to impose extraordinary sanctions like limiting the number of posts, an user can make per t/p thread. This appears to have been an response to certain unique sanctions issued in AMPOL and ought not concern us. TrangaBellam (talk) 10:25, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Sources about Embassy of India School Moscow?
A PROD was added to Embassy of India School Moscow (a.k.a. Kendriya Vidyalaya Moscow). I'm wondering if any users with access to databases of Indian newspapers can find sources about the establishment of Embassy of India School Moscow? The school was established in 1987, so the initial articles should be sometime in the 1980s.

Thank you, WhisperToMe (talk) 12:38, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I've corrected the schools website, which may help - Arjayay (talk) 14:15, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for doing so! I can see if the new website links to any secondary sources (which are necessary to keep the page) WhisperToMe (talk) 21:40, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Solanki
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Solanki that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 14:49, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Akal Takht
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Akal Takht that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 14:21, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Ethical Code for Digital News Websites
Request for expending the article for the volunteers having expertise in the field. DrJNU (talk)  — Preceding undated comment added 18:00, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Notable people by caste list articles
Do they pass WP:NLIST? (I just stumbled upon List of Kurubas and Dhangars where most entries of contemporary people in this one fail our requirement for self identification) — DaxServer (t · m · c) 18:46, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Tadubi


The article Tadubi has been proposed for deletion&#32;because of the following concern: "No evidence of notability"

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. 76.14.122.5 (talk) 18:49, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

List_of_Brahmins
List_of_Brahmins has many violations of Biographies of living persons policy. Often sources cited in the article do not state that the subjects are Brahmin, but only state that they were born in a Brahmin family. Eg Arjun Rampal's interview cited in the article says that his father was a Brahmin, not himself. He says that his mother was not a Brahmin, thus making him a non-Brahmin according to dharmasastras. Neither him nor others claim that he is a Brahmin. This is also true for many other entries in this list. Most of the additions were made by User:Brohman54 who is now blocked. someone needs to clean this list. 103.197.115.42 (talk) 09:40, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Can someone with access to older Indian print media (or can read non-English articles) please help?
Hello, I recently started an article on Street Cricket (video game series) (Street Cricket Champions/Move Street Cricket), a game series developed and released only in India. As such, they're really only mentioned in Indian media, which I don't have easy access to besides whatever is online and in English. There has been some debate as to which of the sources I found online are valid, although I used the best looking ones I could find. Is there anyone here who might be able to help? Thanks, Londonbeat41692 (talk) 01:32, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Review needed on pushing dates from 300 BCE to 30th century BCE
The recent changes by an IP user (1.38.104.185) in pages such as Tamils, Early Cholas, Education in ancient Tamil country, Chola dynasty, etc. may require a review. Not sure if the cited source is reliable. For example, it is used to push the early dates of the Sangam Era (300 BCE) to 3020 BCE. Although I initially tried reverting some of these, the IP user reverted it back. So seeking expert opinion on this. Thanks. Rasnaboy (talk) 17:26, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Kabban Mirza
Found the page Kabban Mirza on Random Article.

Anyone here who could improve it, please? Tbf69 20:12, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

GAR notice
Uttarakhand has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 21:35, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

GAR notice
Chamba, Himachal Pradesh has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 17:11, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

GAR notice
Delhi has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 17:24, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

GAR notice
Dwarka has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 17:38, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Activist editor on Faizabad topics
The talk page of is full of warnings about their activist, POV editing, including attempts to remove 'Faizabad' in numerous articles (21 articles so far today). I expect they will be blocked soon by an admin for WP:DISRUPTION and/or WP:NOTHERE, but that still leaves a backlog of numerous articles they have touched, that may need to be removed by a bot, if possible, or by anyone here willing to help out. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 22:15, 7 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't advise a bot to do this kind of cleanup as some edits are okay. Could you report them at ANI? — DaxServer (t · m · c) 09:39, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
 * There are a very few edits like that one; thank you for looking into it. There's an admin on Ayodhya-prayagraj's UTP who has threatened a block, so hopefully that will be enough, but if not I'll try to find a moment to raise it at ANI. Mathglot (talk) 15:43, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

GA Reassessment
Vistara has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:26, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

GAR Notice
Kalimpong has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 22:55, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

GAR notice
Kochi has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 02:08, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

GAR Notice
Madurai has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 03:10, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Carnatic music, seeking some nuanced details
Seeking some nuanced details regarding Carnatic music, @ Talk:R. K. Padmanabha

&#32;Bookku   (talk) 06:18, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

An inbox for Indian states and Union Territories
A proposal, an inbox for Indian states and Union Territories. How about?

There is some work, Template:Infobox Indian state or territory please give a review or contribute.

After a proper development, can it be used as an infobox on Wikipedia pages of Indian states and territories ?

{ I know this template has many mistakes and many tasks are not fulfilled with documentation, my knowledge of wiki markup language ( wikitext ) is not enough, it is inspired by other present templates and infoboxes. Please help the development of this template by pointing out errors or correcting them. Thank you very much. } Tojoroy20 (talk) 10:59, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Merge discussion
Hi there, I have suggested merging Recognition of same-sex unions in Andhra Pradesh with Recognition of same-sex unions in India. The article appeared in NPR queue and I felt there is not very much that merits a standalone articles but I welcome your opinions. I am not an expert on this subject and would love to know your insightful opinions in the discussion. Best, ─ The Aafī   (talk)  12:37, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
 * See . Mathglot (talk) 16:09, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I commented there, but adding my support for the merge here as well - there isn't enough to warrant a separate article for AP at the moment,and the merge is a good idea. - Naushervan (talk) 04:12, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

GAR notice
Tirunelveli has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 18:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

GAR notice
Uttar Pradesh has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 01:14, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Malaikottai Valiban
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Malaikottai Valiban that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 13:33, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Economic development in India
Economic development in India has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 21:16, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Draft:India: The Modi Question
Now that it has international coverage and GNG, this would need to be properly created. Perhaps @Kautilya3 @Vanamonde93 @TrangaBellam @RegentsPark @Tayi Arajakate one of you has time for that? — DaxServer (t · m · c) 11:03, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I think it is too early for this. The Part 2 hasn't even been aired yet. But I have been thinking about adding the Foreign Office enquiry to the 2002 Gujarat riots and mention the documentary in a footnote. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:28, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * And I guess it might have a huge and complicated reception secion too! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:33, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I'd need to see reviews, rather than coverage of its censorship. The latter is still encyclopedic, given the coverage it has received, but as K says it can be folded into other articles. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:05, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Rajput Mali
Is anyone familiar with the Rajput Mali topic? The subject's notability seems questionable. To make things worse, an SPA has moved it to a dubious title without any discussion:. So, someone needs to move it back without leaving a redirect. - NitinMlk (talk) 20:24, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I've moved it back. --RegentsPark (comment) 21:22, 23 January 2023 (UTC)