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In past few days, there has been a spur in activity on this page over the challenges/problems India is facing and how Indian government ****** it. (There is even a debate on weather there is control, mild control, no control and what not...so I blanked the word). Sentences have been cut making them look like a lizard that cut it's tail running for protection and paragraphs have been added at free will. In order to limit such edits and restore stability I have created a new article
Socio-economic problems of India that can accommodate all such stuff. A link to this article can be put up on the India page replacing the current sentence which really appears list like. I propose -
Since independence, India has faced
Socio-economic problems and has been taking steps to address them.
Going forward, those who are interested in elaborating such information can do so at this article which can act as parent article to individual problems/solutions offered in India. I would like to gain a consensus before replacing the current sentence with this one. Everyone interested is welcome here for discussion but no door to door campaigning this time. --
GPPande
talk!
18:12, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
I still cannot edit India. Can you elaborate more on problems in India like child labor, illiteracy, human trafficking, electricity shortage. I think these are also quite significant. I would add this information when I am confirmed. -- Kokar ( talk) 13:45, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Why is there no mention of Information technology? Nothing about chandryan also. I think it is also important for India. -- Kokar ( talk) 15:36, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Personally I'm not in favour of any new section preferring to stick as close as possible to the sections as recommended by Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries. I'm also concerned about having too many institutions in the education section, it the numbers keep adding up to become a list, as what has happened to the Mumbai article. New sections such as education, media, science and so on will lead to a very large page. I'm also not sure whether adding the moon mission in the history is the right place. We've only tried to events that have shaped the course of India. The moon mission is significant, but has little role to play in the history section as compared to say the Emergency or Independence. =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:52, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
I would highly be for a science and technogy section! It has been suggested before and a large number of people were for it. Nikkul ( talk) 04:13, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
Based on the above discussion, I am proposing a new "Education and science" section. Such sections are common to many other country FAs. This section will discuss:
Despite the list items, I don't think such a section would be much larger than the current "Sports" section. S h i v a (Visnu) 22:12, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
where are the books used including in the classrooms etc was the question so voila, here is the answer
PELINKA 146 Libraries in the USA
first 10
1. Adelphi University Garden City, NY 11530 United States
2. Alibris Emeryville, CA 94608 United States
3. American University Washington, DC 20016 United States
4. Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287 United States
5. Arkansas State University - Jonesboro State University, AR 72467 United States
6. Austin College Sherman, TX 75090 United States
7. Bates College Library Lewiston, ME 04240 United States
8. Boise State University Boise, ID 83725 United States
9. Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 United States
10. Bowdoin College Brunswick, ME 04011 United States
HESHMATI first 10 of 38:
1. Alibris Emeryville, CA 94608 United States
2. American University Washington, DC 20016 United States
3. Baylor University Libraries Waco, TX 76798 United States
4. Colorado State University Ft Collins, CO 80521 United States
5. Columbia University Libraries New York, NY 10027 United States
6. George Mason University Fairfax, VA 22030 United States
7. George Washington University Washington, DC 20037 United States
8. Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057 United States
9. Illinois State University Normal, IL 61761 United States
10. Indiana University Bloomington, IN 47405 United States
Guess we should include this. I believe the mission is quite remarkable being one of the handful and given the economical status. The most appropriate (unless we create another), IMO, is Military section. Docku: What up? 02:16, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
According to Languages of india#Language families, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, Tibeto-Burman, Dardic and Nihalic languages are also spoken in India. So, why is this template on Indo-Aryan languages included here. Either it should be removed or those of other families of languages (if they exist) should be included. India is made of diverse ethnic, language and cultural groups. This being the case, I believe that, this particular template gives undue importance to one group alone. Thanks- Ravichandar My coffee shop 05:24, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
This is the last paragraph of the economy section:
In 2007, estimated exports stood at US$140 billion and imports were around US$224.9 billion. Textiles, jewellery, engineering goods and software are major export commodities. While crude oil, machineries, fertilizers, and chemicals are major imports. India's most important trading partners are the United States, the European Union, and China.
The statistics are not sourced and ideally it should be merged with another paragraph since it is quite small in length. Gizza Discuss © 00:31, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Dr. Amit Kumar Bhandari (a very promising younger Indian economist from the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management (IISWBM) in Calcutta) et al in Heshmati (a world class Swedish economist, who worked a long time with the United Nation's WIDER Institute in Helsinki and who is now among others Professor in Seoul's KNU, among the top 5% of the world's economists according to the IDEAS/REPEC criteria of Number of Works, Number of Distinct Works, Number of Distinct Works, Weighted by Number of Authors, Number of Journal Pages, Number of Journal Pages, Weighted by Number of Authors, Number of Abstract Views in RePEc Services over the past 12 months, Number of Downloads through RePEc Services over the past 12 months Number of Abstract Views in RePEc Services over the past 12 months, Weighted by Number of Authors, Number of Downloads through RePEc Services over the past 12 months, Weighted by Number of Authors) and associates portray a valid picture about liberalization, globalization and development in India. What's so wrong with it that you simply erased it? And you also erased the Tony Blair quote - which reminds especially us Europeans not to project superiority complexes onto this important nation, and democracy. If you do not agree with the presentation, at least include the argument in other style and in a condensed fashion, but simply erasing it is without justification. Roadmap to Bangalore was recently very positively reviewed in the "Journal of Common Market Studies", one of the leading social sciences journals in the world, and how come that you simply erase the entry, once and for all? Kind regards
From User Franz weber, 21:33 Central European Time, November 17, 2008, Vienna, Austria —Preceding unsigned comment added by Franz weber ( talk • contribs) 20:46, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Modification of this list results in the validity loss of this poll.
-- Indiastarforce ( talk) 08:39, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
-- Kalarimaster ( talk) 23:02, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
I object to the current locator map on grounds that it takes a position wrt disputed international borders. here is a locator map that indicates territorial disputes. In the interst of npov, we should use that one until this is being addressed in the orthographic projection one as well. We can't let prettiness take precedence over factuality or npov. dab (𒁳) 19:43, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
The version of Indian map used on this article is incorrect. It shows some parts (Kashmir in particular) is not being part of India, while it is a disputed area. Both Pakistan and India claim ownership of the region. Wikipedia is supposed to be a neutral information source, and hence a different version of the map ( LocationIndia.png) which clearly marks the disputed area suits this article better.
Nawabbawre ( talk) 07:36, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Based on the concensus we arrived at two weeks back (now archived), here is a draft for inclusion of "classical languages" in the Culture section.
(Addition)"Four languages of high antiquity with a body of ancient literature which is considered a valuable heritage have been accorded classical language status by the Government of India. These are: Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu.
(Existing)"The earliest works of Indian literature were transmitted orally and only later written down.[124]"
(Existing - modified) "These included works of Sanskrit literature – such as the early Vedas, the epics Mahābhārata and Ramayana, the drama Abhijñānaśākuntalam (The Recognition of Śakuntalā), and poetry such as the Mahākāvya[125] – and the Tamil Sangam literature[126], the Kannada Kavirajamarga(Sastri 1955, p. 355) and the Telugu Mahabharata(Sastri 1955, p. 367) Thanks, Dineshkannambadi ( talk) 20:04, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
this is a minor political gimmick. I don't see how it has any place in this article. Should be discussed on languages of India, not here. dab (𒁳) 20:33, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) My suggestion is to make it simpler. The Government of India has accorded classical language status to four Indian languages: Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu.—Preceding unsigned comment added by RegentsPark ( talk • contribs) 22:52, 16 November 2008
Not sure why we are discussing the phrasing here. Per earlier discussion here, we have had the relevant sentence in the Languages in India page for two weeks now. The same sentence goes here. It is:
“ | Starting in 2004, Government of India has declared some languages to be classical; these are: Tamil (in 2004), Sanskrit (in 2005), and Kannada and Telugu (in 2008). | ” |
The tense structure is a little off; I would change it to:
“ | Since 2004, the Government of India has declared four languages to be classical; these have been: Tamil (in 2004), Sanskrit (in 2005), and Kannada and Telugu (in 2008). | ” |
We need to make sure that it is understood that this official status is recent, and that this particular use of "classical" may not be the more common one. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 02:15, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
(unindent) I said the Sahitya Akademi recommended that no language be officially declared classical. (I have clarified it more now.) In other words, they said, let the secondary sources provide that evidence. And those, for a hundred years, have only described two languages of India to be classical languages, Sanskrit and Tamil. Please don't try to pin this on my personal belief. If you think it is personal why don't you find some sources on Google Scholar (of the quality that I have provided in my sub-page link User:Fowler&fowler/Classical languages of India) that say Kannada and Telugu are classical languages? Anything perhaps written by that mysterious "expert committee" on Google Scholar that confirms this? I've been waiting for two weeks now. Why is it that I can find the contrary evidence in 15 minutes? Anyway, I provided the link to my subpage because I wanted the ordinary reader of this talk page to see how ridiculous this "tag" is. There is no reason for the India page to sway to breeze of every linguistic sub-nationalism in India. The secondary sources, the contemporary internationally recognized ones, are enough. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 00:12, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
WP:NPOV says
“ | Neutral point of view is a fundamental Wikimedia principle and a cornerstone of Wikipedia. All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources | ” |
The sentence Dinesh added reflects only one significant view by those "mysterious scholars". Including also the mainstream scholars view would be belaboring the issue like RegentsPark mentioned. Therefore, not including the information is the best solution. Simple as it is, either include all viewpoints or none. Do we care about wp policies in this page anymore or is it just a propaganda page? Docku: What up? 03:01, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Anti-Dravidian POV is so clear to see here. Scholars have approved the Indian classical status to 3 Dravidian languages. Indo-European just 1. That's the real version everybody's whining here. Nobody's whining about for instance "classical japanese language", though it's age isn't any way to compare with Greek or Latin. Antiquity and classical language are obviously two different terms. -- Kalarimaster ( talk) 04:59, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
“ | Inspite of the absence of support for classical status for Kannada and Telugu among |
” |
{{
citation}}
: |last2=
has generic name (
help)
I know it sounds not nice though factually correct and guess can be tweaked to sound more neutral. In fact, this is one of the reasons I suggest we leave the whole material out.
I used references from F&F. Thanks. Docku: What up? 06:23, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) I think you guys are making a big deal out of something that is not a big deal. If the government of India has accorded classical language status to four languages and if we say exactly that, no less and no more, then I don't see the problem. Dk's statement links to the section of the languages page that explains this status and any discussion on the validity of the claim that these languages are or are not classical should be included in that section (rather than in this summary overview article). I do feel however that the sentence added by Dk should go under the demographics section rather than the culture section (it seems out of place over there). For example, The constitution also recognises in particular 21 other languages that are either abundantly spoken or have classical status (the Government of India has accorded classical language status to four Indian languages: Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu). Or, The constitution also recognises in particular 21 other languages that are either abundantly spoken or have classical status. Four of these languages; Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu; have been accorded classical language status by the government of India.
Well, I read f&f's note and digested it somewhat. This is what it says: (1) Two encyclopedia references that say that India has two classical languages: Tamil and Sanskrit. (2) Several references that say that Tamil is a classical language without commenting on whether Kannada or Telegu are classical. (3) Two references that say that Tamil is one of two classical languages (BTW, I couldn't find the quote in the Steever reference because the page number is incorrect and I'm looking at a physical copy so can't do a text search!). Of the two, Steever goes on to say that Kannada has a long literary tradition and exhibits diglossia (see the Ferguson reference in fowler's list), though not as much as Tamil. The case is not clear from the note and, IMHO, all it does is clearly illustrate my point that excessive elaboration is confusing. The problem with trying to qualify the goi statement is that it muddies the water rather than clarifies. -- Regents Park ( bail out your boat) 18:10, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
(multiple ec)The issue with the term classical is that it is subjective. It will not be hard to find respected scholars who claim that the only classical languages are Latin and Greek, other scholars who add Sanskrit to the list, and others yet who add many other languages. Our own classical language page pretty much includes everything while simultaneously excluding almost everything. Now, along comes a government body that is willing to go out on a limb and declare four languages as officially classical. Clearly, this is a problem for wikipedia, and the root of our problems on this page, because, on one side there is the classically muddy waters of the academic world (who do I quote? which scholar do I respect?) and on the other side an official proclamation (easy to quote, easy to cite, comes with the full faith and credit of a sovereign nation). So, the question is how do we adequately deal with the issue of alerting the reader to the much deeper thought that has gone into the scholarly side, while doing it in a simple and straightforward manner, preferably in a single sentence. It's tough and one alternative is (and, this, or alternative statements should go in the Demographics section rather than the culture section):
Beyond this, I'm at a loss what to do (other than reopen the question of whether we should include any statement about classical languages). -- Regents Park ( bail out your boat) 18:28, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
(unindent) - RP's draft is close but needs modification. "..using its own criteria" is POV and factually incorrect, albeit unintended. The govt., didnt come up with the criteria. The expert committee of the Sahitya Akademi did. And they did it by "abstracting the features of classical languages..." (the Telegraph cite). If we are going to bend over backwards and say "..using its own criteria".. we also would have to add "...following the recommendation of a Linguists committee". We can't simply push the POV that the according of the tag to K and Te had only to do with politics -- especially when that was decidedly not the case! what with Telugu and Kannada being the languages that had to go through an expert linguists' committee unlike Sanskrit and Tamil! Sarvagnya 15:49, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
(unident) "Expert committee" is bogus. If they were such experts, where are their publications that make the case for Kannada and Telugu being classical languages. That's all Wikipedia cares for. There's no consensus for this edit. I think we've had enough and its time to stop nickel and diming this. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 17:26, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
I think, we should rewrite the sentence in a simple way til Dinesh is able to obtain the requested information about the expert committee, so, that the heat calms down a bit. The languages are listed in alphabetical order. So nobody has to complain. If the discussion regarding Dinesh source' doesn't result in a new consensus, RegentsPark initial consensus purposal should be back on top.
Here is the transition purposal, which is just stating facts:
The Indian government created a category of
classical languages of India. Kannada, Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu were accorded this status.
-- Kalarimaster ( talk) 22:13, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Since user:Dineshkannambadi has not respected the views of the other editors on this page, I have now chosen to replace his edit with the sentence given below. I feel that putting anything after a sentence (in the culture section) which mentions Ramayana, Mahabharata, Abhijnanashakuntalam, and Sangam poetry, all of which are works of classical literature, suggests, at the very least, that these languages are classical in the same sense. Our job, as Wikipedia editors, is to report the consensus of published scholarly opinion, and if there is no consensus, to report the controversy. In this situation, however, there is no controversy among scholarly publications. The published scholarly opinion is unanimously agreed that India has only two classical languages and they are Sanskrit and Tamil, and this consensus is not new, but goes back a hundred years. To date, no one has been able to produce any publication on Google Scholar of the quality I have produced below that even remotely suggests that Kannada and Telugu are classical languages.
user:Dineshkannambadi is incorrect in suggesting that India's Sahitya Akademi (National Academy of Letters) has created this mysterious "expert committee." The Sahitya Akademi explcitly recommended that no language be given this official tag; and, indeed, I have added two references from the Sahitya Akademi that make clear what they think is classical. I am happy to challenge user:Dineshkannambadi (and anyone else who wants to join him) to a mediation, an arbitration, or any other Wikipedia dispute resolution method. The quality of the references below, will, I hope, create the first dawnings in my interlocutors of the work they have cut out for them. Please, no wikilawyering; simply get your sources, and join me in a mediation. Please also don't flatter yourself by assuming that this is a threat. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 16:42, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Here is the sentence:
India has two classical languages, Sanskrit and Tamil;1 however, since 2004, the Government of India has declared four languages to be official classical languages: Tamil (2004), Sanskrit (2005), Kannada and Telugu (2008).2
Expand to see footnotes 1 and 2 |
---|
1. A. "South Asian arts" (2008). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Quote: "Of the four literary Dravidian languages, Tamil has been recorded earliest, followed by Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam. Tamil literature has a classical tradition of its own, while the literatures of the other languages have been influenced by Sanskrit models." B. "Indian Literature,", Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2008. Quote: "Classical Literature: In southern India, beginning in the 1st century AD, a magnificent body of nonreligious poetry was written in the Tamil language. The early Tamil poems became the foundation of literary traditions in other languages of south India." C. Seaver, Sanford B. (1998), The Dravidian Languages, Taylor and Francis. Pp. 436, ISBN 0415100232. Quote: "Tamil ... It is therefore one of India's two classical languages, alongside the more widely known Indo-Aryan language Sanskrit. D. From Dravidian Languages, Cambridge University Press, 2003. (See page 22): Quote: As in the case of Pre-Modern Greek and Arabic, Tamil has "diglossia" (Ferguson 1964), which means that the standard written and spoken variety of Tamil, called centamiz "beautiful Tamil", is based on the classical language of an earlier era. E. Ramanujan, A. K. (1985), Poems of Love and War: From the Eight Anthologies and the Ten Long Poems of Classical Tamil, New York: Columbia University Press. Pp. 329, ISBN 0231051077 Ramanujan 1985, p. ix-x Quote: Tamil, one of the two classical languages of India, is a Dravidian language spoken today by 50 million Indians, ..." F. Zvelebil, Kamil (1997), The Smile of Murugan: On Tamil Literature of South India, BRILL Academic Publishers. Pp. 378., ISBN 9004035915. Quote: "... those 26,350 lines of poetry promote Tamil to the rank of one of the great classical languages of the world ... G. Das, Sisir Kumar; Sahitya Akademi (2005), A History of Indian Literature, 500–1399, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. Pp. 302, ISBN 8126021713. Quote: "Tamil: Another Classical Language: The other language operating in the country as a powerful vehicle of literary expression, of course, was Tamil. Like Greek, Tamil has an uninterrupted history; the relation between the modern and ancient Tamil is more or less similar to that of the Attic Greek and modern Greek." H. George, K. M.; Sahitya Akademi (1992), Modern Indian Literature, an Anthology: Surveys and Poems, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, ISBN 8172013248. Quote: "Among them Tamil has a very special place. It has the longest literary tradition, extending to over two thousand years, next only to Sanskrit. While Sanskrit is a classical language of the past, Tamil is both classical and modern, with a continuous, unbroken literary history. 2. "Declaration of Telugu and Kannada as classical languages". Press Information Bureau. Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Government of India. Retrieved 2008-11-19.</ref> |
(unindent) F&f I'm okwith your draft for the most part. A couple of points though:
I think we could add something on the origin of the word "bharat", which is sanskrit, meaning "the enlightened", indians were called "bharati" meaning "the enlightened". Also, the first time bharat was cited is in this shlokam- "Uttaram yad samudrasya, himadreeyasya dakshinam, varsham tat bhaaratm namah, bhaarati yatra santati". I do not clearly remember the shlokam, if there is anyone here who could incorporate my suggestions. I felt it can be added since the origin of india, hindustan etc are mentioned.. 41.209.23.34 ( talk) 09:19, 19 November 2008 (UTC)Pallu
Names_of_India#Bharat is not not referenced as well. Can someone help sourcing it? -- KnowledgeHegemony Part2 12:12, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
All the talk about the classical languages reminded me, we need the infobox to read, Official languages of the Union and Official languages of the states instead of just official languages and scheduled languages. Especially since the term scheduled languages will only make sense to people with a technical knowledge of the Constitution. I changed that accordingly. I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations ( talk) 04:00, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Here they are (this is just a link, click "show"):
Expand to see 15 focused secondary sources, including 1) Encyclopaedia Britannica, "India—Linguistic Composition." 2) Encyclopedia Encarta, "India: Official Languages". 3) Encyclopedia Encarta, "Indian Languages: Official Languages" 4) Indo-Aryan Languages. 6) United Kingdom, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, "India—Country Profile." 7) United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 8) UNESCO, "Education for all—The Nine Largest Countries." 9) US Library of Congress, "Country Profile: India." 10) US Department of State, "Background Note: India." 11) UN High Commissioner for Refugees, "Country Profile: India." 12) Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Languages of India. 13) Mallikarjun, B. 2004. "Fifty Years of Language Planning for Modern Hindi-The Official Language of India.", Language in India. 14) Mallikarjun, B. 2004. "Indian Multilingualism, Language Policy, and the Digital Divide" Language in India. 15) Laitin, David. 1989. "Language policy and political strategy in India." Policy Sciences. 22:415-436. |
---|
It doesn't matter, whether every State language is listed in the constitution. The constitution specifies, that state languages shall be chosen by the State government. Any amendment of this article 347 is up to the union government. 345. Subject to the provisions of articles 346 and 347, the Legislature of a State may by law adopt any one or more of the languages in use in the State or Hindi as the language or languages to be used for all or any of the official purposes of that State: Provided that, until the Legislature of the State otherwise provides by law, the English language shall continue to be used for those official purposes within the State for which it was being used immediately before the commencement of this Constitution. 346. The language for the time being authorised for use in the Union for official purposes shall be the official language for communication between one State and another State and between a State and the Union: Provided that if two or more States agree that the Hindi language should be the official language for communication between such States, that language may be used for such communication. 347. On a demand being made in that behalf the President may, if he is satisfied that a substantial proportion of the population of a State desire the use of any language spoken by them to be recognised by that State, direct that such language shall also be officially recognised throughout that State or any part thereof for such purpose as he may specify.
Since you were unwilling to answer my simple question, I'm assuming you are not interested in a consensus and thus will stop to seek a consensus with you. --
Kalarimaster (
talk)
19:29, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
I see what Kalarimaster means. In Official Language part in Constitution under chapter I comes Languages of the union, and under Chapter II comes Regional languages and chapter IV says
“ | It shall be the endeavour of every State and of every local authority within the State to provide adequate facilities for instruction in the mother-tongue at the primary stage of education to children belonging to linguistic minority groups; and the President may issue such directions to any State as he considers necessary or proper for securing the provision of such facilities. | ” |
similar to but not same as the constitutional requirement for Hindi development. I think Kalarimaster's argument is since both languages of the union and regional languages come under the Official languages in Constitution, it should be mentioned here also same. But according to F&F, all secondary sources except US state department say Hindi and English are the only official languages. Docku: What up? 20:28, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Fine. But just because the Constitution has described how the States should choose their official language doesn't make that choice worthy of mention on the India page.
Fantastic. This is the answer I was waiting for. Fowler proved, that he doesn't care about constitution as long as it tells us something FOR Hindi. As it is the case, Fowler proved, he is pushing clearly a POV into an article. Neutrality is not longer assured. Thus, I'm reverting the article according WP:NPOV. -- Kalarimaster ( talk) 08:50, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Dear FF, There are several reasons, why the version can't be reverted:
I respect, that you respect the 3RR violation rules. So do I. Let's come together in a dispute resolution process, if you can't resist the heat of your blood, instead of forcing WP:harassment into the discussion. As a sign of assuming good faith against me, you could leave the article as it is until the dispute resolution came to a result. Further, you should start the dispute resolution process. Thanks, and best regards, -- Kalarimaster ( talk) 16:52, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
It seems to me that there are a couple of good reasons why state languages should not be included in the India article.
Regardless of argument number 2, I do think we should be seeking brevity in the summary article on India and trying to minimize the size and scale of information in the article. -- Regents Park ( bail out your boat) 20:02, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
The article's intro claims that Islam arrived in the first century CE. Mohamed was not born until the 7th century CE!! Someone should fix that! 160.39.225.111 ( talk) 18:51, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
This is a bit aside from just editorial matters. I dont know what the origins of the people involved in the official language discussions are, but I hope all parties understand that language and linguistic identities are an extremely sensitive issue in India. This is quite understanble since the 'Indian' political identity is very new (about 60 years) whereas the linguistic identities date back centuries. The emphasis given to Hindi has undeniably caused tensions, and many of the amendments, laws and political developments in Republican India have been a result of these. I think if its made explicitly clear that the states specify their own official language, even if its just two lines, it is worth the price in brevity. I know that one might say that might mean, by extension, this article must then talk about governors, chief ministers etc of the states. But the political results of linguistic states are not as important to various Indians (emotionally at least) as just the fact that there is a Tamil state, Punjabi state ... and so on i.e a sort of a legally recognized homeland based on language. I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations ( talk) 21:14, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Why is there so much emphasis on poverty. India has become superpower. Mentions of poverty and malnutrition do not befit a superpower. I returned to India last year and travelled across India. Guess what? I saw no poverty! If we do mention poverty, then poverty should be mentioned on every country's page. I suspect Western bias in people who have never been in powerful and glorious country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ommalik ( talk • contribs) 20:27, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
per Poverty in India, According to the new World Bank's estimates on poverty based on 2005 data, India has 456 million people, 41.6% of its population, living below the new international poverty line of $1.25 (PPP) per day. The World Bank further estimates that 33% of the global poor now reside in India. Moreover, India also has 828 million people, or 75.6% of the population living below $2 a day, compared to 72.2% for Sub-Saharan Africa. It is true that poverty has fallen significantly, from 54.9% in 1973 to 41.6% today, but poverty certainly remains a major obstacle to India's economic progress. [1] [2] India certainly isn't the world's poorest country by a long shot, but it is probably the poorest newly industrialized country. If you like, you can spin it in the way that praises India for how it manages to be an emerging superpower even in spite of this gigantic socio-economic burden. -- dab (𒁳) 10:22, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
I wrote a similar message to Ssolbergj (in Wikimedia Common) who created these retarded maps. I hope you guys here can back me. It's a clear bias and I don't think that being bias is a policy of Wikipedia. It is high time things are straightened out.
Dear Ssolbergj, your map of China colors Arunachal Pradesh in light green which implies it is somehow rather a part of China although under Indian administration and claimed as an integral part of India. I agree this is a disputed region by both countries. In that case why doesn't the India map have Aksai Chin (a Chinese administered region claimed by India) be colored light green on the India map? Why double standards apply for Aksai and Arunachal although they are both disputed?
Same goes with Pakistan occupied kashmir. Shouldn't those areas be indicated in light green too? Please maintain neutrality as prescribed under Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. I look forward to you recoloring those maps with a NPOV in mind and not China slanted views. Thank you.
If they don't want to change it, I suggest we change the map of India to its old form (2d one) as it is more accurate.
I look forward to all your replies / opinions / assistance as I am not an established user on Wikipedia. Thank you.
The India map is fine now. The PRC map is missing a patch of bright green at Aksai Chin. This needs to be addressed at Talk:People's Republic of China, not here. -- dab (𒁳) 10:06, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
ALL please goto NPOV noticeboard ( [5]). we are discussing about it there. All areas CLAIMED by INDIA, but administered by another country should be colored in light green. IE China occupied Kashmir and Pakistan occupied Kashmir. This is consistant with the Chinese map that colors Arnachal and Taiwan light green although not being administered by China. 218.208.204.181 ( talk) 18:45, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
There are more languages in Nagaland than in Western Europe. It is a ridiculous demand to include languages besides Hindi. Where does one draw the line as to what qualifies as an important language and what doesn't? TheBlueKnight ( talk) 09:40, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. We have literally tens of thousands of articles on topics of top importance, and they languish away in disrepair for years. But slap an infobox on some article, and a dozen people will spend a couple of hundred man-hours carving out an extremely delicate compromise of how exactly a complex issue should be reduced to an uninformative back-of-an-envelope summary. That's just humanity, I guess. -- dab (𒁳) 16:33, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
There are 13 festivals listed in the culture section. A ridiculously high number. I suggest we tone down and limit them to only significant festivals which needs to be debated here. =Nichalp «Talk»= 20:21, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
(unindent) I suggest we do what we did to address the never-ending list of cricketers in the
Bangalore article. We mention 3 festivals and pipelink
List of Festivals in India. The draft I had in mind would look something like this:
Festivals in India are celebrated with both ritual and fanfare. They celebrate the new year of various religions, the harvest, and the end of the monsoon. Some of the largest festivals cut across religious lines and include the Hindu festival of lights Diwali and water festival Holi, both increasingly boisterous outdoors celebrations; the Id, when Muslims distribute sweet vermicelli seviyan to their neighbours; and Christmas, when tinsel trees appear in shop windows.
Please deny recognition. Let user:Nichalp deal with it when he returns. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 03:33, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
We actually used to have a section on language conflicts in India. I would be grateful if people came to realized that their time is better spent working on an account of the problem in article space than filling talk archive after talk archive with circular debates. There is a problem. Let's document it, at the proper place. Living in denial doesn't make the problems go away. Trying to make Wikipedia fit your picture of reality is also bound to fail. You came here -- now you'll need to come to grips that there may be various views of the same reality. -- dab (𒁳) 16:18, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
@Based on Fowlers reply (no one else has any contradictory statements so far) this is what I think: The scope of the article is India as a single unit, not what the states do or award recognition to. What the states decide to do should be mentioned in the corresponding article on the state. There should be no duplication of information. For example, if the government of Goa implements the UCC, then there is no need to mention that here. We mention it on the Goa page. We need to omit state-specific information as far as possible from this article. It's not in the scope. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:52, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
(noindent) Kalarimaster has been blocked for a month for socking in the vote upstairs. See here. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 05:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
I suggest, new section should be added on "Education in India". As an initial paragraph, we can transclude opening paragraph from
Education in India.
Please comment.
Padalkar.kshitij (
talk)
20:50, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
I think "Education in India" is an important section, which should be added to this article
What is the formal method to initiate the discussion about "inclusion of Education Section"?
I think,following are the reasons for its inclusion-
I am new on English wikipedia (but a regular on
Marathi wikipedia), but I am finding my inclusion of this section is getting reverted again and again. But no-one is discussing the matters here. (So this time, rather than adding the section again, I am posting an appeal here for wikipedians to voice their opinion, abiding by the
WP:3RR)
Padalkar.kshitij (
talk)
08:16, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
yes. I read that just now. peace. Padalkar.kshitij ( talk) 01:48, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
I've noticed that several countries that were mentioned that border with India don't have their proper links. I also saw that in other languages (Portuguese and Spanish) they do. I am a registered user but I also noticed that in spite of the fact that I can make changes in the portuguese and spanish versions, I just can't touch the english version. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rmalmeida1973 ( talk • contribs) 16:09, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
The following text looks to be duplicate, some kind of cut and past error:
I was going to fix it, but the page is semi-protected.
Tarsa ( talk) 00:25, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
fixed Nikkul ( talk) 03:57, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
This diff should be reverted. See Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-06-10 India. -- KnowledgeHegemony talk 06:51, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I can rouse myself enough to defend this but I'm not sure why democracy is included in the first sentence and why there is a need to attach most-populous or largest to the term at all. (But, I will point out that it is definitely not for us to debate the nature of democracy in India. All we should be debating is points of wikipedia policy and the validity of sources.) -- Regents Park ( bail out your boat) 00:22, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
What the hell is the section with human rights doing on the main page of India? And whats with human rights not being enforced? 75.111.198.59 ( talk) 01:41, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
The description in the infobox of the languages of the Eighth Schedule as "Scheduled languages" has been fairly stable for a year-and-a-half. On 21 November, User:Fundamental metric tensor changed it to "Official languages of the states". User:Fowler&fowler changed it to "Other major languages", and User:KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 then changed that to "Other official languages". None of these changes seem to have been discussed on the talk page.
The problem with the term "Other official languages" is that it is wrong. The languages of the eighth schedule are not official, no matter what Encarta says (because - gasp - Encarta can get things wrong). This should be self-evident to anyone familiar with Indian politics. For the past four or five years, the Dravidian parties (including the DMK, AIADMK, MDMK and PMK) have been spearheading a campaign to make them official languages. The UPA government has set up a committee to look into this, which has been avoiding giving the report for some years now. So, no, the languages of the Eighth Schedule are not official languages. This was discussed quite exhaustively last year, and "scheduled languages" was a compromise description - see Talk:India/Archive_29#Eighth Schedule Languages Again. I'm changing it back to "Scheduled languages", which is the agreed, stable version. -- Arvind ( talk) 10:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
how are they "not official" if they are sanctioned in the official constitution of India? They are official by virtue of having an official status. Please tell me you bothered to read the first line of the official language article, which states An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other territory. Do you dispute this definition? Or do you dispute that special sanction in a country's constitution amounts to "special legal status"? You need to understand that we are using "official language" as a common English language term, not as RoI-centric legalese. " scheduled language" doesn't mean anything outside the context of the RoI constitution. The only definition of "scheduled language" I can think of is the circular "those languages which are called 'scheduled' in Eighth Schedule to the Indian constitution". This is silly. -- dab (𒁳) 11:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Official language of the Union.
- The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script. The form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union shall be the international form of Indian numerals.
- Notwithstanding anything in clause (1), for a period of fifteen years from the commencement of this Constitution, the English language shall continue to be used for all the official purposes of the Union for which it was being used immediately before such commencement: Provided that the President may, during the said period, by order_306 authorise the use of the Hindi language in addition to the English language and of the Devanagari form of numerals in addition to the international form of Indian numerals for any of the official purposes of the Union.
However no such attempt of giving "official" status was made in the Eighth schedule which were made to aid the use of Hindi. (It would certainly be helpful if someone here throw some light for the creation of the 8th schedule...the history behind it? That would certainly help. Anyway even I (the culprit, as pointed out above) feel that "other official languages" is not correct as Hindi is redundant in the list(s) (Official language of the Union + "other official languages"!). -- KnowledgeHegemony talk 14:21, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes, nobody is suggesting to call Bengali the official language of India. the above statement you said is "correct" is neither mentioned in the body of the article nor in the infobox. Do you think it is ok? well, i dont think so.
Of these two following sentences, Official languages of Indian states are not necessarily the same as official languages of India. and India has X number Schedule 8 languages, which one do you think is infobox worthy? I would say neither or first. That is my position.
Pls dont tell me that the sentence is as ridiculous as "Primie mnister of India is not the same as Chief ministers". lol. Docku: What up? 21:10, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 20 | ← | Archive 22 | Archive 23 | Archive 24 | Archive 25 | Archive 26 | → | Archive 30 |
In past few days, there has been a spur in activity on this page over the challenges/problems India is facing and how Indian government ****** it. (There is even a debate on weather there is control, mild control, no control and what not...so I blanked the word). Sentences have been cut making them look like a lizard that cut it's tail running for protection and paragraphs have been added at free will. In order to limit such edits and restore stability I have created a new article
Socio-economic problems of India that can accommodate all such stuff. A link to this article can be put up on the India page replacing the current sentence which really appears list like. I propose -
Since independence, India has faced
Socio-economic problems and has been taking steps to address them.
Going forward, those who are interested in elaborating such information can do so at this article which can act as parent article to individual problems/solutions offered in India. I would like to gain a consensus before replacing the current sentence with this one. Everyone interested is welcome here for discussion but no door to door campaigning this time. --
GPPande
talk!
18:12, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
I still cannot edit India. Can you elaborate more on problems in India like child labor, illiteracy, human trafficking, electricity shortage. I think these are also quite significant. I would add this information when I am confirmed. -- Kokar ( talk) 13:45, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Why is there no mention of Information technology? Nothing about chandryan also. I think it is also important for India. -- Kokar ( talk) 15:36, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Personally I'm not in favour of any new section preferring to stick as close as possible to the sections as recommended by Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries. I'm also concerned about having too many institutions in the education section, it the numbers keep adding up to become a list, as what has happened to the Mumbai article. New sections such as education, media, science and so on will lead to a very large page. I'm also not sure whether adding the moon mission in the history is the right place. We've only tried to events that have shaped the course of India. The moon mission is significant, but has little role to play in the history section as compared to say the Emergency or Independence. =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:52, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
I would highly be for a science and technogy section! It has been suggested before and a large number of people were for it. Nikkul ( talk) 04:13, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
Based on the above discussion, I am proposing a new "Education and science" section. Such sections are common to many other country FAs. This section will discuss:
Despite the list items, I don't think such a section would be much larger than the current "Sports" section. S h i v a (Visnu) 22:12, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
where are the books used including in the classrooms etc was the question so voila, here is the answer
PELINKA 146 Libraries in the USA
first 10
1. Adelphi University Garden City, NY 11530 United States
2. Alibris Emeryville, CA 94608 United States
3. American University Washington, DC 20016 United States
4. Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287 United States
5. Arkansas State University - Jonesboro State University, AR 72467 United States
6. Austin College Sherman, TX 75090 United States
7. Bates College Library Lewiston, ME 04240 United States
8. Boise State University Boise, ID 83725 United States
9. Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 United States
10. Bowdoin College Brunswick, ME 04011 United States
HESHMATI first 10 of 38:
1. Alibris Emeryville, CA 94608 United States
2. American University Washington, DC 20016 United States
3. Baylor University Libraries Waco, TX 76798 United States
4. Colorado State University Ft Collins, CO 80521 United States
5. Columbia University Libraries New York, NY 10027 United States
6. George Mason University Fairfax, VA 22030 United States
7. George Washington University Washington, DC 20037 United States
8. Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057 United States
9. Illinois State University Normal, IL 61761 United States
10. Indiana University Bloomington, IN 47405 United States
Guess we should include this. I believe the mission is quite remarkable being one of the handful and given the economical status. The most appropriate (unless we create another), IMO, is Military section. Docku: What up? 02:16, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
According to Languages of india#Language families, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, Tibeto-Burman, Dardic and Nihalic languages are also spoken in India. So, why is this template on Indo-Aryan languages included here. Either it should be removed or those of other families of languages (if they exist) should be included. India is made of diverse ethnic, language and cultural groups. This being the case, I believe that, this particular template gives undue importance to one group alone. Thanks- Ravichandar My coffee shop 05:24, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
This is the last paragraph of the economy section:
In 2007, estimated exports stood at US$140 billion and imports were around US$224.9 billion. Textiles, jewellery, engineering goods and software are major export commodities. While crude oil, machineries, fertilizers, and chemicals are major imports. India's most important trading partners are the United States, the European Union, and China.
The statistics are not sourced and ideally it should be merged with another paragraph since it is quite small in length. Gizza Discuss © 00:31, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Dr. Amit Kumar Bhandari (a very promising younger Indian economist from the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management (IISWBM) in Calcutta) et al in Heshmati (a world class Swedish economist, who worked a long time with the United Nation's WIDER Institute in Helsinki and who is now among others Professor in Seoul's KNU, among the top 5% of the world's economists according to the IDEAS/REPEC criteria of Number of Works, Number of Distinct Works, Number of Distinct Works, Weighted by Number of Authors, Number of Journal Pages, Number of Journal Pages, Weighted by Number of Authors, Number of Abstract Views in RePEc Services over the past 12 months, Number of Downloads through RePEc Services over the past 12 months Number of Abstract Views in RePEc Services over the past 12 months, Weighted by Number of Authors, Number of Downloads through RePEc Services over the past 12 months, Weighted by Number of Authors) and associates portray a valid picture about liberalization, globalization and development in India. What's so wrong with it that you simply erased it? And you also erased the Tony Blair quote - which reminds especially us Europeans not to project superiority complexes onto this important nation, and democracy. If you do not agree with the presentation, at least include the argument in other style and in a condensed fashion, but simply erasing it is without justification. Roadmap to Bangalore was recently very positively reviewed in the "Journal of Common Market Studies", one of the leading social sciences journals in the world, and how come that you simply erase the entry, once and for all? Kind regards
From User Franz weber, 21:33 Central European Time, November 17, 2008, Vienna, Austria —Preceding unsigned comment added by Franz weber ( talk • contribs) 20:46, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Modification of this list results in the validity loss of this poll.
-- Indiastarforce ( talk) 08:39, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
-- Kalarimaster ( talk) 23:02, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
I object to the current locator map on grounds that it takes a position wrt disputed international borders. here is a locator map that indicates territorial disputes. In the interst of npov, we should use that one until this is being addressed in the orthographic projection one as well. We can't let prettiness take precedence over factuality or npov. dab (𒁳) 19:43, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
The version of Indian map used on this article is incorrect. It shows some parts (Kashmir in particular) is not being part of India, while it is a disputed area. Both Pakistan and India claim ownership of the region. Wikipedia is supposed to be a neutral information source, and hence a different version of the map ( LocationIndia.png) which clearly marks the disputed area suits this article better.
Nawabbawre ( talk) 07:36, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Based on the concensus we arrived at two weeks back (now archived), here is a draft for inclusion of "classical languages" in the Culture section.
(Addition)"Four languages of high antiquity with a body of ancient literature which is considered a valuable heritage have been accorded classical language status by the Government of India. These are: Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu.
(Existing)"The earliest works of Indian literature were transmitted orally and only later written down.[124]"
(Existing - modified) "These included works of Sanskrit literature – such as the early Vedas, the epics Mahābhārata and Ramayana, the drama Abhijñānaśākuntalam (The Recognition of Śakuntalā), and poetry such as the Mahākāvya[125] – and the Tamil Sangam literature[126], the Kannada Kavirajamarga(Sastri 1955, p. 355) and the Telugu Mahabharata(Sastri 1955, p. 367) Thanks, Dineshkannambadi ( talk) 20:04, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
this is a minor political gimmick. I don't see how it has any place in this article. Should be discussed on languages of India, not here. dab (𒁳) 20:33, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) My suggestion is to make it simpler. The Government of India has accorded classical language status to four Indian languages: Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu.—Preceding unsigned comment added by RegentsPark ( talk • contribs) 22:52, 16 November 2008
Not sure why we are discussing the phrasing here. Per earlier discussion here, we have had the relevant sentence in the Languages in India page for two weeks now. The same sentence goes here. It is:
“ | Starting in 2004, Government of India has declared some languages to be classical; these are: Tamil (in 2004), Sanskrit (in 2005), and Kannada and Telugu (in 2008). | ” |
The tense structure is a little off; I would change it to:
“ | Since 2004, the Government of India has declared four languages to be classical; these have been: Tamil (in 2004), Sanskrit (in 2005), and Kannada and Telugu (in 2008). | ” |
We need to make sure that it is understood that this official status is recent, and that this particular use of "classical" may not be the more common one. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 02:15, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
(unindent) I said the Sahitya Akademi recommended that no language be officially declared classical. (I have clarified it more now.) In other words, they said, let the secondary sources provide that evidence. And those, for a hundred years, have only described two languages of India to be classical languages, Sanskrit and Tamil. Please don't try to pin this on my personal belief. If you think it is personal why don't you find some sources on Google Scholar (of the quality that I have provided in my sub-page link User:Fowler&fowler/Classical languages of India) that say Kannada and Telugu are classical languages? Anything perhaps written by that mysterious "expert committee" on Google Scholar that confirms this? I've been waiting for two weeks now. Why is it that I can find the contrary evidence in 15 minutes? Anyway, I provided the link to my subpage because I wanted the ordinary reader of this talk page to see how ridiculous this "tag" is. There is no reason for the India page to sway to breeze of every linguistic sub-nationalism in India. The secondary sources, the contemporary internationally recognized ones, are enough. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 00:12, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
WP:NPOV says
“ | Neutral point of view is a fundamental Wikimedia principle and a cornerstone of Wikipedia. All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources | ” |
The sentence Dinesh added reflects only one significant view by those "mysterious scholars". Including also the mainstream scholars view would be belaboring the issue like RegentsPark mentioned. Therefore, not including the information is the best solution. Simple as it is, either include all viewpoints or none. Do we care about wp policies in this page anymore or is it just a propaganda page? Docku: What up? 03:01, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Anti-Dravidian POV is so clear to see here. Scholars have approved the Indian classical status to 3 Dravidian languages. Indo-European just 1. That's the real version everybody's whining here. Nobody's whining about for instance "classical japanese language", though it's age isn't any way to compare with Greek or Latin. Antiquity and classical language are obviously two different terms. -- Kalarimaster ( talk) 04:59, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
“ | Inspite of the absence of support for classical status for Kannada and Telugu among |
” |
{{
citation}}
: |last2=
has generic name (
help)
I know it sounds not nice though factually correct and guess can be tweaked to sound more neutral. In fact, this is one of the reasons I suggest we leave the whole material out.
I used references from F&F. Thanks. Docku: What up? 06:23, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) I think you guys are making a big deal out of something that is not a big deal. If the government of India has accorded classical language status to four languages and if we say exactly that, no less and no more, then I don't see the problem. Dk's statement links to the section of the languages page that explains this status and any discussion on the validity of the claim that these languages are or are not classical should be included in that section (rather than in this summary overview article). I do feel however that the sentence added by Dk should go under the demographics section rather than the culture section (it seems out of place over there). For example, The constitution also recognises in particular 21 other languages that are either abundantly spoken or have classical status (the Government of India has accorded classical language status to four Indian languages: Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu). Or, The constitution also recognises in particular 21 other languages that are either abundantly spoken or have classical status. Four of these languages; Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu; have been accorded classical language status by the government of India.
Well, I read f&f's note and digested it somewhat. This is what it says: (1) Two encyclopedia references that say that India has two classical languages: Tamil and Sanskrit. (2) Several references that say that Tamil is a classical language without commenting on whether Kannada or Telegu are classical. (3) Two references that say that Tamil is one of two classical languages (BTW, I couldn't find the quote in the Steever reference because the page number is incorrect and I'm looking at a physical copy so can't do a text search!). Of the two, Steever goes on to say that Kannada has a long literary tradition and exhibits diglossia (see the Ferguson reference in fowler's list), though not as much as Tamil. The case is not clear from the note and, IMHO, all it does is clearly illustrate my point that excessive elaboration is confusing. The problem with trying to qualify the goi statement is that it muddies the water rather than clarifies. -- Regents Park ( bail out your boat) 18:10, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
(multiple ec)The issue with the term classical is that it is subjective. It will not be hard to find respected scholars who claim that the only classical languages are Latin and Greek, other scholars who add Sanskrit to the list, and others yet who add many other languages. Our own classical language page pretty much includes everything while simultaneously excluding almost everything. Now, along comes a government body that is willing to go out on a limb and declare four languages as officially classical. Clearly, this is a problem for wikipedia, and the root of our problems on this page, because, on one side there is the classically muddy waters of the academic world (who do I quote? which scholar do I respect?) and on the other side an official proclamation (easy to quote, easy to cite, comes with the full faith and credit of a sovereign nation). So, the question is how do we adequately deal with the issue of alerting the reader to the much deeper thought that has gone into the scholarly side, while doing it in a simple and straightforward manner, preferably in a single sentence. It's tough and one alternative is (and, this, or alternative statements should go in the Demographics section rather than the culture section):
Beyond this, I'm at a loss what to do (other than reopen the question of whether we should include any statement about classical languages). -- Regents Park ( bail out your boat) 18:28, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
(unindent) - RP's draft is close but needs modification. "..using its own criteria" is POV and factually incorrect, albeit unintended. The govt., didnt come up with the criteria. The expert committee of the Sahitya Akademi did. And they did it by "abstracting the features of classical languages..." (the Telegraph cite). If we are going to bend over backwards and say "..using its own criteria".. we also would have to add "...following the recommendation of a Linguists committee". We can't simply push the POV that the according of the tag to K and Te had only to do with politics -- especially when that was decidedly not the case! what with Telugu and Kannada being the languages that had to go through an expert linguists' committee unlike Sanskrit and Tamil! Sarvagnya 15:49, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
(unident) "Expert committee" is bogus. If they were such experts, where are their publications that make the case for Kannada and Telugu being classical languages. That's all Wikipedia cares for. There's no consensus for this edit. I think we've had enough and its time to stop nickel and diming this. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 17:26, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
I think, we should rewrite the sentence in a simple way til Dinesh is able to obtain the requested information about the expert committee, so, that the heat calms down a bit. The languages are listed in alphabetical order. So nobody has to complain. If the discussion regarding Dinesh source' doesn't result in a new consensus, RegentsPark initial consensus purposal should be back on top.
Here is the transition purposal, which is just stating facts:
The Indian government created a category of
classical languages of India. Kannada, Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu were accorded this status.
-- Kalarimaster ( talk) 22:13, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Since user:Dineshkannambadi has not respected the views of the other editors on this page, I have now chosen to replace his edit with the sentence given below. I feel that putting anything after a sentence (in the culture section) which mentions Ramayana, Mahabharata, Abhijnanashakuntalam, and Sangam poetry, all of which are works of classical literature, suggests, at the very least, that these languages are classical in the same sense. Our job, as Wikipedia editors, is to report the consensus of published scholarly opinion, and if there is no consensus, to report the controversy. In this situation, however, there is no controversy among scholarly publications. The published scholarly opinion is unanimously agreed that India has only two classical languages and they are Sanskrit and Tamil, and this consensus is not new, but goes back a hundred years. To date, no one has been able to produce any publication on Google Scholar of the quality I have produced below that even remotely suggests that Kannada and Telugu are classical languages.
user:Dineshkannambadi is incorrect in suggesting that India's Sahitya Akademi (National Academy of Letters) has created this mysterious "expert committee." The Sahitya Akademi explcitly recommended that no language be given this official tag; and, indeed, I have added two references from the Sahitya Akademi that make clear what they think is classical. I am happy to challenge user:Dineshkannambadi (and anyone else who wants to join him) to a mediation, an arbitration, or any other Wikipedia dispute resolution method. The quality of the references below, will, I hope, create the first dawnings in my interlocutors of the work they have cut out for them. Please, no wikilawyering; simply get your sources, and join me in a mediation. Please also don't flatter yourself by assuming that this is a threat. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 16:42, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Here is the sentence:
India has two classical languages, Sanskrit and Tamil;1 however, since 2004, the Government of India has declared four languages to be official classical languages: Tamil (2004), Sanskrit (2005), Kannada and Telugu (2008).2
Expand to see footnotes 1 and 2 |
---|
1. A. "South Asian arts" (2008). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Quote: "Of the four literary Dravidian languages, Tamil has been recorded earliest, followed by Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam. Tamil literature has a classical tradition of its own, while the literatures of the other languages have been influenced by Sanskrit models." B. "Indian Literature,", Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2008. Quote: "Classical Literature: In southern India, beginning in the 1st century AD, a magnificent body of nonreligious poetry was written in the Tamil language. The early Tamil poems became the foundation of literary traditions in other languages of south India." C. Seaver, Sanford B. (1998), The Dravidian Languages, Taylor and Francis. Pp. 436, ISBN 0415100232. Quote: "Tamil ... It is therefore one of India's two classical languages, alongside the more widely known Indo-Aryan language Sanskrit. D. From Dravidian Languages, Cambridge University Press, 2003. (See page 22): Quote: As in the case of Pre-Modern Greek and Arabic, Tamil has "diglossia" (Ferguson 1964), which means that the standard written and spoken variety of Tamil, called centamiz "beautiful Tamil", is based on the classical language of an earlier era. E. Ramanujan, A. K. (1985), Poems of Love and War: From the Eight Anthologies and the Ten Long Poems of Classical Tamil, New York: Columbia University Press. Pp. 329, ISBN 0231051077 Ramanujan 1985, p. ix-x Quote: Tamil, one of the two classical languages of India, is a Dravidian language spoken today by 50 million Indians, ..." F. Zvelebil, Kamil (1997), The Smile of Murugan: On Tamil Literature of South India, BRILL Academic Publishers. Pp. 378., ISBN 9004035915. Quote: "... those 26,350 lines of poetry promote Tamil to the rank of one of the great classical languages of the world ... G. Das, Sisir Kumar; Sahitya Akademi (2005), A History of Indian Literature, 500–1399, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. Pp. 302, ISBN 8126021713. Quote: "Tamil: Another Classical Language: The other language operating in the country as a powerful vehicle of literary expression, of course, was Tamil. Like Greek, Tamil has an uninterrupted history; the relation between the modern and ancient Tamil is more or less similar to that of the Attic Greek and modern Greek." H. George, K. M.; Sahitya Akademi (1992), Modern Indian Literature, an Anthology: Surveys and Poems, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, ISBN 8172013248. Quote: "Among them Tamil has a very special place. It has the longest literary tradition, extending to over two thousand years, next only to Sanskrit. While Sanskrit is a classical language of the past, Tamil is both classical and modern, with a continuous, unbroken literary history. 2. "Declaration of Telugu and Kannada as classical languages". Press Information Bureau. Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Government of India. Retrieved 2008-11-19.</ref> |
(unindent) F&f I'm okwith your draft for the most part. A couple of points though:
I think we could add something on the origin of the word "bharat", which is sanskrit, meaning "the enlightened", indians were called "bharati" meaning "the enlightened". Also, the first time bharat was cited is in this shlokam- "Uttaram yad samudrasya, himadreeyasya dakshinam, varsham tat bhaaratm namah, bhaarati yatra santati". I do not clearly remember the shlokam, if there is anyone here who could incorporate my suggestions. I felt it can be added since the origin of india, hindustan etc are mentioned.. 41.209.23.34 ( talk) 09:19, 19 November 2008 (UTC)Pallu
Names_of_India#Bharat is not not referenced as well. Can someone help sourcing it? -- KnowledgeHegemony Part2 12:12, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
All the talk about the classical languages reminded me, we need the infobox to read, Official languages of the Union and Official languages of the states instead of just official languages and scheduled languages. Especially since the term scheduled languages will only make sense to people with a technical knowledge of the Constitution. I changed that accordingly. I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations ( talk) 04:00, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Here they are (this is just a link, click "show"):
Expand to see 15 focused secondary sources, including 1) Encyclopaedia Britannica, "India—Linguistic Composition." 2) Encyclopedia Encarta, "India: Official Languages". 3) Encyclopedia Encarta, "Indian Languages: Official Languages" 4) Indo-Aryan Languages. 6) United Kingdom, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, "India—Country Profile." 7) United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 8) UNESCO, "Education for all—The Nine Largest Countries." 9) US Library of Congress, "Country Profile: India." 10) US Department of State, "Background Note: India." 11) UN High Commissioner for Refugees, "Country Profile: India." 12) Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Languages of India. 13) Mallikarjun, B. 2004. "Fifty Years of Language Planning for Modern Hindi-The Official Language of India.", Language in India. 14) Mallikarjun, B. 2004. "Indian Multilingualism, Language Policy, and the Digital Divide" Language in India. 15) Laitin, David. 1989. "Language policy and political strategy in India." Policy Sciences. 22:415-436. |
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It doesn't matter, whether every State language is listed in the constitution. The constitution specifies, that state languages shall be chosen by the State government. Any amendment of this article 347 is up to the union government. 345. Subject to the provisions of articles 346 and 347, the Legislature of a State may by law adopt any one or more of the languages in use in the State or Hindi as the language or languages to be used for all or any of the official purposes of that State: Provided that, until the Legislature of the State otherwise provides by law, the English language shall continue to be used for those official purposes within the State for which it was being used immediately before the commencement of this Constitution. 346. The language for the time being authorised for use in the Union for official purposes shall be the official language for communication between one State and another State and between a State and the Union: Provided that if two or more States agree that the Hindi language should be the official language for communication between such States, that language may be used for such communication. 347. On a demand being made in that behalf the President may, if he is satisfied that a substantial proportion of the population of a State desire the use of any language spoken by them to be recognised by that State, direct that such language shall also be officially recognised throughout that State or any part thereof for such purpose as he may specify.
Since you were unwilling to answer my simple question, I'm assuming you are not interested in a consensus and thus will stop to seek a consensus with you. --
Kalarimaster (
talk)
19:29, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
I see what Kalarimaster means. In Official Language part in Constitution under chapter I comes Languages of the union, and under Chapter II comes Regional languages and chapter IV says
“ | It shall be the endeavour of every State and of every local authority within the State to provide adequate facilities for instruction in the mother-tongue at the primary stage of education to children belonging to linguistic minority groups; and the President may issue such directions to any State as he considers necessary or proper for securing the provision of such facilities. | ” |
similar to but not same as the constitutional requirement for Hindi development. I think Kalarimaster's argument is since both languages of the union and regional languages come under the Official languages in Constitution, it should be mentioned here also same. But according to F&F, all secondary sources except US state department say Hindi and English are the only official languages. Docku: What up? 20:28, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Fine. But just because the Constitution has described how the States should choose their official language doesn't make that choice worthy of mention on the India page.
Fantastic. This is the answer I was waiting for. Fowler proved, that he doesn't care about constitution as long as it tells us something FOR Hindi. As it is the case, Fowler proved, he is pushing clearly a POV into an article. Neutrality is not longer assured. Thus, I'm reverting the article according WP:NPOV. -- Kalarimaster ( talk) 08:50, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Dear FF, There are several reasons, why the version can't be reverted:
I respect, that you respect the 3RR violation rules. So do I. Let's come together in a dispute resolution process, if you can't resist the heat of your blood, instead of forcing WP:harassment into the discussion. As a sign of assuming good faith against me, you could leave the article as it is until the dispute resolution came to a result. Further, you should start the dispute resolution process. Thanks, and best regards, -- Kalarimaster ( talk) 16:52, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
It seems to me that there are a couple of good reasons why state languages should not be included in the India article.
Regardless of argument number 2, I do think we should be seeking brevity in the summary article on India and trying to minimize the size and scale of information in the article. -- Regents Park ( bail out your boat) 20:02, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
The article's intro claims that Islam arrived in the first century CE. Mohamed was not born until the 7th century CE!! Someone should fix that! 160.39.225.111 ( talk) 18:51, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
This is a bit aside from just editorial matters. I dont know what the origins of the people involved in the official language discussions are, but I hope all parties understand that language and linguistic identities are an extremely sensitive issue in India. This is quite understanble since the 'Indian' political identity is very new (about 60 years) whereas the linguistic identities date back centuries. The emphasis given to Hindi has undeniably caused tensions, and many of the amendments, laws and political developments in Republican India have been a result of these. I think if its made explicitly clear that the states specify their own official language, even if its just two lines, it is worth the price in brevity. I know that one might say that might mean, by extension, this article must then talk about governors, chief ministers etc of the states. But the political results of linguistic states are not as important to various Indians (emotionally at least) as just the fact that there is a Tamil state, Punjabi state ... and so on i.e a sort of a legally recognized homeland based on language. I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations ( talk) 21:14, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Why is there so much emphasis on poverty. India has become superpower. Mentions of poverty and malnutrition do not befit a superpower. I returned to India last year and travelled across India. Guess what? I saw no poverty! If we do mention poverty, then poverty should be mentioned on every country's page. I suspect Western bias in people who have never been in powerful and glorious country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ommalik ( talk • contribs) 20:27, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
per Poverty in India, According to the new World Bank's estimates on poverty based on 2005 data, India has 456 million people, 41.6% of its population, living below the new international poverty line of $1.25 (PPP) per day. The World Bank further estimates that 33% of the global poor now reside in India. Moreover, India also has 828 million people, or 75.6% of the population living below $2 a day, compared to 72.2% for Sub-Saharan Africa. It is true that poverty has fallen significantly, from 54.9% in 1973 to 41.6% today, but poverty certainly remains a major obstacle to India's economic progress. [1] [2] India certainly isn't the world's poorest country by a long shot, but it is probably the poorest newly industrialized country. If you like, you can spin it in the way that praises India for how it manages to be an emerging superpower even in spite of this gigantic socio-economic burden. -- dab (𒁳) 10:22, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
I wrote a similar message to Ssolbergj (in Wikimedia Common) who created these retarded maps. I hope you guys here can back me. It's a clear bias and I don't think that being bias is a policy of Wikipedia. It is high time things are straightened out.
Dear Ssolbergj, your map of China colors Arunachal Pradesh in light green which implies it is somehow rather a part of China although under Indian administration and claimed as an integral part of India. I agree this is a disputed region by both countries. In that case why doesn't the India map have Aksai Chin (a Chinese administered region claimed by India) be colored light green on the India map? Why double standards apply for Aksai and Arunachal although they are both disputed?
Same goes with Pakistan occupied kashmir. Shouldn't those areas be indicated in light green too? Please maintain neutrality as prescribed under Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. I look forward to you recoloring those maps with a NPOV in mind and not China slanted views. Thank you.
If they don't want to change it, I suggest we change the map of India to its old form (2d one) as it is more accurate.
I look forward to all your replies / opinions / assistance as I am not an established user on Wikipedia. Thank you.
The India map is fine now. The PRC map is missing a patch of bright green at Aksai Chin. This needs to be addressed at Talk:People's Republic of China, not here. -- dab (𒁳) 10:06, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
ALL please goto NPOV noticeboard ( [5]). we are discussing about it there. All areas CLAIMED by INDIA, but administered by another country should be colored in light green. IE China occupied Kashmir and Pakistan occupied Kashmir. This is consistant with the Chinese map that colors Arnachal and Taiwan light green although not being administered by China. 218.208.204.181 ( talk) 18:45, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
There are more languages in Nagaland than in Western Europe. It is a ridiculous demand to include languages besides Hindi. Where does one draw the line as to what qualifies as an important language and what doesn't? TheBlueKnight ( talk) 09:40, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. We have literally tens of thousands of articles on topics of top importance, and they languish away in disrepair for years. But slap an infobox on some article, and a dozen people will spend a couple of hundred man-hours carving out an extremely delicate compromise of how exactly a complex issue should be reduced to an uninformative back-of-an-envelope summary. That's just humanity, I guess. -- dab (𒁳) 16:33, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
There are 13 festivals listed in the culture section. A ridiculously high number. I suggest we tone down and limit them to only significant festivals which needs to be debated here. =Nichalp «Talk»= 20:21, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
(unindent) I suggest we do what we did to address the never-ending list of cricketers in the
Bangalore article. We mention 3 festivals and pipelink
List of Festivals in India. The draft I had in mind would look something like this:
Festivals in India are celebrated with both ritual and fanfare. They celebrate the new year of various religions, the harvest, and the end of the monsoon. Some of the largest festivals cut across religious lines and include the Hindu festival of lights Diwali and water festival Holi, both increasingly boisterous outdoors celebrations; the Id, when Muslims distribute sweet vermicelli seviyan to their neighbours; and Christmas, when tinsel trees appear in shop windows.
Please deny recognition. Let user:Nichalp deal with it when he returns. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 03:33, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
We actually used to have a section on language conflicts in India. I would be grateful if people came to realized that their time is better spent working on an account of the problem in article space than filling talk archive after talk archive with circular debates. There is a problem. Let's document it, at the proper place. Living in denial doesn't make the problems go away. Trying to make Wikipedia fit your picture of reality is also bound to fail. You came here -- now you'll need to come to grips that there may be various views of the same reality. -- dab (𒁳) 16:18, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
@Based on Fowlers reply (no one else has any contradictory statements so far) this is what I think: The scope of the article is India as a single unit, not what the states do or award recognition to. What the states decide to do should be mentioned in the corresponding article on the state. There should be no duplication of information. For example, if the government of Goa implements the UCC, then there is no need to mention that here. We mention it on the Goa page. We need to omit state-specific information as far as possible from this article. It's not in the scope. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:52, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
(noindent) Kalarimaster has been blocked for a month for socking in the vote upstairs. See here. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 05:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
I suggest, new section should be added on "Education in India". As an initial paragraph, we can transclude opening paragraph from
Education in India.
Please comment.
Padalkar.kshitij (
talk)
20:50, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
I think "Education in India" is an important section, which should be added to this article
What is the formal method to initiate the discussion about "inclusion of Education Section"?
I think,following are the reasons for its inclusion-
I am new on English wikipedia (but a regular on
Marathi wikipedia), but I am finding my inclusion of this section is getting reverted again and again. But no-one is discussing the matters here. (So this time, rather than adding the section again, I am posting an appeal here for wikipedians to voice their opinion, abiding by the
WP:3RR)
Padalkar.kshitij (
talk)
08:16, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
yes. I read that just now. peace. Padalkar.kshitij ( talk) 01:48, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
I've noticed that several countries that were mentioned that border with India don't have their proper links. I also saw that in other languages (Portuguese and Spanish) they do. I am a registered user but I also noticed that in spite of the fact that I can make changes in the portuguese and spanish versions, I just can't touch the english version. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rmalmeida1973 ( talk • contribs) 16:09, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
The following text looks to be duplicate, some kind of cut and past error:
I was going to fix it, but the page is semi-protected.
Tarsa ( talk) 00:25, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
fixed Nikkul ( talk) 03:57, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
This diff should be reverted. See Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-06-10 India. -- KnowledgeHegemony talk 06:51, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I can rouse myself enough to defend this but I'm not sure why democracy is included in the first sentence and why there is a need to attach most-populous or largest to the term at all. (But, I will point out that it is definitely not for us to debate the nature of democracy in India. All we should be debating is points of wikipedia policy and the validity of sources.) -- Regents Park ( bail out your boat) 00:22, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
What the hell is the section with human rights doing on the main page of India? And whats with human rights not being enforced? 75.111.198.59 ( talk) 01:41, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
The description in the infobox of the languages of the Eighth Schedule as "Scheduled languages" has been fairly stable for a year-and-a-half. On 21 November, User:Fundamental metric tensor changed it to "Official languages of the states". User:Fowler&fowler changed it to "Other major languages", and User:KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 then changed that to "Other official languages". None of these changes seem to have been discussed on the talk page.
The problem with the term "Other official languages" is that it is wrong. The languages of the eighth schedule are not official, no matter what Encarta says (because - gasp - Encarta can get things wrong). This should be self-evident to anyone familiar with Indian politics. For the past four or five years, the Dravidian parties (including the DMK, AIADMK, MDMK and PMK) have been spearheading a campaign to make them official languages. The UPA government has set up a committee to look into this, which has been avoiding giving the report for some years now. So, no, the languages of the Eighth Schedule are not official languages. This was discussed quite exhaustively last year, and "scheduled languages" was a compromise description - see Talk:India/Archive_29#Eighth Schedule Languages Again. I'm changing it back to "Scheduled languages", which is the agreed, stable version. -- Arvind ( talk) 10:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
how are they "not official" if they are sanctioned in the official constitution of India? They are official by virtue of having an official status. Please tell me you bothered to read the first line of the official language article, which states An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other territory. Do you dispute this definition? Or do you dispute that special sanction in a country's constitution amounts to "special legal status"? You need to understand that we are using "official language" as a common English language term, not as RoI-centric legalese. " scheduled language" doesn't mean anything outside the context of the RoI constitution. The only definition of "scheduled language" I can think of is the circular "those languages which are called 'scheduled' in Eighth Schedule to the Indian constitution". This is silly. -- dab (𒁳) 11:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- Official language of the Union.
- The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script. The form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union shall be the international form of Indian numerals.
- Notwithstanding anything in clause (1), for a period of fifteen years from the commencement of this Constitution, the English language shall continue to be used for all the official purposes of the Union for which it was being used immediately before such commencement: Provided that the President may, during the said period, by order_306 authorise the use of the Hindi language in addition to the English language and of the Devanagari form of numerals in addition to the international form of Indian numerals for any of the official purposes of the Union.
However no such attempt of giving "official" status was made in the Eighth schedule which were made to aid the use of Hindi. (It would certainly be helpful if someone here throw some light for the creation of the 8th schedule...the history behind it? That would certainly help. Anyway even I (the culprit, as pointed out above) feel that "other official languages" is not correct as Hindi is redundant in the list(s) (Official language of the Union + "other official languages"!). -- KnowledgeHegemony talk 14:21, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes, nobody is suggesting to call Bengali the official language of India. the above statement you said is "correct" is neither mentioned in the body of the article nor in the infobox. Do you think it is ok? well, i dont think so.
Of these two following sentences, Official languages of Indian states are not necessarily the same as official languages of India. and India has X number Schedule 8 languages, which one do you think is infobox worthy? I would say neither or first. That is my position.
Pls dont tell me that the sentence is as ridiculous as "Primie mnister of India is not the same as Chief ministers". lol. Docku: What up? 21:10, 14 December 2008 (UTC)