User talk:Nichalp/Archive10

Economy of India

Please check Talk:Economy_of_India#Featured_Article for my reply. pamri July 1, 2005 03:29 (UTC)

Flag of India

I've done some minor copyediting and feel that the article is now ripe for FAC. Great work, by the way. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} July 1, 2005 09:31 (UTC)

Thanks for the copyedits. I wanted to nominate it yesterday, but I decided to wait till you had a look at at. I'm tying up loose ends at the moment and inking the red links. How are the flags? I made it. =Nichalp «Talk»= July 1, 2005 09:34 (UTC)

The flags arereally cool. I was really thinking of thanking you for that. Those make this article a unique single place for all rare and pertinent information on that topic. Very well done. Why couldn't the Nivedita Flag be made? Was that especially tough? Just curious. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} July 1, 2005 10:48 (UTC)

I don't have any information on the Nivedita flag as to what it is supposed to look like, so that I reproduce it here. Similarly there is one tiny flag of the Ghadhar party, too little information to draw, though I can do it. The white lotus images were sourced from the BJP flag :) . BTW the article is on FAC. =Nichalp «Talk»= July 1, 2005 10:53 (UTC)

Cool. I do have sufficient bandwidth. Send them across to my e-mail. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} July 1, 2005 11:40 (UTC)

Ok, I'll upload them in a few minutes. I'll vote on the fac also. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} July 1, 2005 11:52 (UTC)

Saw the Gadhar Party flag. It would be tough to recreate that, I think. Btw, I've uploaded many images to commons. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} July 1, 2005 13:13 (UTC)

Dear Nichalp, I have made a new flag with the corrected Chakra dia, it looks similar to the one you have uploaded by merging the earlier two flags, so I am not uploding it, if you want me, do let me know, I shall upload it. Thanks --Girish 10:31, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Your ITN revert

Why did you revert to the old version of WP:ITN?! Trying to steer the column away from being too US-centric is laudable, but you can't just disregard User:BayanTree's edit summaries about the questionable Iran news item and revert to a previous version singlehandedly. Phils 1 July 2005 15:11 (UTC)

The topic is too US-centric. One of the criteria for listing, mentions that it must be have some international interest. I did check the history, though BanyanTree raises a good point on the Iran article, but it does not mean that a US-centric topic should appear on the ITN. I reverted to maintain the status quo. If another topic of international interest is found, please feel free to replace the Iran article. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= July 1, 2005 15:18 (UTC)

Headings for History of India

Do you have any ideas on how to divide the History of India article into sections? I made some changes, but still it doesn't look very organized. Thanks. deeptrivia July 1, 2005 23:28 (UTC)

Thanks NICHALP for your message on History of India. I am at Bhopal and would like to contribute whatever way it is possible.The article needs lot of indepth studies. Thanks. burdak 2 July 2005 06:15 (UTC)

Subst:User:Nichalp/sg

This has been deleted because it appeared in main space rather than in your user space. -- Francs2000 | Talk 2 July 2005 14:59 (UTC)

Create User:Nichalp/sg first, then when you write {{subst:User:Nichalp/sg}} it will insert whatever is at that page onto whichever page you are editing. -- Francs2000 | Talk

2 July 2005 15:03 (UTC)

Thanks =Nichalp «Talk»= July 2, 2005 15:08 (UTC)

No problem. Nice signature -- Francs2000 | Talk

2 July 2005 15:11 (UTC)

Thanks. =Nichalp «Talk»= July 2, 2005 15:21 (UTC)

Thank you!

I don't know whether it's "the done thing" to thank people for awarding barnstars, but I think I should be bold and do so anyway. Thank you for giving me a smile as well this rather grey morning. Loganberry (Talk) 2 July 2005 15:00 (UTC)

You're welcome :). Its dull grey and rainy here too. =Nichalp «Talk»= July 2, 2005 15:02 (UTC)

Infobox

Hey, are you still editing the infobox ?. It looks really bad now, can we avoid any colors in the heading of the template ?.

template:main and template:seemain

Hi Nichalp, you asked me to restore the text of these templates. Because these templates are very confusing they are not used consistently. For this reason two new templates were created which serve the same purpose but are not ambiguous. For rewordings I redirect you to their respective talk pages. For other problems, please tell me which articles this is about so I can fix it locally. Or you can do it yourself. Don't "fix" these templates, just because one article doesn't use them in the correct way. --MarSch 3 July 2005 12:43 (UTC)

The wording was chosen so as to not be ambiguous. Do you link back with {seemain}? What wording do you prefer for that? --MarSch 3 July 2005 12:53 (UTC)

Cricket newsgroup

You've added a cricket newsgroup on the links page. Only I can't see how to access it - I clicked on it and it took me to some Outlook Express wizard thing (and I don't use Outlook Express although it's installed). How do I as a basic user, with a yahoo email account and not computer-minded access it? (I just feel there's a cricket-loving world out there I've never entered;) ). By the way, if you ever want to MSN Messenger me, I lurk on there under the address thagudearbh.yahoo.co.uk, jguk 3 July 2005 20:25 (UTC)

To access newsgroups or bulletin boards, you will need to know your ISP news server. It goes something like this: news.ISP NAME.com OR nntp.ISP NAME.com. I'm not sure (but I think) there are free news servers out there too. Will have to query in Reference Desk. Outlook Express is the default news reader for windows. I think its selected via the Tools> menu of Internet Explorer when you surf. If you wan't to avoid the hassle of Outlook Express to read a post, then Google groups has enabled access to the usenet servers, so all you have to do is to create an account and start posting there. [1] is the most popular. I hope this was useful to you. PS. MSN requires a hotmail account right? =Nichalp «Talk»= July 4, 2005 06:37 (UTC)

Request

Hello, Nichalp! I have a favor to ask of you (and several other admins), and I hope you would mind helping. User:Ashida Kim has been giving several of us some trouble regarding the factual accuracy of the article Ashida Kim. I was first made aware of this issue after someone listed the user on Wikipedia:Clueless newbies. Therefore, I contacted User:Ashida Kim and left him a friendly message and welcome note. He responded with insults, and I again politely replied, telling him that he needed to follow Wikipedia policy and provide sources/proofs to back up his facts. After checking out his history, I see several other users have been attempting to talk with him as well. He insists on talking to an administrator, via email. He claims that he cannot contact any administrator (despite being pointed to the list).(For appropriate sections regarding this matter, see the two sections on my talk page, see his talk page, see the section titled "Personal Attack" in the help desk (Wikipedia:Help desk#Personal Attack), see his contributions, and see Wikipedia:Clueless newbies). I do not wish to get involved in this dispute (several other users & admins are already involved), but he basically requested (challenged?) that I contact several non-involved admins after I made a friendly offer. Therefore, would you mind taking a look at this case and seeing what you can do? Thank you very much. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 3 July 2005 23:39 (UTC)

I posted a small message, but I have concerns if the user is genuine or a fraud. =Nichalp «Talk»= July 4, 2005 08:30 (UTC)

Thank you for responding to my request. I'm pleased to say that User:Ashida Kim has calmed down and remained civil in the discussion at Talk:Ashida Kim. Thank you very much! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 9 July 2005 02:37 (UTC)

thanks!

Thanks, Nichalp, for your support of my RfA. It's a pleasure building an encyclopedia with you, and I'll do my best with my new responsibilities! --Spangineer (háblame) July 4, 2005 03:47 (UTC)

You're welcome :) =Nichalp «Talk»= July 4, 2005 06:42 (UTC)

Chennai and History of India

Hi Nichalp, I've not quite lived in Chennai, but have visited there many times. Having been in Tamil Nadu most of my life, I know things about Chennai. I could also ask my friends. We can bring it to FA. Also, I'll help with History of India in whatever way I can. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} July 4, 2005 04:17 (UTC)

Indian Cities project

Hi. I'll add myself to the Indian Cities project and'll help in using that for Chennai and Madurai. But, it'll be a few hours before I can come back. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} July 4, 2005 06:40 (UTC)

No probs =Nichalp «Talk»= July 4, 2005 06:42 (UTC)

Copyright in India

Hi - thanks for the message. Unfortunatly, I am not an expert on the law appertaining to intellectual property in the UK, let alone in India! I'm not sure I would be much better placed to form a view on the Indian legislation than you are, I am afraid. However, as far as I am aware, in the UK at least, the fact that freedom of information legislation allows access to information does not mean that the information thereby becomes public domain. On the other hand, the UK press has been using the new FoI rules to obtain information that can then be published as news stories. -- ALoan (Talk) 4 July 2005 14:36 (UTC)

re: Your request to persuade MT on something:

Yes-wearily, to some small effect, albeit less than we hoped. Sigh. Have been trying to 'get a brief' or directions (link) to how to archieve properly (preserve talk + history side by side) for 4-5 days, but the 'West' has hit summer vacation season (and a United States Big Holiday Weekend) have apparently interfered with my normal sources getting back to me, so would be delighted if your can give me the link or instruction.
But don't comprehend this "...remove the en-N tag he has on his user page?" Sol you need to use less shorthand. Feel free to email, instead cluttering talk pages with 'How To'. The only difference I see is the link is now red that was an email discussion of some of the more confusing English language constructs (i.e. Humor, much based in paradoxical useages on idioms.) that I'd created a page to hold on it's own for him to puruse and mull over, and comprehend 'idiomatic english' better, even if he wouldn't 'appreciate' some of the humor— I'll forward to you by email later when I go up to the office, I'm enjoying a late sunny afternoon near the pool on a lattop right now. (Cancel that- it's now somehow imbedded in and part of his main talk page. Just above the note I just closed to him.)
(Since I've got your attention)... Please take a look (as a railroad buff) at Manchurian Railway, Chinese Far East Railway, and South Manchurian Railway and advise me whether the merge on the first two seems advisable to you. I'm having second thoughts, as 'Historic Names' strike me as having a place of their own in article space when they don't map directly 'onto' deriviative entities. I'll be glad to elaborate on that if it's not clear. JYollkowski has me convinced I should write an RfC for the Village Pump on the general issue, so that will be forthcoming. The 'gist' (heart) can be seen on my antimerge comments in Talk:Tsushima Strait#Nomination to Merge. Bottom line, when someone is reading a history and wants to check a fact or garner more background, Wikiarticles need to maintain compatibility with long in print references. Thanks FrankB

User:Fabartus || Talkto_FrankB 4 July 2005 23:38 (UTC)

VAT

"Featured List Director"!! No, nothing so grand - just that, in practice, over the past few weeks, Filiocht and I have been co-ordinating WP:FLC (a bit like violetriga is de facto in charge of WP:RM, and ContiE of WP:FARC).

In the UK, at least, you can express a price as inclusive of VAT (i.e. £5 including VAT - that is £4.26 plus 74p of VAT giving a total price of £5) or exclusive of VAT (i.e. £5 plus 87p of VAT giving a total price of £5.87). However, the legal default position is that an amount is inclusive of VAT unless it is specifically stated that VAT is not included. Most retail outlets will price "including VAT" so the prices you see are what you pay and they include any VAT that is payable; trade outlets (that sell most of their goods or services to VAT-registered persons) will often price "excluding VAT" since their customers will generally be able to recover any VAT as "input VAT". I hope this makes sense. Does VAT help? I thought it gave a reasonable enough summary. -- ALoan (Talk) 5 July 2005 16:28 (UTC)

Not on holiday - taking a Wikibreak - too busy at work. -- ALoan (Talk) 5 July 2005 16:42 (UTC)

VAT is a tax on the final customer (that is, anyone who is unable to recover any VAT that they have to pay to their suppliers as "input tax"). The intricate details of what happens between each supplier in the supply chain rather obfuscates the fact that someone who has a business of buying and selling will usually not bear any VAT at the end of the day, as it should all be recoverable against their "output tax".

Whether quoting a price without tax (as, rather annoyingly, they tend to do in the US) is legal is a question for an Indian legal expert! In the UK, it would usually be pretty clear whether VAT will be due in addition to the quoted price or not. -- ALoan (Talk) 5 July 2005 17:32 (UTC)

Incidentally, UK law provides that if an amount is not stated as being exclusive of VAT it should be taken as being inclusive of VAT (if VAT is due). However, there is a custom of five star hotels (maybe four star too), of quoting rates exclusive of VAT without saying so, jguk 5 July 2005 18:53 (UTC)

The law in the UK is similar to the law throughout the EU.

Where most of the trade is business-to-consumer, prices must include VAT.
Where most of the trade is business-to-business, prices do not have to include VAT.

There are lots of regulations about this topic but those are the principles. For example, a hotel may claim that most of their trade is business-to-business but they will also have to comply with the rules for hotel prices. Bobblewik (talk) 14:29, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the added info. =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:54, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Delhi

Actually, more than 2/3 of Delhi is neither New Delhi, nor Cantonment, and not villages. New Delhi is actually a district in the National Capital Territory of Delhi [http://www.demographia.com/db-delhidistr.htm, (so Delhi is the National Capital Territory) There is a body called Municipal Committee of Delhi (MCD)[2] which looks after all of Delhi, excluding the small pockets of New Delhi[3], which is under New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) [4] and Delhi Cantt, which is under the Delhi Cantonment Board. So there are 3 municipal areas of Delhi. Most of Delhi city is just Delhi, neither New Delhi, or Cantt. This includes all of East, North and West Delhi, including the Walled City (Red Fort, etc) and large parts of South Delhi.

As far as I know, the New Delhi area is more strongly under the control of central government than rest of Delhi, since it includes all the important national buildings. So while MCD works with Delhi Government, NDMC works with the Central Governement.

Hope this helps. Muwaffaq 6 July 2005 22:29 (UTC)

Geography of India

Hi Nichalp. It's great to see Geography of India featured on the main page. A lot of the credit belongs to you.

By the way, there is some formatting issue with the rivers section of that article. I've made a temporary fix. Please look at that.

-- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} July 7, 2005 04:20 (UTC)

DYK

Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article India Meteorological Department, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

- Mgm|^(talk) July 7, 2005 07:42 (UTC)

India map

You have - rightfully - removed Image:India_topo.jpg from India, b/c the borders are incorrect (what may have looked like POV was actually my ignorance, the borders were drawn automatically). Your new version Image:India_topo_small.jpg has correct borders, but is too small to read the labels. So I intend to create a new version.

Here is what I found out: There are 3 disputed borders: 1x w/ Pakistan, 2x w/ China. Of those, the eastern one w/ China is already correct in the map. The other 2 I will draw by hand (accuracy will be a problem) using Image:Kashmir_map.jpg.

Any objections to that? Another question: are the labels correct? There seem to be old and new names for some cities. With some cities I was not sure, which is the old and which is the new name. --Captain Blood 7 July 2005 15:11 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for attempting a new map. An NPOV map you can use for reference is available here: Image:IndiaTest.png. Yes, the names are old, but its ok to retain the old alongside the new in the following cases: Mumbai (Bombay), Kolkata (Calcutta) and Chennai (Madras) as in image:IndiaMap2.PNG. Laccadives (islands) should be updated to Lakshadweep, Benaras to Varanasi and Hydarabad to Hyderabad. Thanks =Nichalp «Talk»= July 7, 2005 15:27 (UTC)

Goa

Hi regarding your note on changes to Goa article-- my changes were

1. Removed the note where Goa was cited as the most important Portuguese colony. This is nonsense, as the Portuguese possessions included large territories as Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, just to name the largest in a large number of territories.

2. The Portuguese were not expelled from other territories in India by the Dutch or British. The Portuguese presence in India was always localised. The Brits took possession not from the Portuguese but from Indian states/territories. Only Bombay (Mumbay) was given to the Brits as a wedding gift of Catherine of Braganza.

I did not change the mentions to the forcible conversions etc., although I believe they are exaggerated. Anyway, the inquisition was in full force (in Portugal) only during the reign of the Spanish kings Phillip(s) I-IV (1580-1640).

Thanks and all the best, --BBird 7 July 2005 16:17 (UTC)

I'm not really convinced of the fact that the Portuguese possessions were localised. The World Book encyclopedia 2003 (CD) has a map showing Portuguese possessions in the 16th century. Almost all of India's and Sri Lanka's coastline are shown under Portuguese occupation. So what happened to these areas? Were they not lost to the British? And why was Goa granted the same civic privileges as Lisbon? Were Angola/Mozambique also given this status? Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= July 7, 2005 17:59 (UTC)

Hi -- I think both can be easily explained --

1) Goa was the first major Portuguese colony, and the focal trade route of spices, the main (commercial) reason for the establishment of the Portuguese. When gold started flooding from Brazil, the Indian trade became less important. Anyway Goa was important latter only due to historical reasons.

2) As for most of India being under Portuguese rule -- This never happened nor could happen. The Portuguese population at the time was around 2-3 mn people. The resources to actually do it were only available much latter, under British rule. Portugal and England are allies for centuries (except under Spanish/Absburg rule) and the brits never took forcibly a de facto Portuguese territory. They just installed themselves where the Portuguese could not reach. As for the Encl, it may reflect a (European view) "de jure" domination under international treaties which never occurred in practice.

Thanks --BBird 7 July 2005 18:17 (UTC)

Image:India_topo.jpg

I have uploaded the corrected version. The map you suggested for reference was perfect, it had already the same projection, made it easy for me (I hate drawing borders by hand). Hopefully it is correct now. The solid white lines (same as before) show the borders which are actually controlled by each country, while the dot-lines show the "theoretical" borders. I have also uploaded a PNG version, but I think it is too big, and it is only marginally better then the JPG version. Thinking about it, I'm also uploading Image:India_topo_big.jpg, it is in the original size (3000px), but only slightly bigger than the PNG w/ 1400px. It shows the imperfection of the topography dataset (GLOBE), e.g. in the Ganges plain. So I think the best version is 1400px JPG. Since you are admin, you can delete the others. For information on how the map was created, see the image description page. Greetings, --Captain Blood 7 July 2005 23:07 (UTC)

Ian Brown

That's me. I created that name and asked for a name change at Wikipedia:Changing_username. Seems that no-one actually looks at these requests, so I've just continued on with my old logon. - Ian ≡ talk 8 July 2005 00:41 (UTC)

South Eastern Railway

I am not too happy with what you have done to South Eastern Railway. There are over fifty articles which refer to the UK railway and so far only two or three which link to the Indian one. Will you please do one of the following:

(Preferably) move South Eastern Railway (UK) back to South Eastern Railway - and provide an {{otheruses}}-style link at the top of it to the Indian SER.
Complete the job and modify all articles with links to South Eastern Railway to point to the proper article.

Thanks. -- RHaworth 2005 July 8 00:54 (UTC)

OK, I will grant you the Systemic Bias argument but I find it difficult to accept your claim of ennui. As a non-Sysop, I hesitate to say this, but ... On Special:Movepage it says You are responsible for making sure that links continue to point where they are supposed to go. Are you really setting a good example to mere editors? -- RHaworth 21:22, 2005 July 12 (UTC)

What that really means is that there should be no double redirects or self redirects. Such pages point to nowhere. There are lots of pages that do not link directly link to the article. Its really not a crime, someone or the other is bound to fix it. It really doesn't need an admin to carry out the task does it? :) Regards, 08:59, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

subst

I looked at the Indian cities template. It doesn't require to be substituted as it doesn't add any unnecessary categories to the project page yet. If required in the future, we'll do that. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} July 8, 2005 08:18 (UTC)

Loksatta

The article was submitted pursuant to the following passage in the speedy deletion policy:

3. Any article whose contents consist only of an external link, "See also" section, book reference, category tag, template tag, or interwiki link.

The article consisted only of an external link and was nominated. - Aaron Hill July 8, 2005 09:32 (UTC)

Ahh dont worry about it, I'm highly strung from dealing with vandalism. Sorry for being terse. - Aaron Hill July 8, 2005 10:28 (UTC)

Thanks for the barnstar

Hello Nicholas, I thank you for the barnstar for “persistent effort to tag all Indian cities”; I accept your appreciation with utmost humbleness. Actually, still a number of Indian cities require wikiproject Indian cities tag. I shall continue to identify such cities and towns and continue to put the tag. It has another dimension also: this tagging “business” also gives an idea about the “missing cities”, and to begin with stubs may be created for such missing cities and towns. Again, I thank you for the barnstar. Shortly, I will give my comments about Goa input box . Bye now.--Bhadani 8 July 2005 13:06 (UTC)

Category:Peaks of India

Hi. Why do think it's necessary to create a subcategory of Category:Mountains of India for the mountains that are technically considered peaks? WikiProject Mountains has not decided to do this (what I would consider over-categorization) for any other country. RedWolf July 8, 2005 16:45 (UTC)

I thought it would separate the two, making it easier to identify the highest points in an Indian state from the hill ranges. I wasn't aware that the wikiproject had decided not to have the same. Is it so egregious? You can put it up for deletion if so. Regards. =Nichalp «Talk»= July 8, 2005 16:58 (UTC)

Murphys' Law#6.I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory. 24.61.229.179 8 July 2005 21:02 (UTC)

Please take a quick peek at ~~Concern~~Talk:Tsushima_Island/Archive_4#No_Big_Deal and act accordingly! Thanks Fra nkB 8 July 2005 19:56 (UTC)

Above link updated while updating my archive by stealing this post! <G> FrankB 18:43, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Back

Hi, can you use a different color coding ?. It looks pretty bad now ... or instead of using a color code, why not use a background image ? (tricolor) ?. --IMpbt 9 July 2005 02:10 (UTC)

The surrey color code looks nice, how about a saffron/green tinge (similar to one for new messages ?) ?.If we can't, I would rather choose a pastel color like DEFFAD (add a hex or delete a hex).

Thanks

Thanks for also supporting my IFD nominations of the Brazil symbols. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 9 July 2005 08:01 (UTC)

No probs :) =Nichalp «Talk»= July 9, 2005 08:02 (UTC)

Juhu Aerodrome

Are u sure the Juhu airstrip is capable for emergency landing of Boeing 747's ? I think you are mistaken here and am quite certain at max it can handle the turbo-prop aircraft .

New cricket collaboration of the fortnight

Just to let you know that West Indian cricket team, which you voted for, is the new Cricket Collaboration of the Fortnight. Please come along and help improve it! Stephen Turner 10:00, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

History of India

An article on Indian independence movement does exist. Do you want me to write a brief summary on it? Thanks --IncMan 03:23, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

Nichalp, I couldn't work on Saturday as expected due to rain and other non-wiki engagements. Will try and work on it and other projects later. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 05:23, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

It ok. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:29, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

Flag of Hong Kong

I saw your featured article Flag of India, and it's really fab! Recently I've modelled Flag of Hong Kong on yours. I think I need your opinion which is surely useful for improving the article. :) -- Jerry Crimson Mann 07:29, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. Your opinions are pretty straight to the point. For the second problem, i.e. the left-alighned image, I don't have an idea to deal with it...The image is really too long. :-/ -- Jerry Crimson Mann 07:41, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Re: India links

Thanks for the welcome note. Jyotirmaya 08:53, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome :)

List of Oklahoma birds

Hi,You objected to the featured list nomination because, in part, you wished to see a brief description in each section. Such descriptions have (finally) been added to all sections. You might want to revisit ypur objection now. Thank you. Dsmdgold 15:56, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

Voted in support. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:02, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

India map

I'm glad that you like the map, and thanks for the award, it's a great honor (although I don't really deserve it, b/c drawing those maps is easy thanks to GMT's programmers). I have uploaded a new version: Image:India_topo.png:

I have corrected/added the (new) cities (In some places, it gets a little crowded). If there are still errors, don't hesitate to tell me, it's no big effort.
The dull city names: Unfortunately, I can't improve that. The labels are pure white, with black outline. The only way to make them brighter, would be to make them larger (bad, obscures the topography) or without outline (would worsen the readabiliy in areas with bright or mixed background, e.g. the Himalayas, borders...).
It's 1400px PNG, is this ok? I wasn't sure, b/c in Geography of India the 3000px JPG version is used??? (FYI: the 3000px PNG version is 10 MB!)
About the advantage of PNG for later modification: yes that's true, but in the special case of these maps, it might be easier to install GMT (at least under Linux), and run the script (see Image:India_topo.jpg) to reproduce the map. For pure looking, the difference between the PNG and JPG maps is negligible. Also, these maps have antialias artifacts, so later working on them is difficult anyway, even with PNG. So, the decision is not easy, considerung the difference in size.
About commons: I'm aware of that, but I think it should be reserved for images without labels. These maps have all English labels, so while they can be used in other WP's, translated versions would be better. For instance, all the maps in category:GMT images have links to the german version.

Greetings, --Captain Blood 18:29, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

India map again

Regarding the NPOV borders for other maps: Yes, I'm aware of that problem now. But first I'll have to convert those borders into a GMT-usable format, b/c I don't want to draw them by hand for every map.
Regarding the dull labels: (we are talking about the 1400px version?) I have thought about uploading a version without any labels, maybe you want to try and find a better way to draw them? Maybe there are graphics editors with better text-drawing capabilities. I have found the current solution the best compromise between readability and efficiency (I let GMT do the work), but if there is a better way, I'd like to know. --Captain Blood 20:46, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Rafique Zakaria

There are two articles on Zakaria namely Rafique Zakaria and Rafiq Zakaria. I thought of making a redirect but I am not very sure which spelling is correct. Seeing your work on Rafique Zakaria, I believe you could do the needful. Gaurav1146 09:56, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Rafiq Zakaria is the correct spelling. I have made the redirect. Thanks for informing me. =Nichalp «Talk»= 10:03, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Former Portuguese Colonies

Hello Nichalp! First of all let me tell that your wikiwork is impressive. Thanks for you post on the Former Portuguese colonies. I did add Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli to the category. The criteria I was following was that of portuguese possessions after World War II (If we did go back in time the list would be much bigger and the exact meaning of colony ambiguous), plus Brazil (due to it's importance). Of course you might disagree. If you do disagree (and remove the category from the territories of former portuguese India), do you think we can agree, then, that this category should at least comprise the existing colonies as of the Carnation revolution of 1974 in Portugal (plus Brazil?)? Hope to hear from you! The Ogre 15:24, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No I don't disagree, and the post-WW2 limit is fine. But you should put up the minimum criteria for inclusion on the category page. Thanks, =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:59, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Indian districts

Thanks for initiating this project. Currently, most of the articles about Indian towns having the same name as their districts have been presented in the same article. This information will naturally have to be segregated. But, my problem is different - it relates to naming the article. I am giving an example: say, Ranchi is a town as well as a district. Article about Ranchi town will remain as Ranchi. What should be the name of the article about the district? - Ranchi District or Ranchi district. Please comment, so that I may commence creating articles on different districts of Jharkhand and Bihar. Thanks.--Bhadani 16:13, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The word district should be in small case. This nominclature is used in newspapers as well. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:04, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

DYK

Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Watson's Hotel, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently-created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

DYK

Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Indian Railways Fan Club, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently-created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

India History

Hi, sorry for not responding earlier, I added a reply in the history discussion bit, inclusding the needed references, and was editing the Indus area, ill discuss further with you tommorow, although im not sure if I can be online, thankyou for collaberating with me on this ;-) If your next areas will be the Mauryans, then we should do this under the new 'epic age' heading, which can be the current 16 kingdoms one, and encompass that. Vastu 16:23, 13 July 2005 (GMT)

Goa: inaccurate info

Hi, .. i noticed that you have reverted the edits i made for the goa article .. i'm a goan and i've been reading and learning goan history has a hobby .. I feel that there are numerous GROSS mistakes in the article which should be corrected .. perhaps we should take the opinion of a historian who knows goan history . such incorrect information could seriouly dent the credibility of wikipedia .. Nice to know a Mumbaikar who takes so much interest in wikip :) i'm livin in mumbai too .. (for the last 2 years ) but i guess i'll be moving out soon .. Leningrad

incidentally, Fredrick Noronha (FN) happens to be a good friend of mine. I called him up yesterday and we discussed the "noise" in the page .. I guess he was unhappy about the eurasian population thing too.. its just absurd! like apples in the sahara . I guess he has mentioned it in the discuss page .. Leningrad

Dab's reply

Hi Nichalp. I realise that my edit to Talk:History of India might've hidden Dab's reply to your queries there. Just FYI. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 08:56, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Oh ya. Saw that. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 09:04, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Cherapunji?

It's written in your DYK's that Cherapunji is the wettest place in the world. But isn't it Mawsynram? Thanks

--May the Force be with you! Shreshth91($ |-| r 3 $ |-| t |-|) 13:52, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

karnataka map

lets start on the map of karnataka, there was change in districts recently. --Shivu 14:38, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Constellation diagrams IfD

Hi Nichalp. You pointed out my mistake on the IfD on July 9 for the bunch of constellation diagrams. I've since corrected the capital letter in the links to the new images, which are Gray coded. The reason I uploaded the new ones was to replace the old ones since they were, as you rightly say not Gray-coded. Seeing as your comment could be interpreted as an objection, I wonder if you could go back to IfD and see if you still object to their deletion: they aren't used anywhere at all. Thanks. -Splash 22:27, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]