Talk:Kolkata/Archive 7

Maidan

I do not think the Maidan article should be merged with Kolkata. As of now, it has no extra information, but it is a seperate and important enough entity in itself with a lot of history and atmosphere. Central Park and New York City are seperate articles ! 70.17.163.241 11:28, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

west bengal

please focus on the west bengal article as well

Public Domain

The old Bourne and Shepherd and other old postcard pictures should be public domain now. What about the photos taken during WW2 by the American GI s ? 128.2.179.205Ray

Ethnic Communities

I plan to put in a paragraph per each community, it would be great if we had more public domain Kolkata pictures though. Thanks. 128.2.179.205Ray.

Name

After the recent round of voting which lasted for two months, I have moved the Calcutta page to Kolkata. Due to a known software bug, I had to manually merge the contents of the talk page. Results of the voting: Kolkata: 40 Calcutta: 30

 =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 12:23, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Building and organisation nomenclature

Was Calcutta High Court renamed to Kolkata High Court after the city's English name was changed? There was a recent edit that changed Calcutta High Court to Kolkata High Court but I don't believe this has been done yet officially. Could somebody shed light on this?

-- Urnonav 16:32, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Its Calcutta High Court. Change of name does not necessarily means that institutions change their name.  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 08:50, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

That's what I had thought. I have changed back one instance in the article. -- Urnonav 06:56, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

The use of "bastardization" in this article is very POV. A more proper term that is NPOV is simply "transliteration". The British colonials/invaders weren't purposely respelling the Bengali language terms and changing them... they simply were trying to render them in English language phonology. Major difference, and the article reads much more NPOV to drop the allegatory tone of using "bastardization". If someone were "bastardizing" the term Bangla, then the result would have been something like Bae-Ni Ga-Lah or Ibn Gola or Ubi-England... One could perhaps argue that calico was a bastardization of Kolkata, but they'd be reading too much into what is simply an understandable linguistic change when two languages with very different phonological schemes come into contact. sturmde 9 Jun 2005

Main page needs summaries of separate articles

We need a brief on sections like history on the man page inspite of moving the history section into a separate page.

Arunram 04:23, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I think all the various institutions should be renamed Kolkata, it sounds better too. It's nice to hear everyone use the bengali version of the name.

Sean

There was a discussion on this actually, Sean. Institution names are just that: names! Talking about Bangla names or English names is kind of not worthwhile. So, if Calcutta Times is not renamed to Kolkata Times or say University XYZ of Calcutta is not renamed University XYZ of Kolkata, we can't and shouldn't change that on the article. Hope this clears things up! Urnonav 05:36, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Climate and Geography

I don't know about anyone else, but I would like to know more about the physical geography of Kolkata: mountains, rivers, etc. Also, some climate information--like temperatures and humidity, etc. would be nice.

Name change

I'm curious, when did the city council officially change the spelling of the name? I assume the pronunciation of the name hasn't changed and is still /kæl.ka.tə/, if not could a pronunciation guide be given using IPA.
I'm a bit perplexed, if most people and organisations still refer to the city as Calcutta, wouldn't it be better suited to keep it at Calcutta. My main reason for keeping it at Calcutta is because we wouldn't move Vienna to Wien or Copenhagen to København, as these are estabished names in English for these cities, as is Calcutta. Doesn't this name change go against the established policy of using common names? It has been established for centuries, that the city's name in English is Calcutta. Mark 05:37, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

This has been discussed to length. 1. The pronunciation has changed when the name was shifted from Calcutta to Kolkata. 2. The changing of the name applies to English. 3. Its not really the same thing as the fact that cities in Europe have English versions of their own names. Generally such usage is not a matter of unilateralism, but something that is widely accepted (see, for example, [1] that München uses Munich in official tourist promotion in English). In the case of Kolkata a conscious political decision was taken to change the name. The descent response would be to respect that. --Soman 08:05, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

But what business does a government of a non-English-speaking country have dictating what English-speakers call its settlements? This is as if the British government were to decree that French-speakers were not supposed to refer to "Londres". It would rightly be seen as arrogance on the part of the British. Flagboy 05:36, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

What do you mean by "non-English-speaking country"? Aren't we talking about India? --Rick 22:48 12 January 2005

English is the co-official national language of India (along with Hindi). So basically, India is an English-speaking country. English is not an official language of France, Austria, or Denmark. --Ttownfeen 04:49, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The synchronization between Hindi word Kalkatta and कोलकता do not match. Chirags 01:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

This article is too big!

Make smaller articles on specific things, and use this main article as a summary.

I agree, there is currently far too much detail. Akamad 13:39, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Since there seems to be a consensus on the fact that the article is too big (and Wikipedia:Article size says over 50kb is when it's time to consider chopping up, this was over 70kb), I have moved much of the "Places of interest" section to Places of interest in Kolkata. I see this as the best way I can think of of helping fix the length problem. If anyone has a better idea, or thinks more of this section should be in the main article, I'd be happy to hear any ideas you have. I know this article is too long and has to be fixed, I tried fixing it the best way that I could see, but if anyone has a better idea of how to fix it, then present your idea. Mr. Know-It-All 20:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Kolkata Photographs

In general there is a shortage of photographs of Indian cities by Indians who know their city well. If Wikepedia editors want, they are most welcome to use some of the photographs of Kolkata taken by me recently. Hopefully this helps.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/85296574@N00/sets/1261158/

CalStreet

Hi,

Calstreet is still not a complete portal. Don't add a link to it, unless it is pointing to an article.Chirags 22:42, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

To the guy from Calstreet: 1. Wikipedia is not for posting ads 2. On your website main page itself, you have put up a notice, "Dear Visitors,

Please note this website is still under construction. The website will take another month and a half to work in full motion. As a result of this you will find lots of features not working.

Thanking you.

Webmaster "

3. You should not be knocking off someone's comment like this. You missed yourself a chance of publicising your own site thru comment pages.. if that's what your intention was.

4. There are other more better and effective ways to increase traffic to your website. One of them is to tie up with wikipedia and provide content from wikipedia to your own website. This was a free advise.

Cheers,

Chirags 15:24, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Ethnic communities in Kolkata

The sub-heading Ethnic communities in Kolkata contains very interesting information and photo.However,in the article Kolkata I think the content of the sub-heading is a bit too large,given the concern on the size of Kolkata.

If possible,can the content of the Ethnic communities in Kolkata be transferred to a new article of the same name, while there remains a summary of the content under Kolkata , along with a link to the new article Ethnic communities in Kolkata ?

I think this move would not only shorten the size of Kolkata,but it conforms to the usual rule of articles related to Indian cities,and will allow for newer sections like Economy,Administration etc.

Similarly, the section on Festival can be shortened and transferred to a new article/category.--Dwaipayanc 08:42, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Changes

I have made several changes in the Kolkata page.The size has been somewhat reduced.Please review the article and modify.Also, the Administration [2] section needs to be developed.--Dwaipayanc 18:59, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no consensus, leaning on oppose. —Nightstallion (?) 09:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

Kolkata → Calcutta – Calcutta is a far more common name in English than Kolkata (note Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)). The University of Calcutta, for example, continues to spell it that way on its website. This same rationale has been used to prevent the Mecca article from being moved to Makkah, despite the Saudi preference of the latter spelling since the 1980s.

Add #Support or #Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

Support move to Calcutta

1. Support as requestor joturner 19:42, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
2. Weak support. The EB is far more bound to official names than Wp is. Septentrionalis 20:31, 19 February 2006 (UTC) Reply to E pluribus Anthony, below.
3. Support.As requestor.--Dwaipayanc 16:57, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
4. Support. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places) – Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. I think Calcutta is more common amongst the English language Wikipedia audience as a whole. Jll 14:43, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

   Comment I think the question herein, then, is whether Kolkata is excessively ambiguous ... and given its usage (and with the article intro) I don't think it is. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 17:50, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

   Comment I don't think it is ambiguous either. The only reason I am supporting the move is that I think Calcutta is still more common amongst English Wikipedia users worldwide. No doubt Kolkata will eventually eclipse it, but I don't think that has happened yet. Jll 18:55, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

5. Support. Proteus (Talk) 00:25, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose move to Calcutta

1. Weak oppose There are more than 9 million Google hits for "Kolkata" ... yes: less than half as many as for "Calcutta". However, given that the locale's name was changed to K in 2000 and is not by any means uncommon, I see little pressing need to change it to C only for it to possibly be changed back to K once it gains more currency. For example, a perusal of the West Bengal section of the Government of India website uses both, with more instances of K than C. Moreover, publications like Encyclopaedia Britannica (Book of the Year; Almanac) increasingly list K first and C parenthetically after it. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 20:02, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
2. Oppose. If Kolkata for Calcutta, as with Mumbai for Bombay and Chennai for Madras, is how English-speaking Indians themselves (or at least their powers that be) wish to refer to their city, then I'd say keep Calcutta as a redirect. (Not necessarily the case with individuals who adapt or change their name, for instance Frédéric rather than Fryderyk Chopin.) I realise, though, there are exceptions, such as the university. David Kernow 21:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
3. Weak support. Made a google search for English language pages in the .in-domain. Calcutta 612,000 hits, Kolkata 339,000 hits. Seems like the Indians still usually are using the name Calcutta. Oppose Google News search: Kolkata 4580 hits, Calcutta 521 hits What name is used in British English and American English is less relevant, when the city is in a country where English is spoken. --Boivie 13:09, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
4. Oppose. If it's the official name, we should use it. A redirect from Calcutta is enough. --Christie 14:19, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
5. Support, based on usage in English. Olessi 05:38, 21 February 2006 (UTC) Weak oppose, as Kolkata is the official name in English, an official language in India. Olessi 17:42, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
6. Oppose per Olessi. This, along with Mumbai and Chennai is different from prescriptivism like Kyiv and Makkah because the "new" names are commonly used by English speakers (in India). --Saforrest 08:18, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
7. Oppose per the above. —Nightstallion (?) 09:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

See last vote and lots and lots of arguments on this isssue: /Archive 3#Straw poll on the move of Calcutta to Kolkata. --Philip Baird Shearer 20:44, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

• Note that this article itself states in the opening paragraph that "many people and organizations still refer to it as Calcutta, which is the usual name for the city in English". joturner 20:40, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I wonder if this is still the case with Mumbai – sorry, Bombay ...? David Kernow 21:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Interestingly for Mumbai/Bombay (which changed its name in 1995 to M): there are some 48.8 million Google hits for "Mumbai", compared to some 32.5 million for "Bombay". E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 21:18, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Although the Google test is often despised, it does show how Mumbai has become more preferable in common English while Kolkata has not (yet).joturner 22:38, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Google tests notwithstanding, as noted above, this is likely just a matter of time. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 13:22, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps, for the sake of consistency, the vote should include Bombay/Mumbai and Madras/Chennai (any others?), i.e. become a multiple-page vote (with the voting period extended). Or would this really roll the worms out of the can onto the carpet?  Best wishes, David Kernow 15:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the worms should stay in the can (i.e., other locales treated uniquely), but they sometimes help in weight management. :) E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 15:47, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd just like to note my love for Mullywood cinema...At any rate, my feeling is that we should just leave this be - it'll never be satisfied to everyone's liking, but the current situation is basically acceptable. john k 18:16, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Modern Kolkata

Do we really need this section Modern Kolkata? Though the section has good information (like the description of CBD), the theme is repeatitive, and has slightly been handled in the Economy section. Please comment.Thanks.--Dwaipayanc 11:57, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

History

The history section was quite empty so I made it about 5 times bigger. There are some amazing facts relating to Calcutta's past that nobody had mentioned - I put these into the histort & trivia section.

ASIA's FIRST RAILWAY ASIA'S FIRST TELEGRAPH INDIA'S FIRST NEWSPAPER WHERE THE LINK BETWEEN MOSQUITOES & MALARIA WAS PROVED THE BIRTHPLACE OF WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

Mighty facts, but of course, Indians have almost written the British out of their history. )-:

There is no reference to Mother Teresa in the article. Can someone please add? - Ganeshk (talk) 08:01, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Done.--Dwaipayanc 11:48, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Images

Hi! We have a good number of images on Kolkata. However, there seems to be too many of them. We can choose some that can be removed. And due to browser differences, sometimes there are images are seen differently by different users ! Following is the copy of talk I had with blacksun

"Oh ! When I am seeing in my browser, the 4 photos on transport section appears in the same section i.e. transport. This may be a browser/ settings problem, I have faced similar problems earlier.I use Mozilla firefox. Anyway, I do not mind removing that old horse carriage photo, but a traffic jam photo should be there. If necessary, you can put your arguments in the talk page of Kolkata , so that other wikipedia users also can see the problem and decide ehat to do, rather than just 2 of us. I am copying this message to Kolkata talk page, please answae there." Please see so that images are used appropriately in the article so that they represent a good picture of Kolkata as a whole. Bye. Thanks.--Dwaipayanc 09:06, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

How about creating a gallery of images as in Shimla, Jaisalmer etc.? Bye.--Dwaipayanc 09:24, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree there are too many images. Some of the b/w snaps can go. Gallery on the article should be avoided. These could all go into a image gallery similar to Kerala image gallery. And a link provided to it. Ganeshk (talk) 18:07, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Ganeshk. The image problem now seems solved. We can create such an image gallery (Kolkata image gallery) separately and put all Kolkata-related images there as a central repositiory! And then , take images from there to use in the Kolkata article considering the relevance of the images visavis the sections of the article. Thank you.--Dwaipayanc 08:42, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't see it solved yet. The article is still cluttered with too many images. - Ganeshk (talk) 17:29, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Looks good now. - Ganeshk (talk) 01:16, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Kolkata in the media

Can we remove Kolkata in the media? The section is not that necessary. With so many red links, it seems an eye-sore.One or two words in Media may suffice.--Dwaipayanc 09:38, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

check out the media section in Bangalore. I think its a good example of how to make a "media" section acceptable. Rama's Arrow 18:31, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions

Hi all - very good work by the collaborators. I have some suggestions to make:

1. "Tourism" section should not appear like a brochure.
2. "Colonial Architecture" and "Modern Kolkata" need to be absorped into two sections: "Infrastructure" and "History." Such sections are usually not seen in city FAs.
3. "Education" - the listing of colleges is not the right pattern. You can create a fork - "Education in Kolkata."

Please create forks for "Geography" "Education" "Architecture." The images are great, and the balance can be achieved by distributing them into the forks.

Check out Bangalore - a great example. Good luck, wonderful work! Rama's Arrow 18:31, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh boy, I am an idiot. I kept looking at top of this page for new suggestions instead of the end. Anyways, ya, I think combining those two into something generic like "Architecture" could work. I don't particularly like "Modern Kolkata" section. (Blacksun 13:44, 20 March 2006 (UTC))

Images

If I may make a suggestion, the article appears to be overrun by images and while images are always great, they must not become the central focal point of the article. It might help significantly if we kept the images relevent and maximized on the quality of textual content. Also, Mordern Kolkota and Colonial Buildings can be merged into a civic administration (and city planning) segment. AreJay 04:20, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Politics

Can someone add a line or two about political scene on kolkata? No POV just something about the fact that they have a ruling communist party for so and so years. I dont know much about that topic. It can probably go at end of the history section. (Blacksun 14:35, 20 March 2006 (UTC))

In fact, I added such a line at the end of "history", with reference. Now I dont see it there! Anyway, I shall see to it. Thanks.--Dwaipayanc 16:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

There should be a separate chapter on KMC politics. --Soman 17:30, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi! That was a good idea Soman. And who better than you to start such an article which would require great knowledge and resource of politics and history ? Please Soman, try to start such an article. It would be interesting to see people like Chittaranjan Das, Subhash Chandra Bose and Subrata Mukherjee, Bikash Bhattacharya coming into the same article! Bye.--Dwaipayanc 18:04, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

New Format

So we made a lot of changes in overall structure based on Canberra's (FA) city page. Thanks to Dwaipayanc for pointing that one out. I think even though this is a change from usual Indian city template, it works well with the needs of Kolkatta page as it has a strong focus on architecture and culture. I was wondering what is people's take on media section. Should it be kept as part of City culture or be kept as a separate section? If you think it should be separated, where would be the best spot for it? (Blacksun 16:11, 20 March 2006 (UTC))

on second thought

Actually, I moved media out now to follow the indian city format. I am guessing even the current format might not be accepted as it is not according to the convention. No reason to push it.(Blacksun 17:03, 20 March 2006 (UTC))

Image-war again

Hi ! I readded the radar image and the slum image in the sections in "urban structure" and "demographics" respectively. The image count is 17 now, which, I think sounds optimal. Please comment. Thanks.--Dwaipayanc 18:20, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Thats fine. I really like the radar image in urban structure. I removed it because it did not seem to belong in its old spot. Regarding the slum image, it is fine too as it shows all the sides of Kolkata. And yes, I think images look optimal now. Nice work!--Blacksun 20:04, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Lead in problems

This article has a rather boring first paragraph. Do we really need to dedicate entire lines at start of the article on the name change? Yes, I have gone through the talk archives related to the this topic. However, I find it rather bogus. Chennai should be used as a template here (simply say, "formerly known as" and it can be mentioned again in history. Having the entire first paragraph about this is ridiculous. Kolkata is mentioned as kolkata in most of world media except for ones connected to Britain. An introduction is supposed to be summary of important items mentioned in rest of the article. FOUR lines related to the name out of the first six lines is bit of an overkill. Please advice.

Support. The lead should be changed accorfingly.--Dwaipayanc 04:34, 21 March 2006

(UTC)

This is done!--Blacksun 00:40, 22 March 2006 (UTC)