Talk:South India/Archive 2

"North of what? South of what?" That's exactly what I have told in my previous reply. We need to identify the reference axis with which one can determine the position. Here the natural reference line is the "Narmada River" which approximately divides India into North and South and with reference to which entire State of Maharashtra falls to the South of India. Coming to your (in fact, most of Indian's) counter in saying that "Maharashtra does not belong to South, but it belongs to West", I would like to ask "Are the directions, south and west mutually exclusive?" in other words, do you mean to say, if a particular geographical position belongs to West then it implies that it does not belong to South? In which case, your analogy would imply that Los Angeles would only be a western city not a southern city. Considering the Indian territory excluding the waters, India's west consists of the states "Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan" of which "Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, and Maharashtra" fall to the South and the remaining states fall to the North. Everyone knows that the intersection of South and West is called Southwest, hence "Kerala, Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra" should be technically called as Southwestern states, and Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu should be called as Southeastern States. Finally everybody knows that South is the union of Southeast and Southwest. FYI, the capital city of Orissa, Bhuvaneshwar, is the Headwaters of Southeastern Railyways of India.

--yny 18:11, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi there, all:

I agree that you cannot draw a strict geographical line to divide India to North and South. But, the term South Indian states refers to the 4 southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu only. From the time of British colonial rule, the term South India is used to describe the region which is now in these four states only. More over, the article is talking only about the statistics of these 4 states. The population, economy, history, etc mentioned in this article is not of any city or places from Maharashtra or Orissa. It is only of the four southern most states. The Indian government administrative division also has identified these 4 states in South India. Many encyclopedias says the same. Plese refer the below map: http://www.mapsofindia.com/south-india-travel.html . See what Tourism ministry has to say about South India : India reaches its peninsular tip with South India, which begins with the Deccan in the north and ends with Cape Comorin. The states in South India are Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, a favourite leisure destination. The southeast coast, mirroring the west, also rests snugly beneath a mountain range---the Eastern Ghats. ( Source : Incredible India - The Official Tourism Website of Ministry of Tourism) So, I suggest to remove Mumbai, Pune etc from the list of cities in the page. We can add a sentence which conveys the user a clear definition about what is South India. I suggest to change the lead as follows : "South India, or Deccan (from Sanskrit word Dakshina meaning the South), comprises of four southern most states in India; Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and the two Union Territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry. However, the geographical region which comprises South India are those regions which lies below the 20th parallel. This region includes the entire Indian Peninsula, south of the Vindhya Range. The Narmada and Mahanadi rivers form the northern boundaries of the region, while the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal surround the peninsula in the west, south and east respectively.

The southernmost point of the region (and of mainland India), is Kanyakumari. The geography of Southern India is diverse, encompassing two mountain ranges — the Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats and a plateau heartland. The Tungabhadra, Kaveri, Krishna and Godavari rivers are important non-perennial sources of water.

The southern part of India, except Maharashtra and Goa on the west coast and Orissa on the east cost, is a Dravidian linguistic-cultural region of India that comprises the four states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and the two Union Territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry." Also, we should remove Mumbai, Pune, Panaji etc from the table list. Hope you all will agree to this change.

Cheers, -- Rajith Mohan ^{(Talk to me..)} 08:57, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

""I agree that you cannot draw a strict geographical line to divide India to North and South. ""

I totally disagree with that statement. Please bear in mind that geographical line need not be a physical line. One can always draw an imaginary line with some knowledge of mathematics and also one should note that equator is such an imaginary line not a physical line drawn along the globe and I don't see any problem drawing a geographical line for India. Its just the matter of drawing a parallel to the equator that passes through the center of a given geographical region, in this case it is India. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ynyus75 (talk • contribs) 14:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Your definition is taking us back to what I disproved. First of all "South" is a geographical term than a sociological or historical term. It always depends on current political picture. In fact we can have new sections describing historically what South India used to be keeping the existing definition which is more practical and accurate. How would it look if a person defines India as a British Colony and adds a note that now India is an independent country? Wouldn't it be proper if that person defined India as an independent country and used to be a British Colony?

Second of all, on one hand you are saying South India comprises of only four Southern most states (why doesn't it contain all the southern states?), and on the other hand you are saying this region encompasses mountain ranges - the Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats, and the Rivers, Godavari, Krishna. One should keep in mind that both Godavari and Krishna originate from Maharashtra and they are much below the 20th parallel.

This article does describe only Drividian States and in order this article be meaningful it should include the cultures of Non-Dravidian Southern States, viz Maharashtra, Goa and Orissa. I would recommend to add sections to this end.

I would strongly suggest to keep the facts as it is, that, Southern Indian States are Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu, and add additional sections to include historical or other views of South India.

--yny (talk) 14:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi,

I provided the valid citation from the Gov.of India site, stating that South India comprises of four states only. Furthermore, as I already stated above, the facts and figures in the article such as the percapita income comparison between North India and South India is based on these four states only. It doesnot include any cities from Maharashtra such as Mumbai.

The contents of the article and the references are confrained on the four states of Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala and TamilNadu only. Please analyse the facts and compromise the things. As I suggested before, we should remove Mumbai and Bhubaneswar from the Major cities column. Mean while we can state in the lead that the Geographical southern India includes parts of Maharashtra and Orissa. If you are still stubborn and insists that Maharashtra-Orissa should be kept in the document, the further contents of the article such as the population, the literacy rates, the religious figures, the economy, the figures on Software exports, the figures on cultivated corps, per capita income, etc, etc, will be absolutely wrong. Unless and until you cannot re-write the whole article to include Maharashtra and Orissa figures and facts, it is not advisable to state that Maharashtra and Orissa is also part of South India. You will be misleadig the readers then.

Cheers, -- Rajith Mohan ^{(Talk to me..)} 04:36, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I think rajith is correct... The cited link appears to be reliable source... We should rewrite the article so that it comprises of only these four states...Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 10:21, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I have already told that the facts of the article are incomplete since it is only talking about Dravidian States, it does not mean that we have to alter the geography. As a matter of fact, even the 20 Degree N is also not accurate, as India stretch from 36 degrees N to 8 Degrees N the center of which is 22 degrees N. We need to have a clear cut definition of the fact. Indian Railways also part of Government of India and please check their zones you will be surprised, till now I used to think that Bhuvaneswar is the Headwaters of South-Eastern Railways, but to my surprise, the head quaters for South Eastern Railways is Kolkotta. I don't know what they have in their mind. This article doesn't need any citations as it is obvious for any person with knowledge of Mathematics.

Here is my scientific analysis, it will prove who is adamant.

The Latitude one of the Northern most city of India: Karakoram Range - Jammu & Kashmir - 36.10 N 75.00 E

The Latitude one of the Southern most city of India: Comorin, C. - Tamil Nadu - 8.04 N 77.36 E

Hence the closest Latitude that acts as the center reference line for North and South India: 22 degrees North

Lets compute the Latitudes of Majors cites of India with reference to 22 degrees North.

Adilabad - Andhra Pradesh - 19.37 N 78.30 E (South India)

Ichchapuram - Andhra Pradesh 19.07 N 84.44 E (South India)

Nirmal - Andhra Pradesh - 19.06 N 78.25 E (South India)

Mumbai - Maharashtra - 18.55 N 72.54 E (Should not consider as Southern City as 19.37 N is to the South of 18.55 N for Indians).

Pune - Maharashtra - 18.31 N 73.55 E

Nagpur - Maharashtra - 21.09 N 79.09 E (Compare with Adilabad 78.30 E, still Adilabad is an Eastern City and Nagpur is a western City for our learned Indians).

100% of Cities in Maharashtra fall exactly under 22th parallel (Computed using latitudes provided in www.mapsofindia.com)

62.07 percent of cities of Andhra Pradesh are to the North of Maharashtrian City, Vengurla-15.52 N - 73.4 E (computed based on the cities that are North of 15.52 N).

Orissa

Except Rourkela - Orissa - 22.25 N 85 E none of its major cities touched 22 N. (Computed from mapsofindia.com)

--yny (talk) 19:27, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but what Rajith has cited is a valid reference, but your's is a kind of "WP:OR". Let's go by what Rajith has cited as the website is Official Indian govt's tourism website. Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 02:15, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

As requested, here is an input on whether Maharashtra and Orissa should be considered to be part of South India or not. South India is primarily Dravidian where the term itself is considered to be a family of related ethnicities and languages. The same can be said of the Indo-Aryan family of North India. On an ethnic note, amongst the Brahmins there was a term called Pancha Dravidia which meant in Sanskrit "Five Dravidians". These five were considered Tamils, Telugus, Kannadigas, Marathis, and Gujuratis. However, on a linguistic note, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam (Southern Dravidian) make up the main four Dravidian langauges of South India -- also known as Southern Dravidian languages. In regards to writing scripts, the writing of Orissa resembles that of the circular Vatteluttu script of the Dravidians. But, on a geographical standpoint, one can clearly see that South India starts from the Northern borders of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and ends at the southern tip of Tamil Nadu. Also, to include Orissa and Maharashtra, we would have to includ part of Madhya Pradesh to fill in the gap between the two states.

Now that I've explained the ethnic, linguistic, and geographic aspects of this, let me explain that there is more than just North and South India. It could be said that there is not only North and South, but Central and East India. We have forgotten the "7 sisters of India" such as Assam and Nagaland. Eastern India is comprised of the Mon-Khmer and/ or Tibeto/ Burman families of ethnicities and languages which is distinct from the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian families.

Now, coming back to Maharashtra and Orissa, these two states can be considered part of Central India. The reason for this would be that they are indeed geographically located in the central part of the India. Even though ethnically, Maharashtrans and Gujuratis are Dravidian (Central Dravidian) there languages stem from Sanskrit or the Indo-Aryan family of languages. So basically, they are Dravidians who speak Indo-Aryan languages. In regards to the writing scripts, both Gujurati and Marathi scripts fall under the Devanagiri script. But, Orissa does not resemble the Devanagiri script, but the Vatteluttu script. Why is this? An explanation could be during the 10th century expansion of the Chola Empire of the Tamils where their writing, dance, martial arts, and other traditions have had an influence from the traditional Southern states of today going through to Orissa and towards the Malay peninsula. Thus, we can see the resemblance of the scripts between Orissa and the Vatteluttu scripts of the Dravidians (Southern Dravidians). To an extent we can see resemblances too in the martial arts of Manipur (which is near Orissa) and the Dravidian martial arts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala today.

So, my conclusion would be that Maharashtra and Orissa would be considered Central India geographically, and also because of their mix of being part of the Dravidian ethnic family along with the Indo-Aryan language family. Also, Orissa having the Dravidian style script, but its language belonging to the Indo-Aryan linguistic family. There are also Central Dravidian languages such as Kui and Kolami. Kolami is a minor Dravidian language in Orissa. My educated guess on how Indo-Aryan langauges came to be in Central India would be that 1) migration of Indo-Aryans into that region, 2) Introduction of Indo-Aryan langauges to the Dravidians of Central India. An example of this would be in Vietnam where the Southern part was dominated by the ethnic Chams. The Southern region of present day Vietnam was called Champa (a Hindu/Buddhist kingdom), while the Northern part was called Annam. The Annamese eventually took over Champa and over the course of time, the ethnic Chams started to diminish in numbers. Today, the Chams are a very small minority in Southern Vietnam as well as their language.

Out of due respect for the Maharashtran and Orissan editors, it would be up to them whether they want to be considered part of South India or not. Therefore, my decision on this is neutral. Wiki Raja (talk) 10:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why everybody is concerned about linking linguistic and cultural aspects of a region more than its geographical properties. Why a Marathi or an Orissi editor would be asked to chose whether they or North or South? It is not a dual-citizenship thing to be asked for the preference; its just the matter of geographical position and there is no need to ask anybody whether they belong to North India or South India as if they are two different countries. Maharashtra, Goa and Orissa geographically belong to Southern portion India period, whether or not the inhabitants are Dravidians or Aryans or Black or White. You don't need to belong to a race to be identified as a Southern Indian or Northern Indian

The position "center" does not belong to any of the directions "North, South, East and West". There is a subtle difference in defining Central-India and South-India (likewise North, East and West), while the definition for the former has flexibility which entirely depends on the radius of the central region, whereas the latter has a fixed meaning given the latitudes and longitudes of a region.

Secondly, we already have a central state, Madhya Pradesh(Madhya in Sanskrit means central) which is to the center of India not only to the vertical axis but also to the horizontal axis not considering waters.

State vs. Geographical Region (North, South, East or West) in India

A state is a geographical region of India designated by the central government.

A geographical region of India identified by its mere position with respect to the reference frame that from North/South/East/West regions. It does not require the permission of the Government or people unlike the States.

Geographical divisions:-

The North includes the Northeast and Northwest and the South includes the Southeast and the Southwest.

Similarly one can define East and West to include Northeast and Southeast, and Northwest and Southwest respectively.

There are two ways one can define geographical regions in India.

Intersecting regions:-

Northern States of India,

Southern States of India,

Eastern States of India and,

Western States of India.

Note: the above regions have some states in common, i.e., if a person belongs to Northern India he/she has to be in one of the Eastern or Western portions of India.

In order to consider non-intersecting geographical regions one needs to go further granular as follows:-

Northeastern States of India,

Northwestern States of India,

Southeastern States of India and,

Southwestern States of India, which eliminates the possibility of a person belonging to multiple geographical regions, because these regions are mutually exclusive.

--yny (talk) 17:08, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Take for example Africa. There is a South Africa, North Africa, East Africa, West Africa, and there is indeed a Central Africa. Other than that, to be honest, I am not really keen on this issue, but was requested to give my input. Otherwise, I respect everbody's opinions. Regards. Wiki Raja (talk) 22:19, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with South India = KN + KL + TN + AP. People who disagree are requested to get consensus first. Thanks. Saravask (talk) 04:06, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I already mentioned that India designated a State as central state, i.e Madhya Pradesh. Now lets say for the sake of discussion Maharashtra is a central state, which implies that half of the Maharashtra should belong to north and half to the south along horizontal axis, similarly, half should belong to east and half to the west along the vertical axis. But geographically it completely belongs to west and south then how can it become a central state?

No one is denying the fact that KN,KL,TN and AP are southern Indian states, what people and Indian government are denying is the fact that Maharashtra is a south Indian state which by geography belongs to southern portion of India.

--yny (talk) 14:48, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I found another website stating the same.. [5], [6], [7], [8]... Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 01:14, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

One of the links is an exact snapshot of wikipedia's previous version of this article, and in one of those links Goa was included in South India. So where is the credibility? People first have to understand the nuances of what is science, culture, literature and history. I don't really know why Indians mix them all. When one talks about geography why to confine it with language boundaries?

The following are my inferences from the Indian tourism web-site on what they call as Indian Geography. Guys you are going to learn new definitions of geography, keep all of your geography books away for a moment!

1. The directions East, West, North and South are mutually exclusive, i.e. they never meet, as opposed to the known belief that East and North intersect in Northeast and so on.

2. There is almost a one-to-one correspondence with a direction to a language-group or ethnic group.

South India - Dravidian language group, irrespective of geography, so it will not include Non-Dravidian speaking southern states such as Maharashtra, Goa and Orissa.

North India - Indo-Aryan-Language group surrounding New-Delhi.

East India - relatively eastern to North Indian ethnic group, not including the east-frontier states, i.e the seven sister states.

West India - relatively western to North India, limited to the states of Gujarat Goa and Maharastra,

Northeast India - The seven sister states on the east-frontier side of India, which are relatively east to North-India. Mind you the southern sister states are on the South-east of Bihar which is considered an eastern state. Don't be surprised if your flight heads southeast direction for a Northeastern destination from an eastern Indian state.

The Indian way of understanding things could be better explained by this example. The Communist parties in India, which are opposition parties for most of the time, are popularly known as the Left-Parties owing to their seating position in the Indian Parliament which is the position for the opposition parties. They are still called as the left parties even though they are the part of ruling coalition government. So its like a nickname. Similarly South-India is like a nickname to Dravidian-language speaking states which are to the South with respective to New-Delhi and it does not include all of the southern India with respect to the entire Indian map.

--yny (talk) 16:18, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I am not a regular editor in Wikipedia. But I am a regular user of wikipedia. So I believe that I can also record my statements here. The Indian government in its different sites says that only AP, TN, KL and KA are considered as South Indian states. Even the census department classified these states as the South Indian states. Also, in this article, all the information are saying only about these four states. See the percapita income box. It consider only these four states, not Maharashtra or Orissa. If cities from MH like Mumbai is also included, the percapita income will be far more greater than it is presently shown in the article.

To the users who argue to include MH and OR :

1) Show some valid references from the Government sites.

2) Re-write the entire article to include the revenue, demographics, culture, economy, etc etc from MH and Orissa too.. (this will be tedious job)

3) Support all your claims with valid citations.

Regards, Ashutosh Upadhyaya —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.165.51.78 (talk) 13:39, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Could you provide a valid reference from census department of India regarding the term "South India"? I am wondering how they defined it, i.e South-India as a separate country or as a state or as a geographic region. The question of whether or not including MH or OR arises when somebody defines that region as a country or a state/province/union-territory, not when discussing geographic region.

1) Could you also please tell me the necessity of Indian government to endorse whether or not MH or OR belongs to a orographic region?

2) Yes! there is a need to re-write the article to include details of all of the Southern Indian states including MH, OR, Goa and that's not a non-doable job if so wikipedia would not have existed. Let's begin with adding stubs for the missing things.

3) Already valid citations have been given "www.mapsofindia.com" (for example) has published the latitudes and longitudes of major Indian cities and states with reference to which 22 degree N would act as a reference line for Northern and Southern portions of India.

--yny (talk) 15:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

My edits are based on "Southern India, Its History, People, Commerce, and Industrial Resources" (compiled by Somerset Playne, Edited by Arnold Wright, published by Asian Educational Services New Delhi and Chennai 2004". I am going to add more stuff on Maharashtra as well as history of South India referring to following links, http://www.maharashtra.gov.in/english/gazetteer/RATNAGIRI/his_pro.html, http://books.google.com/books?id=8WNEcgMr11kC&pg=RA1-PA369&sig=uXjvLTYEX6UxAnrdGDZEdUKrByg#PPA8,M1, http://www.maharashtra.gov.in/english/community/community_geo_profileShow.php

Please feel free to edit and comment my edits. --yny (talk) 00:26, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I have been working to bring the article in line with WP:MOS and to ensure that it falls in line with Summary style. As a result of some of my recent edits, the following information has been removed. These edits correspond to Ynyus75's version [9]. I've included an explaination below:

1. The terms "Historic South" and "Geographic South": What is the scope of this article? Is this article about South India or the Historic South?? What is the "Historic South"? What is the "Geographic South"? These are not commonly accepted terms. There are 0 hits to either of these terms on Google [10] [11]. This is Original Research and not permissible in Wikipedia.
2. "Part of Andra Pradesh (excluding Telangana)": where has it been said that Telangana is not part of South India? What are the sources?
3. Major urban areas: Trivandrum is smaller than Kochi. I've therefore removed it from the list. Per the new list only the top 25 metropolian areas have been included for purposes of consistency.
4. What is the purpose of the "Other Cities" section in the Infobox? What enclyclopedic value is it serving??
5. Most populous metropolian area: Why was Chennai changed to Madraspatnam? In any case, this section has no encyclopedic value to the article.
6. Most importantly, the inclusion of Maharastra and Orissa as being part of South India. I've seen the discussion on the talk page, but there doesn't appear to be any concensus around the issue. In fact, more contributors seem to maintain that South India = AP+TN+KAR+KER and the union territories. Ynyus75 has quoted from the book "Southern India" by Somerset Playne. But even a cursory review of that book will show that the author discusses only the areas that are now part of the 4 Dravidian states and Pondicherry. There didnt seem to be a case for the inclusion of MH and OR in this book. Regardless, proper consensus needs to be obtained before this change can be made.

#

Thanks AreJay (talk) 16:25, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

1. If the article is about South India and not the Historic South, then why are we not considering all the Southern States in the Geographic Southern Region of India and why are we just considering the so called Dravidian region of India which was historically considered as South India but not in the current political context except in a tourism website. On one hand you are defining the Geography of South India to be the peninsular region below 20th parallel, in which case why MH, Goa and Orissa have been omitted? One should keep in mind that the citation I mentioned is about Historic southern India and not the current South India, and if one has knowledge about Indian states and regions of states in India, it is not difficult to see that Telangana (the Northwestern portion of Andhra Pradesh) was not included in my citation (http://books.google.com/books?id=8WNEcgMr11kC&pg=RA1-PA369&sig=uXjvLTYEX6UxAnrdGDZEdUKrByg#PPA8,M1,)

To answer your question, when we discuss states in India, we are talking about political entities based for the most part on cultural-linguistic patterns. This was clearly outlined in the States Reorganisation Act of 1965. Southern India, the geographical entity, comprises the topological and geological patterns of pertinant to peninsular India. But to say that Maharashtra, the political cultural-linguistic entity, is part of South India, the political cultural-linguistic entity, is flat out wrong. Similarly Telangana exhibits all the linguistic and cultural traits of the region. Whether or not it lies below the 20th parallel is immaterial — it is part of AP, is culturally and linguistically Dravidian, albiet the influences of Hindi and Urdu, and is therefore part of South India. AreJay (talk) 19:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

1. Apart from the above link I have also provide two more links which discuss about history and Geography of Maharashtra and it is clearly mentioned in those links that Maharashtra is geographically located on North-Central region of Peninsular India which is South-India according to your definition, so what makes one to remove MH from South India?

See above for my discussion of geographical definition of peninsular India vs. the political cultural-linguistic entities in South India. AreJay (talk) 19:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

1. My citation about Southern India does not include the Telangana Region including Hyderabad. (http://books.google.com/books?id=8WNEcgMr11kC&pg=RA1-PA369&sig=uXjvLTYEX6UxAnrdGDZEdUKrByg#PPA8,M1,), I would recommend you to go through the map.

I wouldn't read too much into this map. It has also omitted a good chunk of North Karnataka as well and is using antiquated terms such as Madras (instead of Chennai), Mercara (instead of Madikeri) and Trichanapoly (instead of Tiruchirappalli). This appears to be a map of British South India of the Madras Presidency, British Mysore and Hyderabad State. If you read the textual material of the book, the author very clearly outlines Hyderabad (considered to be part of Telangana) and the Nizam's rule in the region. No where has it ever said in this book that Telangana is not part of South India. AreJay (talk) 19:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

# --yny (talk) 18:32, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Here is link on Telangana from WP Telingana --yny (talk) 18:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The WP link you've provided very clearly says that Telangana is part of the Deccan plateau. AreJay (talk) 19:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Is MH not part of Deccan Plateau? Are you trying to say that if a region belongs to Deccan Plateau then it should also belong to South India, in which case why have you not included MH in South India? --~~ --yny (talk) 19:57, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Ynyus75, I have clearly differentiated topological groupings and political groups above, please read my replies to your comments in detail. The long and short of it is that Eastern/Western Ghats and all other geographical aspects are part of the geographical identity of South India. However MH, the political entity <> South India, regardless of whether the said political entity falls within the Deccan Plateau. Telangana, in contrast, not only falls in the Deccan Plateau but also exhibits political, cultural and linguistic traits of other South Indian states. AreJay (talk) 20:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Is it your WOR or you have any links that proves your theory? Thanks for opening my eyes. To sum up your statement; a Political Entity <> Geographical Entity regardless of where the Political Entity is situated. So as geographical entities all of the natural resources, Godavari, Krishana, South of Vindhya Mountain ranges, the western Ghats, that are part of MH are part of "South India", yet as a political entity MH itself does not belong to South India.

Do you have any substantial evidences that prove MH does not politically, culturally and linguistically exhibit traits of other South Indian States on par with Telangana? Actually this is mere digression, it is something like in order to be a southern Indian region all of its inhabitants have to speak Dravidian languages. I don't see any logic in this. It is utterly absurd. Here we are not grouping certain states as Southern Indian states, we are just identifying states under the southern geographic region of India. FYI Telangana was under the imperial rule of Nizams for at least 400 years who's official language was Urdu (even today Urdu is one of the official languages of AP along with Telugu) and how can you say that Telangana exhibits political, cultural and linguistic traits of other South Indian states(sorry, Southern Indian states excluding MH, OR and GOA)? --76.122.83.117 (talk) 14:20, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

What is so absurd? What "substantiated evidences" do you need other than the fact that Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language and the fact that Maharashtrian cultural patterns are disperate from the the South Indian states? How much more substantive can it get?? Your question about Telanganga is simple; Urdu being the "official language" of Telangaga is irrelevant. The majority of the population spoke and continue to speak variations of Telugu; even the Dakhni spoken in Telangana is strongly influenced by Telugu and other South Indian languages. Hindi is the national language of India; therefore by your logic above,the term "South India" souldn't even exist. Regardless, it isn't for me to argue for the exculsion of MH and OR from this article, it is for you to argue for its inclusion, and so far you haven't produced a compelling arguement for your case. If you're interested in detailing the geographical entity of the region, I would suggest that you start a Wiki entry for the South Indian Penninsula; such an article doesn't currently exist and there's more than enough information around to create a pretty solid article. AreJay (talk) 16:16, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Firstly this article is not about "Historic south". but as in any other article, some information about the history is always welcome. But there is no point in renaming chennai to madraspatnam and AP to telengana. If the article is about "History of South India", the new state names like TN or kerala should not even appear. Moreover, regarding the inclusion of MH, orissa or whatever other states, I remember Raja(or someone) giving some citations from a govt of india's tourism website. There is no point in adding those two states. I've also given a lot of citations (see above) that MH and Orissa is not a part of South. Finally, no language is a national language in india for India does not have a national language. which is why the page "List of national languages of india" was moved to "List of official languages of India". Hindi is one of the 22/23 official languages of India.Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 18:31, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Just to clarify though, I meant "official language" of India, not "national language". Per the Constitution, the term "national language" does not exist; it has defined Hindi (in Devanagari script) as the official language of India, per Article 346 (8th schedule) [12]. The Official Languages Act further clarified the meaning of the term "official language of the union" indicating that, where agreed upon by State and Central governments, the "official language of the union" will be used for purposes of official communication. None of the South Indian states have included Hindi as one of the official languages of their states and they there continue to communicate with the Central goverment in English. Thanks AreJay (talk) 19:53, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

the link which you cited above is a old link (law before 1965). It was decided in 1950 that hindi will be the official language and english will be used officially for 15 years. But due to Anti-Hindi agitations, the Official Languages Act was enacted [13] to make English and Hindi as a official language of the Union.

Good to know...thank you AreJay (talk) 03:50, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Regarding your edits on number of speakers, I would suggest that, we strongly update the figures to the latest numbers. Both Ethnologue and Encarta [14] estimates are close but are far different from Census India. I agree Census is a much more reliable website. But in this case, putting in a updated data from encarta/ethnologue is better than the older data from Indian Census. Moreover, Ethnologue data is used throughout Wikipedia in a lot many "Language" (See Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, English etc.,) and various other articles. Ethnologue provides an accurate update than Census, which is usually updated every 10 years or so...Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 02:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Mugunth, in re Ethnologue, I suggest we not use this resource. There are clear discrepencies between it's figures vs. Census figures. The Ethnologue would have probably used projection martices to estimate population growth; the major discrepencies that I've noted are with regards to Kannada and Telugu. The Census of 2001 states that the population is 38 million for Kannada and 74 million for Telugu, while the Ethnologue of 2005 states that it is 35 and 70 respectively. This goes contrary to the fact that there has been an upward trend in population and number of native speakers of all Indian languages, including Kannada and Telugu. In fact, if you look at the Census 2001 data and estimated projected growth of native speakers [15], you will see that there has been positive growth in the number of native speakers of all "Scheduled Languages" over the last 30 years, and I am unable to believe that this trend has been reversed over the last 6-7 years. The problem with using websites like Ethnologue is that they haven't "updated" language data, since, quite clearly, they didn't conduct a census. They merely projected the data based on source data that certainly doesn't tie to Census 2001 data (otherwise the population of Kannada and Telugu language speakers would not have diminished so significantly). Thanks AreJay (talk) 03:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I cannot agree with this explanation. I think we have to reach a consensus. Till then, let both the data be presented. We cannot just decide that Ethnologue have not done any survey. When their data is deemed to be authentic for various other pages, why not here? Nearly every language page I mentioned above has information from both the sources. If only one source is present, the Ethnologue data is used. Census are always outdated as in this case too... I'm reverting it back to the version that has both statistics as that is more Neutral. Moreover, the differences are not drastic (less than 5% ?) I'll also invite several other noteworthy contributors to reach a consensus. Till then continue editing the article, but avoid removing this particular statistics. Thanks.Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 04:33, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not about whether their data was deemed authentic for various other pages that's important, what's important is that if we independently validate the source of the data, irrespective of its use on other pages. Based on your argument, if editors from MH or OR were present on this page a week ago, the would have gone back and added that their respective states were part of South India, because that's how it was presented in this article. The discrepency is much more than 5%. There is not a 5% difference between 2001 census data vs. 2007 Ethnologue data.

If you look at the projected decadal growth rate of Telugu and Kannada per the Census, it is ~ 12% and 15%. If you pro-rate this for the period 2001-2007, you'll get a projected growth rate of 7.2% (Telugu) and 9% (Kannada), which would take their projected 2007 population to about 80 million (Telugu) and 41 million (Kannada). Now, if you compare this against 2007 Ethnologue/Encarta data, you've got a 7.5% and 15% decrease for Telugu and Kannada respectively. This decrease is unaccounted for and can never be acceptable. We cannot base our whole argument on what data is being used on an article solely on its use on other Wikipedia articles. The data must be authentic, verifiable and valid. Besides, of the articles that you mentioned, none apart from Tamil and Bengali are featured articles, making it difficult to draw inspiration from them. Even of these two, the version of the Tamil article that was promoted to FA ([16]) doesn't even provide a source for it's data. It provides an "External Link" to an Ethnologue report, which states that the population of Tamil speakers in Tamil Nadu was 61 million as of 1997, which is incorrect because the census 2001 data says that the population was 60 million.

I have not rv'ed the recent changes, but I do hope you're understanding my point wrt this very clear data discrepency. AreJay (talk) 16:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

AreJay, What is not absurd in your so called cleaned-up summary of "South India"? According to you, if a region has non Indo-Aryan Speaker then it is not South-India, no matter where that region is located. First of all why should we talk about, linguistics while talking geography? I have mentioned lots of times earlier that first try to identify the states in Southern India and then talk about its traits, but your definition is exactly doing other way around, i.e identify linguistic boundary and then talk about its geography.

Let me summarize the absurdarity in your arguments.

Why is MH not a Southern Indian state?

Because its inhabitants speak Marathi which is not a Dravidian Language.

going by your analogy, Why North America is North America?: because its inhabitants speak language X as opposed to South Americans who do not speak language X.

Ynyus75, your logic and arguments are making progressively less sense. You are now apparently comparing two different continents and trying to somehow bolt it into my argument wrt South India's composition. I'm having a hard time trying to understand if you even have a central logical theme that you're trying to work with here. AreJay (talk) 15:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Of course I am aware of the fact that they are continents, thank god! I don't have to explain that they are continents. Your theory is to geographically locate a Northern or Southern region the inhabitants must not only speak same language but also should have similar cultural and ethnic traits. If your's is a valid theory, then it should be applicable to any valid regions. Since yours is an absurd theory it fails. Prove my theory (given a political entity such as a country or state or province, a parallel to the equator that passes approximately through its center divides that region into Northern and Southern regions), wrong on any regions.

I don't know how this will help, but I'll humor you. Mezzogiorno (South Italy), Midwestern United States, Southern United States, Northern and southern China, Belgium (Walloon, Flanders), Florida (North Florida, South Florida), California (Southern California, Northern California)...I could go on, because the examples are worldwide. But what's the point? AreJay (talk) 21:23, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Where have you refuted my theory? They have clearly mentioned that Southern California is the southern region of California and Northern California is the northern region of California. Whey they say LA the major city in Southern California, it does not mean the it is the only city in that region. Likewise if you read about China or Mezzogiorno they clearly said that the definition is not precise.

If you go back and read the California articles again, it says that the distinction has not been clearly demarcated, but some believe that it is the 36th parallel. If you look at a map, the 36th parallel does not run through the center of California. Go back and see the region covering South Florida. Go and look at the region coverning North Florida. Go and see "North China". It has nothing to do with where the parralel runs through the entity, but rather the culture of the sub-enitites that has been used as the defining criterion

Your theory was that in a political entity, a parallel to the equator divides the region into North and South. Go back and look at the maps of the political entities I just added. The "northern" and "southern" regions were divided based on cultural patterns inherent and weren't based on some random lines running through the political entities. AreJay (talk) 22:14, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Why Telangana a Southern Indian region?

Because it belongs to Deccan Plateau (which according to your cleaned-up definition part of Southern India.)

so you claim that Deccan Plateau => Southern India (FYI, the symbol "=>" means implies)

Clearly, that's not what I said. What I said was that not only does Telangana fall in the Deccan Plateau, it also exhibits cultural/linguistic patterns of the other SI states. Please go back are read what I wrote. AreJay (talk) 15:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Common! That's what you implied at first later you complemented (not to be confused with complimented) it by saying Telangana's culture is of Southern Indian etc. We are discussing about Geography not Linguistics and Culture. Okay! If you are that sure of cultural differences between Telangana and Maharashtra, then let me know what cultural differences they have except Telangana-Telugu. Do they differ by religion? or by Marriage System? or by the way they wear clothes? or by music? (remember Carnatic music is as alien to Telangana as to Maharashtra).

Hilarious. Yes they are different in each of those aspects. Again, you're the one that wants Telangana out/Maharastra in...the onus is on you to prove why they should be included or not, not to challenge me to a quiz contest on the subtleties of Telangana and Marathi cultures.

I'm not going to continue this discussion, since quite clearly a) you're not sure what your central theme is, b) You don't want to read what I've written/don't comprehend what I've said a 1000 times/want to misinteprent everything I say, and c) The onus is on you to show how MH and OR are part of South India, and you haven't even gotten close to defending your so-called theory. Sorry, but this is discussion is pointless if you're not even going to read what I've written and I have to spend every waking moment circling back to explain my prior statements. AreJay (talk) 21:23, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

On a similar note, since MH is also part of Deccan Plateau, why is MH not Southern Indian State?

I'm not going to explain myself on this topic anymore. I have been fairly articulate in my definition. Please go back and read what I've written. AreJay (talk) 15:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Because as a political entity MH is not a Southern Indian State, because its inhabitants speak Marathi which is an Indo-Aryan Language and by Doctrie of AreJay all Southern Indian inhabitants must speak Dravidian Language.

Again, this is not what I said. I said nothing to the effect that all Southern Indian inhabitants must speak Dravidian Language. AreJay (talk) 15:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Then why is MH not a southern Indian State which lies below the peninsular India and is not my original research. You can google it for its latitudes.

Tell me if this does not look like an absurd statement I will withdraw myself in this discussion.

Certainly. Not only does it "look" like it is not absurd, it in fact "looks" it is the most logical explaination of why MH is not part of SI. AreJay (talk) 15:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Where is you logical explanation? Oh! that Marathi is Indo-Aryan Language? India has about 3000 languages that fall under 3 major language-groups In which case Indians should only have 3-directions, North, South and Northeast. So Indians don't have West, Northwest, Southeast etc.

I have never talked about History, for that matter culture or linguistics until people strongly attaching those traits before identifying geographic regions. Only recently I put across lucidly what it is Historic south and Geographic South.

As previously stated, this so-called lucidity is orginial research and isn't permissible in Wikipedia. There is so such thing as a "Historic South" or "Geographic South". AreJay (talk) 15:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I have provided links, please check my link http://www.maharashtra.gov.in/english/community/community_geo_profileShow.php, where it is clearly mentioned that MH is located on North-central region of peninsular India (not India), and as per you peninsular region southern India.

Just tell me what are the states to the south of the so called "20 N Latitude" (FYI, the phrase "20 N Latitude" still remains under your clean-up process).

AP+KAR+KER+TN; Pondicherry+Lakshadweep. I've been very lucid about this as well. AreJay (talk) 15:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

This very statement of yours is enough to comprehend your understanding of Geography. Please check any web-site that has latitude and longitude info and compare the Latitude and Longitudes of Maharashtra, Goa and Orissa.

Wow, firstly it wasn't me, but YOU, who put that thing about 20 N Latitude. I only left it there out of courtsey because I thought that you had done sufficient research to produce this information; clearly, you haven't. This whole 20 N has no meaning to the political cultural-linguistic patterns of the region. So looking at random coordinates is going to do little to refute or support your so-called theory. AreJay (talk) 21:23, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by random coordinates? what is random about it? FYI I have never put 20 N Latitude, I was continuing it like you, as of my research goes it is 22 N Latitude that exactly divides India in to Northern and Southern regions. Here was my input in this very discussion page.

   The Latitude one of the Northern most city of India: Karakoram Range - Jammu & Kashmir - 36.10 N 75.00 E
   The Latitude one of the Southern most city of India: Comorin, C. - Tamil Nadu - 8.04 N 77.36 E
   Hence the closest Latitude that acts as the center reference line for North and South India: 22 degrees North

You didn't put 20 N latitude?? Really?? [17] AreJay (talk) 22:09, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

22 N Latitude is my proposition and my research, I don't know how they have arrived at 20 N Latitude. If you have any clue let me know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ynyus75 (talk • contribs) 15:11, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes! I agree that this article is not about History, then lets just talk about current political and geographical picture as of this very moment so to speak, what is Northern India and what is Southern India, forget about culture, language, just use geography and math I repeat just use the knowledge of geography and don't say northern Indians must speak Indo-Aryan languges and should wear dhoti and southern Indian should wear pancha kaccham ... blah blah.

--yny (talk) 04:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Like I said before, Ynyus75, if you want to write about geography, please start an article about the Penninsular Southern India. What do you mean use the "knowledge of geography" and "math"? Please explain what you mean by this. Like I've said, if you're interested in geography, there is an entirely new article waiting to be written. AreJay (talk) 15:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

That is something you should write, because we can have Southern-peninsular India not other way around, and by the way now your cleaned-up summary exactly describes "Southern-peninsular India only" not entire peninsular India which actually is Southern India.

I have no interest in writing any such article. I merely recommended it to you because you seemed interested in geography. You say "cleaned-up summary" to mean I've finished cleaning up the article, which is certainly not the case. Regardless, where have I said "Southern-peninsular India" in the article? AreJay (talk) 21:23, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Ynyus75, can you provide a cite that states, south india is the region below 20 N? I marked it {{fact}} as i could not find any. The reason why we went with including the four states is because of valid citations from various sources (see above). In the geography of United States, , as per this cite, it does not bifurcate US into a left half and a right half. Same applies to Australia. Similarly, India too has South, West, Central, East and Northern parts and this article should focus the south four states and the UTs... If you can provide a valid cite proving otherwise, may be we can discuss on how to change the article. Hope I made it clear. Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 05:50, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I beg to differ with you. Please go through the WP pages of South Australia and Southern Australia, see how professionally they have defined Southern Australia. Please note that while South Australia is a state which has a fixed political boundary, Southern Australia is a geographical term which includes the area to the south of Australia. I never asked anybody to bifurcate a country but one needs to identify the approximate line of reference which acts as a boundary. --yny (talk) 06:46, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

But South Australia is a state where as South India is not. See West Germany, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Germany_divided_BRD.png.

It's not divided by a straight line or something like that. Based on information from reliable websites, we found that, none of them include MH or Goa or Orissa or any other state as a part of SI.Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 10:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

We don't have to have a straight line, but we need to have a line of reference with which we can compare the position. e.g. The 20 N Latitude, the states that are to the south of it must be Southern Indian states, that does not mean that 20 N Latitude exactly divides India into Northern and Southern regions, but just acts as a reference.

See south of England too... http://www.picturesofengland.com/mapofengland/south-east-map.html Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 10:39, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Please refer to Southern England, they have clearly mentioned that "Southern England" is an imprecise term. Which is a valid way of defining things as you are conveying readers that the term is not precise.

I did not understand why we still have this statement "As a geographical entity, South India includes the peninsular region of India", as AreJay postulated that there is no such thing as Geographic south and Historic South (may be we can only have cultural and linguistic south, BTW can we have culture without history?). Can somebody explain me what is peninsular region of India and its constituent states? As of my knowledge goes a peninsular region should be surrounded by water on three sides and land on the other side unless AreJay has new doctrine limiting this definition to dravidian languages and culture, OR The Arabian sea along Maharastrain coast has no water.

--yny (talk) 21:56, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Yny, It's not a new doctrine or something.. I also prefer to remove the wordings, "As a geographical entity..." etc., Yes.. and may be we should add history/culture to this article...Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 04:12, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any problem in having geographic details of India, but the main problem is inconsistency in the terminology. The term Deccan actually refers to Deccan Plateau which encompasses MH and whose etymological meaning is "the South" which forces one to think MH is part of Southern India, but most of the tourism websites (at least for the sake of WP references, this might be predominant notion among Indians but people who think on the contrary also do exist) regard the Dravidian states as South India which seems to be more appropriate as per the rules set by WP with regards to citations. Hence I would suggest the following steps in the cleaning up process

1. Remove the reference to Deccan as it also includes MH.
2. Rephrase the sentence "As a linguistic and cultural region" as "As a linguistic region", because, though AP+KA belong to Dravidian group they have markable cultural differences, e.g. AP+KA follow lunisolar calendar version of Hindu calendar which MH and parts of UP, MP and Gujarat (different new year) follow whereas TN+KER follow Solar Calendar hence will have substantial differences in rituals, festivals etc. There are also reference available that MH has traits of both Dravidian and non-Dravidian. So we cannot just combine AP+TN+KA+KER as having different culture with the rest of India.
3. For a lay man who does not know anything about India, Southern India means the geographic Southern India i.e peninsular India unless he/she is told otherwise. So the tern "Southern" has to be used with caution, hence define what is South India in terms of its constituent states first rather than using the term "Southern".
4. Consider the geography of AP+KA+KER+TN alone as a mutually exclusive region not entire Southern India (i.e peninsular India) in order to avoid confusion. i.e. Do not refer to Vindhya Mountains, limit description of Western Ghats to KA+KER, and also Rivers Godavari and Krishna to AP+KA only. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ynyus75 (talk • contribs) 15:35, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a confusion in ranking languages according to their number of speakers (either by native speakers or by total speakers). The key thing one need to consider is whether the ranking is based on speakers within India or anywhere in the world.

In this article its been written that Telugu is the third largest spoken language in India after Hindi and Bengali, which is wrong if you consider speakers within India, as Bengali is spoken in Bangladesh also. So if we consider only Indian speakers, we need rephrase the sentence as "Telugu is the second largest spoken language in India after Hindi". I think if we take speakers in entire world then Telugu ranks 4th of all Indian languages spoken in the world. i.e. Hindi, Bengali(India and Bangladesh), Punjabi(India, Pakistan) and Telugu etc.

--yny (talk) 19:33, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I have just checked census department links and figured out that Indian Telugu speakers are less than Indian Bengali speakers as stated in the article. So I take back my comment. --yny (talk) 20:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi all, I've replaced the map image with a better high resolution png which I created from the blank india map ([[Image:India-locator-map-blank.svg]]). @AreJay, if possible edit that map by adding cities to it. (or replace this map with ur version which has cities on it) I prefer having just one map as I felt that having two maps or more maps to illustrate the same area will only be confusing. TODO: Addition of atleast three major cities per state and kavaratti, capital of lakshadweep. Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 04:15, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Mugunth, I've actually been creating an SVG version of the map per Wikipedia:WikiProject Indian maps which I will upload into this article tomorrow. SVG files are of significantly higher quality than raster images (png, jpg, gif, etc) and can be edited even with text editors like Notepad. Incidently, can you please also comment on my response wrt sourcing for the population of speakers of each language (see my comments dated Jan 2, 2008). Thanks AreJay (talk) 04:30, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Please see discussion on linguistic source below. AreJay (talk) 05:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

--

Mugunth, I've been delving deeper into this Ethnologue vs. Census data issue to better understand the discrepencies I've noticed. The ref provided for Ethnologue data [18] references "Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 15th ed (2005)" and Wikipedia. Firstly, per Wikipedia policy, we can't self reference Wikipedia articles (see Wikipedia:Reliable source examples). Secondly, I reviewed source data from Ethnologue online ([19], [20], [21]). They have provided a list of sources from which they collected data wrt languages spoken in India. Not even one of these sources is older than 1998! If you click on the last two links provided above, you'll see that Telugu and Kannada data on Enthologue is as of 1997. This is clearly outdated data and explains the apparent discrepency between their so-called 2005 data vs. GoI's 2001 census data. Lastly, Enthologue data isn't providing us with the precision that we're looking for — it has provided data for the population of speakers of certain languages all across India, while we're only interested in the population of speakers of certain languages in states of South India (this is something that is available in census data). Because of this recent discovery, I'm going to go ahead and remove Ethnologue data...if you're currently assisting with other South Indian language articles, you might want to go ahead and make the necessary changes to those articles as well based on this information. AreJay (talk) 05:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm.. interesting... I've to modify other pages too...

Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 15:11, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I plan to archive this talk page within the next couple of days or so. If anyone would like me to hold off on this on account of on going discussions on this current page, please let me know. Thanks AreJay (talk) 12:58, 7 January 2008 (UTC) I think the inclusion of Trivandrum part alone can be left back... Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 03:10, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

BTW, I've nominated this article for an assessment here... [22] Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 03:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)