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Did you know... that the first batch of cadets from the Indian Military Academy included the future army chiefs of Pakistan, Burma, and India?
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I hope somebody can help in cleaning up, formatting this article, and also re-organizing/adding/deleting data, coz some of it might be copyvio or something.
I'm getting confused here. Should the "s" be added or should it go. Or should Chakra remain the same and "recepients" added ("17 Ashoka Chakra recepients" OR "receipeints of 17 Ashoka Chakras")?
Lead: Alumni are also recipients of 17 Ashoka Chakra, 84 Maha Vir Chakras and 41 Kirti Chakra among other honours.
Notable alumni: Till 2016, alumni from the academy are recipients of 7 Param Vir Chakras, 17 Ashoka Chakra, 84 Maha Vir Chakras and 257 Vir Chakras.[17] Alumni are also recipients of 2 Sarvattam Yudh Seva Medals, 28 Uttam Yudh Seva Medals, 48 Kirti Chakra and 191 Shaurya Chakra.[67][68]
reword "Indian Independence Struggle" -- the capitalisation here doesn't seem correct, and the term potentially isn't neutral. I'd suggest maybe just "Prior to Indian independence" or something similar
suggest adding location of publication to the Sinha and Wright entries in the Bibliography (for consistency with the other sources)
Location of Sinha added, University of California. Wright's location difficult to find so far and I don't have access to a hard copy or even a soft copy as yet.
DiplomatTesterMan (
talk)
08:14, 25 October 2019 (UTC)reply
try to avoid sandwiching text between images -- for instance in the Passing Out Parade and Post-Independence sections, I think it would be best to remove one of the images
for GA, you will need to be sure that all references meet the requirements of
WP:RS. For instance, can you please confirm that this meets the requirements:
[1]?
same as above for
[2] -- suggest checking all refs against the WP:RS requirements
Sorted out 1 and 2, will go through the rest as well and check against WP:RS.
capitalisation: sometimes you use "gentlemen cadet" and sometimes "Gentleman Cadet" -- best to be consistent
English variation: there is a mix of British and US English spelling in the article (for instance "colours" (British) but also "colors" (US)) -- best to be consistent
if you haven't already done so, I think it might be a good idea to request a copy edit through the
WP:GOCE
AustralianRupert, I am not too sure how to go about these licensing issues with the picutres and the replies over at the commons help desk also make it seem like a dead end. If there is no US license applicable does that mean the image will have to be removed? Isn't the GODL-India license on two of the images enough for those images to stay?
DiplomatTesterMan (
talk)
10:30, 25 October 2019 (UTC)reply
G'day, the status of the images in the US is important as that is where Wikipedia's servers are located. Commons only accepts files that are in the public domain in the United States and in the source country of the work.
[3] If the Govt of India GODL licence applies worldwide, then those images that are uploaded with that licence are probably be fine, IMO. The others (such as File:Smith Dun.jpg), though, may be harder to licence appropriately -- it may be best to remove (from this article) some of those images whose free status isn't clear until you can confirm. Some of the ones with problematic licencing might be used under a fair use licence (if transferred from Commons to Wikipedia), but I'd suggest caution in this approach. Regards,
AustralianRupert (
talk)
11:18, 25 October 2019 (UTC)reply
same as above for "File:The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi signing the visitors’ book, at the War Memorial in Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, ahead of the Combined Commanders Conference,.jpg"
@
DiplomatTesterMan: G'day, hope you are well. Just a couple of belated follow up queries: firstly, do female officer cadets attend the college? The use of the term "gentleman cadet" implies to me that the do not, but it might be a good idea to clarify if this is the case; and if they do not, I'd suggest very briefly mentioning how they are commissioned i.e. attendance at another institution etc. If women do not serve as commissioned officers in the Indian Army, it might make sense to mention this (sorry, I don't have a firm understanding of this topic). I note that the
Officers Training Academy article briefly mentions women undertaking training there from 1992 onwards. Secondly, I also wonder if potentially something should be added to the article explaining the difference between IMA and the
Officers Training Academy. For instance, why would a cadet be sent to IMA instead of OTA, or vice versa? Do they commission with the same status, or do cadets graduate with different types of commissions (e.g. a permanent commission v. short service commission)? Regards,
AustralianRupert (
talk)
07:08, 15 February 2020 (UTC)reply
AustralianRupert, how interesting that you asked this. I was framing the answers to reply and only today did the Supreme Court of India give a ruling in favour of granting permanent commission to females, which the central government has 3 months to implement as per news reports.
link. I will provide explanations for the other questions and accordingly incorporate it into the main body soon. This was just a side-note comment. What it means for this article and IMA as such, no idea. But, thanks so much for the questions!
DTM (
talk)
10:22, 17 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Do female officer cadets attend the college? - As of now, no. There are no female cadets in either
IMA or
NDA. (NDA is the tri-service institute and from where cadets go to either IMA,
NA or
AFA for further training. Please note, there are other ways of entry into IMA other than only through NDA as already mentioned in the article.) Only unmarried male candidates are allowed to apply. As far as
OTA is concerned, since 1992, it offers only Short Service Commission (SSC)[1] to male and female cadets, as compared to permanent commission[2] being given to cadets who go to IMA or NDA. Female cadets in OTA are referred to as Lady Cadets. And I presume if and when female cadets are allowed in NDA and IMA, they will be referred to as Lady Cadets.
At present, women enter through SSC that allows them to be inducted into only some roles for a period of 14 years (which can vary). Permanent commission "was" only allowed for females in say the army's legal and educational wings. But the new Supreme Court order changes things (but even this new order doesn't imply combat roles opening up in the Army for females. Combat roles have only opened up in the Air Force[3]). Women currently make up 4% of army personnel.[4]
Why would a cadet be sent to IMA instead of OTA - rather than being sent to IMA or OTA, the candidate would voluntarily apply themselves, as per criteria and requirements.
I hope I have covered the doubts. Please do let me know if anything else needs to be covered. I will now go ahead and make the changes to the article accordingly. Thanks again.
DTM (
talk)
05:58, 20 February 2020 (UTC)reply
G'day, thanks for looking this up. Am I right in saying that IMA is for those that are seeking a permanent commission and OTA is for those seeking a short service commission? If so, I wonder if it might be possible to make this distinction a bit clearer in the article? Regards,
AustralianRupert (
talk)
09:08, 20 February 2020 (UTC)reply
I said everything else and forgot to do the main thing! I put two three lines into the article that should help explain the point you are bringing up. Largely what you have written, "IMA is for those that are seeking a permanent commission and OTA is for those seeking a short service commission" can be considered correct. Just now I have placed some cites which are good enough to back this up, but will look for a proper reference that explains all this in a much better comprehensive way. Hopefully the reference is out there.
DTM (
talk)
14:35, 20 February 2020 (UTC)reply
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I'll be providing a full review in due course, but for now, one sentence jumped out at me; IMA now trains over approximately 400 gentleman cadets a class... It can't be both "over 400" and "approximately 400". Choose one or the other. Also "gentleman cadet" should be either linked, explained or glossed as it is an archaic term few would now understand. Also per class is preferable to the ambiguous a class.
SpinningSpark11:58, 19 March 2020 (UTC)reply
IMA now trains over approximately 400 gentleman cadets a class... ; changed completely to sanctioned capacity of 1650. Removed mention of cadets per class. Each year the number varies greatly - example 600 in June 2010 (
The Hindu) & 459 including foreign cadets in June 2019 (
ET). Simplifies the lead.
Also "gentleman cadet" should be either linked, explained or glossed - I had thought that this explanation currently in the article would be enough - A trainee on admission to IMA is referred to as a Gentleman Cadet (GC). One reason for this is that the Academy expects its graduates to uphold the highest moral and ethical values. Please confirm that this is not enough and I will go ahead and try the linking to
Cadet#India or try a better explanation. Please explain what glossed means.
DTM (
talk)
13:41, 19 March 2020 (UTC)reply
I was talking about glossing unfamiliar terms in the article, not glossing sources. I am not a great fan of that practice, and it is not a GA requirement (or any guideline requirement). It is certainly not universally done by editors, but feel free to adopt it if you like it.
SpinningSpark10:08, 22 March 2020 (UTC)reply
The lead should be a standalone summary of the body of the article, like a mini article. It should make sense to a user that reads only the lead. Therefore, anythign that needed linking in the body of the article should also be linked in the lead if it is important enough to appear there at all.
SpinningSpark17:00, 19 March 2020 (UTC)reply
Detailed review follows. If you wish, you may add an indented comment after each item. Please do not strike through completed items or add tick marks or other graphics. That will interfere with my own system of tracking progress.
Lead
"...which form the focus of the training aimed at making cadets prepared for combating contemporary conflict realities." Makes this a very cumbersome sentence and difficult to understand. It would be better as a second, simpler sentence, perhaps "The focus of the training is preparing cadets for contemporary conflict realities." Not even convinced that it is really adding anything at all - surely this is what all militaries are doing in training.
Removed. Done.
"...to name a few" is unnecessary and vague. If we have an actual or approximate number, then use that, otherwise leave it out.
Removed vauge wordings. Adding an exact number.
"...among other honours", another vague phrase. Expressions that lack precision come under
WP:WTW which is a GA requirement.
Rephrased. Done.
"Raising Day". I don't think this term is used much outside the Indian subcontinent. Perhaps it could be glossed with "Raising Day (founding date)" or something similar.
Explanatory footnote added.
"gentleman cadet" needs linking
Linked.
Demands for an Indian military training academy
"Until World War I, Indians were not eligible for commission..." Is this accurate? The following paragraph implies that Indians were not eligible for officer training until after WWI. The source says that a few already serving men were granted commissions during the later years of the war. I also read in the same source (p. xiii, p. 11) that a lesser commission was available to Indians from 1901. This all needs clarifying in the article. Introduce at least enough information so that there is no longer an apparent contradiction between the two paragraphs.
"Indians were not eligible for commission as officers in the Indian Army. Following the Indian military experience in World War I, where Indian soldiers proved their mettle.... the keywords to note here are officers and soldiers. Here the differentiation attempted is that of the higher officer ranks and lower ranks. Natives were always below the rank of lower most officer rank of
Subaltern, as pointed out on p. xiii which you have also noted. It goes onto say that "in reality the highest rank obtainable by a native before the Mutiny (1857) was a Subedar (Subedar rank exists even today in the
Indian Army rank structure as a
Junior commissioned officer rank). Even after the
mutiny and "thirty years later the C-in-C General Lord Roberts too was not prepared to accept natives in the officer cadre. He believed that natives were "neither physically nor morally their equal and that however well educated and clever a native might be and however brave he may have proved himself, no rank that they could bestow upon him could cause him to be considered as a equal to the last joined British subaltern." When presidency armies were abolished and formed into the Indian Army... "the highest rank to which a native soldier of India rise was still Subedar." With the formation of the Imperial Cadets Corps in 1901, the process of Indianisation of the officer cadre of the army began. However this was only for scions of state rulers and princes and even after training they were still not allowed into the regular army, only the Imperial Army and Imperial Service Troops. In 1905, natives were allowed to officer only Indian troops and were not allowed to rise above company or squadron officers, as such they were in no way equal to commissioned British officers. Natives were also not allowed to officer engineers or artillery. etc etc.... jumping to WW1... "when the final count of taken at the end of the war, the Army-in-India had lost 53,468 men."... there was a severe shortage of officers. "The sacrifices that Indians had made in this war broke the resistance of the British Government as well as the Indian Government to the Indianisation process."... In 1918 the
Montagu–Chelmsford Report praised the services of the Indians during the war and acknowldeged the need of Indianisation of the Army. Ten vacancies were reserved for Indians annually at
Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Even though commissions were now open in principle to Indians there was no college to train them in India....... hence IMA in 1932. So 1918 to 1932 is the struggle of getting a college in India open...IMA. [Preface xi - xv. History of the Indian Military Academy – M. P. Singh (Brig.)]
Now as you have said clarification is needed in the article. I was stumbling which how much clarification was needed. I didn't want the history section to become too long, I hope with that in mind I haven't made it oversimplified and too short.
Accordingly I will go ahead and add something to clarify this contradiction "Until World War I, Indians were not eligible for commission as officers in the Indian Army. Following the Indian military experience in World War I, where Indian soldiers proved their mettle".
DTM (
talk)
07:45, 22 March 2020 (UTC)reply
"Following the Indian military experience in World War I, where Indian soldiers proved their mettle,..." This is sailing close to editorializing. Suggest "Following Indian military performance in World War I,..."
"...a number of trainers and cadets left for Britain and Pakistan." Why did they leave? Was it the same reason for both countries? What were the consequences of this exodus? The sentence stands orphaned of any context and the reader is going to wonder why it is there at all.
Done. Rephrased and expanded for more context.
"...following the Sino-Indian War..." makes it sound like the dates given are the dates of the war (which I don't think is the intended meaning). I suggest "After the Sino-Indian War of 1962, special measures were introduced. From 1963 until August 1964, the duration of..."
Done. Rephrased as suggested.
"During this time..." This is unnecessary and misleading. Westmoreland was not there while any of the mentioned wars were "hot". Just the date is sufficient.
I did notice that the image, but I think I will leave it out for now. Thanks.
Campus
"Drill Square". Is this a proper noun? I doubt that it should be capitalised. Likewise "Central Library". These are just common terms.
Done. Capitalisation removed.
The second one is still capitalised. Is that deliberate or an oversight? Also one in the infobox
Oversight. Done.
Italicising proper names like Chetwode Hall and Khetarpal Auditorium is unnecessary and deprecated by
WP:ITALICS.
Done. Italics removed.
Athletic facilities
"Tons Valley to the Northwest of the campus, which is bounded by..." Simpler "Tons Valley to the Northwest of the campus is bounded by..."
Rephrased as suggested leaving out "is bounded by".
"...forks and bends..." This is a strange phrase and I'm not sure I understand it. Does it mean the facility lies in the fork of a river? Or just along its banks?
Removed mention and rephrased to make it more clear.
"...with its pillars and columns of Dholpur stone..." What is the difference between pillars and columns? And is the stone any different from the rest of the monument? Why not just say "...made of Dholpur stone..."? If Dholpur stone has some special significance here then it should be explained.
Removed. "Pillars and columns" in architecture can have different meanings as per a quick search. It then becomes even more clear when a visual of the monument is laid out. Dholpur stone is unique for its colour, heritage, and qualities (and references would have been used if mentioned). But I am removing mention of both 'pillar and coloumns' and 'Dholpur stone' as now I don't see the necessity of having it in the short section.
"...pays homage to the alumni of the Academy who have fallen in the course of action..." this is emotive and contains a
WP:EUPHEMISM. Something like "...commemorates the alumni of the Academy who died in action..."
Thanks for the suggestion. Changed as suggested.
"...just weeks after the Kargil War." That suggest the monument was built as a result of that war. The cited source says nothing about that, so I assume the timing is just a coincidence (and it was actually four months, not weeks). Suggest "...shortly after the conclusion of the Kargil War."
Rephrased as suggested.
Gentleman cadet life
The last two paragraphs (starting at "The freshman GCs hail from diverse backgrounds...") is a little promotional. It sounds like it was written by the Academy PR department. You need to ask what fact each statement is delivering to the reader. If there isn't a fact in there, or it isn't an attributed opinion, then it doesn't belong in an encyclopaedia article.
I have
heavily edited the last two paragraphs of gentleman cadet life, and in the same edit placed a new paragraph in training to add a little more depth to this entire section, trying to make it more encyclopaediac. If more needs to be done I can try.
That's a lot better, but there are still a couple of things I don't like; "makes well-rounded men", it is a matter of opinion (and therefore not neutral) what amounts to well-rounded. It is also vague on what it actually means. If it means the cadets have a balanced education as expanded on in the new passage, then say that instead. "test of the GC's mettle", the word mettle, to me, gives a positive connotation without saying anything definite, so again, not neutral. If you want to provide an attributed quote saying those things that would be fine. It is saying them in Wikipedia's voice that makes it problematic.
I have removed the phrase "makes well-rounded men". And as suggested, I have converted the following line with the word 'mettle' into a quote. - The official website of the Indian Army describes the training as "a test of one's mettle and capabilities, and in psychological terms a foretaste of what the trainees would face in the battlefield".
Training
The second para (beginning "With the mission of grooming future military leaders...") contains more PR sounding non-encyclopaedic phrases. It needs a general cleanup.
First round of cleanup done here. If more is needed I can do a bit more.
Quotations should not be in italics
Done.
CQB, LOMAH, TBSR. Militaries love their initialisms, but they are usually not helpful to introduce in an encyclopaedia article unless they are going to be used later. The spelled out names should not be capitalised.
We don't seem to have an article on LOMAH and it is not terribly clear to the uninitiated what this is. I suggest a short addition to clarify, there are plenty of sources available.
"The nature of training at the Academy is dangerous and cadets have died during training." The sources only relate to one incident, so unless we know of other deaths, the article should say it is one incident ("two cadets died of dehydration on a 10 km run in 2017" or something similar). The inquiry has surely concluded by now and it would be good to have the conclusions in the article. Also, a more general point can be made by adding to the article the Academy's requirement that cadets get insurance against death and disability (in the NDTV source). That shows that the Academy is expecting injuries.
Passing Out Parade
I don't believe this should be capitalised. Also appears in several other places in article
Removed capitalization from full form 'passing out parade'. The short form POP has been retained. Numerous sources do use 'POP'.
That's fine, more significant than sources using it, the abbreviation is used later in the article so needs introducing. I note that you also removed capitalisation from some terms I hadn't asked for. Some of these were 50/50 and a few were definitely wrong to remove caps. In particular, I have put back "Patton tank". Type names of equipment are usually capitalised, and things named after people are always capitalised.
SpinningSpark12:36, 30 March 2020 (UTC)reply
Notable alumni
More euphemisms and other
WP:WTW; "been called upon to render service" = "served", "made the ultimate sacrifice" = "died in action"
Done.
Images
File:Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, Uttrakhand, India.jpg, the infobox lead image, is watermarked with a copyright notice. Some of the user's other uploads have been deleted for exactly this reason. I have raised the issue with Commons. It is not resolved yet, but you may eventually need to find another lead image.
Infobox image replaced. Done. I hope the image replacement image for the POP section is ok.
Thanks for the link to the discussion. I have restored the image. If at any time in the future there is any new problem will the infobox image, I can replace it again.
DTM (
talk)
06:56, 3 April 2020 (UTC)reply
File:VCPremindraSinghBhagat.jpg (two places) is claimed to be uploaded "with permission" but no evidence of it actually being freely licensed is provided (no OTRS ticket) and no link to the source provided. It was apparently uploaded as part of
this project. There is some discussion of copyright issues on the talk page, but no resolution.
I went ahead and did a crop and placed it in the image. Since a battalion is named after him, it would be weird to have a image of the other three. But the problem is that the cropped looks out of place, it is an image of him from the side as compared to a portrait of the other three. Or is leaving the three ok, or should I just remove all four images?
DTM (
talk)
11:25, 31 March 2020 (UTC)reply
I won't comment on the quality of the new image or whether three images are better than none. That is an editorial decision. The issue for GA is that whatever images are used must be properly licensed. The new image also has a problem as it is claimed to be "own work" but clearly isn't as the uploader states he inherited it from his grandfather. If the photo was taken by a family member then it might be alright to tag it with
Commons:Template:PD-heirs and remove the claim of own work. It would be preferable if the original uploader did this (but unlikely, not edited since 2015) rather than doing it yourself as you don't know for certain that the grandfather didn't acquire it from some other source rather than take it himself. In any case, I think the grandfather claim is highly suspect. The resolution of the image is so low that it is much more likely that it was scraped from some web page.
If you want to retain the original image, you need to either contact the uploader or the original copyright holder (Gerald Napier, from the Royal Engineers Library) to establish exactly what permission was granted. Either way, the image needs to end up with an OTRS ticket template to show that the permission evidence has been recieved by Wikipedia. The trouble we have at the moment is that the permission is vague; it might be for the VCR site only, or non-commercial only etc, which are incompatible with Wikipedia.
SpinningSpark11:08, 1 April 2020 (UTC)reply
Thank you for outlining the correct procedure for getting the necessary permissions for the image. I will follow it up. For now, I have removed the image in question from the article.
DTM (
talk)
06:56, 3 April 2020 (UTC)reply
References
I was intending to only do a sample check on references, but I have now seen enough to concern me to look a bit deeper, so this review will take a bit longer yet.
I'm not totally convinvced that bootcampmilitaryfitnessinstitute.com counts as a reliable source. It is a personal website. He does have one published piece, but not strictly quite in this field, so a very marginal case could be made for it under
WP:SPS. The source doesn't seem to be used for a great deal; it might be better to use other sources if possible, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt if necessary.
Removed. This was used in two places. At the first location there were two cites, the remaining citation is enough and covers the content cited; and at the second place it has been replaced with another source.
Make My Trip is a travel company and the referenced page is anonymous. That is not a reliable source
Source removed. Replaced.
There is no sign at all that imamreza.net carries out any proper journalistic checking. The piece referenced is anonymous and the
sites about us page has a call for user contributions. So my assessment is that this is
user-generated content
Removed reference. Content referenced otherwise.
bharat-rakshak.com seems to be an amateur site judging by
its "Origins" page. But its well organised enough that we can probably give it the benefit of the doubt.
Removed the one use of bharat-rakshak.com as a reference. The content is already cited.
Spelling
Variety of spelling is inconsistent; honor/honour, mold/mould. There may be others I've missed. Even Sword of Honour is not spelled consistently. I believe India follows British spelling so that is what should be used in this article.
You restored an American spelling with
this edit. I can only assume this was unintentional due to edit conflict, but I'm raising it here just in case there was a reason.
SpinningSpark08:23, 31 March 2020 (UTC)reply
Yes, it was unintentional. 'Moulding' was correct. But I have made a few changes to this section, 'Gentleman cadet life', and the word has been removed.
That completes my review. The important issues to address as far as achieving GA status are;
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as
this nomination's talk page,
the article's talk page or
Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
Source: "On it's first roll were Sam Manekshaw, Smith Dun and Musa Khan, all three of whom went on to become Chief of Army Staff for their respective countries (Indian, Burma and Pakistan). "
Rediff