Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Thiruvananthapuram

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[edit] Thiruvananthapuram

The article is prepared so as to match it as per the standards mentioned in WP:INCITIES.
So, I am nominating the article for the featured article status.

-- Rajith Mohan (Talk to me...) :-) 11:16, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

  • How could you pronounce that? - Patricknoddy 8:08am September 30, 2006 (EDT)
Thiru - anantha - puram => Th as in Thin.
key => (tĭr'ūvənŭn'təpur'əm).
Also called Trivandrum (trə-văn'drəm) -- Rajith Mohan (Talk to me...) :-) 13:38, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Also listen to the ogg file linked right in the first sentence. :) - Taxman Talk 14:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Changing to object way to many unsupported, POV statements. Even with citations the article needs work for POV balance. Also much of the rest of the problems pointed out haven't been fixed. Comments. It's good, definitely improved from when it was listed on peer review, but still needs work. Almost all of my comments from peer review could be repeated again. It is improved along those lines, just needs a lot more. There are still a lot of unsupported statements throughout, there's still colloquial language, demographics needs expanding, infrastructure, etc. "Foreign tourists are flocking to ..." is an example of a statement needing factual restatement and sourcing. Particularly the last section needs more support from reliable sources or just remove the statements that can't be supported. For some of the media outlets listed it's not clear if they are national resources that are available in the city or if they are based there. If not based there, I'm not sure they should be mentioned. - Taxman Talk 14:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Very Strong Object. Does not abide by featured article criteria 2 (compliance with the standards set out in the manual of style and relevant WikiProjects). Wikipedia:WikiProject Indian cities does not have any scope for section like City's Importance and Future prospects. Also the subsection Science and Technology need to be removed/ incorporated. The article still has "Citation nededed" template. Some parts of the article are choppy, for example, in History, last paragraph of Geography. In demographics, if possible, give some notable comparison with other cities of India/ Kerala (for example, the sex ratio). Many words/phrases need wikilinking. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 17:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
    • The issues are addressed now. The section City's Importance and Future prospects need not be removed, as it carries relevent sources. The Demographicssection is expanded now. The infrastructure of the city such as water supply and electricity is also included. The references from the lead section is removed as per WP:LEAD. More inline references are added to the article to increase reliability. Cheers, -- Rajith Mohan (Talk to me...) :-) 16:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
    We know you support because you nominated the article, so I moved your comment to a response. While it is getting better, much of what is pointed out above is still a problem. There are still a lot of unsupported statements throughout, there's still colloquial language, the last section is still a problem. The culture section still doesn't cover the things culture sections in other geographic entity articles do, food for example. The demographics or culture should tell us about the ethnic groups, is there any conflict. The statement on languages spoken needs a reference. The unemployment problem could use more discussion, and should probably be moved to the economics section. 34.3% is extremely high, and the tone and focus of the economics section sounding like the economy is very rosy doesn't match up with the unemployment number. Several sections still need improvement for flow. They are choppy an some paragraphs are two short with one or two sentences. Also the reference cited for the statement that tourists are flocking to Thiruvananthapuram isn't really supported by that source, making me concerned about the others. Keep up the good work, there's more to go. - Taxman Talk 18:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  • The article has been in FAC for quite some time. The article has undergone some improvement during the fac. However, the editors seem to be adamant regarding some points. The article has got a section (Strategic Importance) that is unacceptable under both Wikipedia:WikiProject Indian cities and Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities. So, as I have previosly stated, the article clearly does not abide by featured article criteria 2. And though the section has enough citations, as Ragib (talk · contribs) has stated, it "...projects an opinion" apart from information The informations can be incorporated in other sections like economy, geography, history etc. Also, several wikilinking is needed. ther are lots of names of organisations which should be wikilinked. In fact, the article still needs copyediting. The citation style is not correct always. Sometimes the superscript is there before the punctuation mark, rather than after.--Dwaipayan (talk) 09:03, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
The format suggested in Wikipedia:WikiProject Indian cities or [Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities]], is not a mandatory thing. Those templates are created to help the editors in understanding the various topics to be covered. It is not a hard coded rule that only those mentioned in the template should be included in the article. And a WP:FA criteria never says that a city article should be only confined, what the template says. For instance, the Wikipedia:WikiProject Indian cities is not stating any thing about other facets of infrastructure (apart from Transport) like water supply, sewage system or electrical supply system of a city. So if a city article is expanded to include these information also, will that article be rejected the WP:FA status ???? !!!!!
We need not be so stubborn on such issues, as it adds more information in the encyclopedia (and thats what an encyclopedia is for, I believe).
The section strategic importance is much relevent to the article about Thiruvananthapuram. It is the first city in India's South. It lies close to Srilanka, Maldives, and the US military base at Diego Garcia, in Indian Ocean. The Southern Air Command HQ is in this city. The military authorities are planning to upgrade it to a Tri-Service Command Station, where the Army, Navy and AirForce Commands will be operating from this area, because of this strategic location. Thiruvananthapuram city is just one Notical mile away from the East-West Shipping Axis. The International air-route fly above this city.
These points are stated in the section "Strategic Importance". The relevant citations are also given. Now, how can we say that the section is just a mere opinion, not a reliable information?? Cheers, -- Rajith Mohan (Talk to me...) :-) 11:30, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Attention. The article is not abiding by another point of Featured Article critreia 2. The article does not follow Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Please see this section of Wikipedia:Footnotes and place footnotes accordingly. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 06:17, 8 October 2006 (UTC)


  • Comments. The unemployment rate and the growth in economy is not very much dependent on each other in Indian scenario. For eg; lets take the example of Kerala. Kerala's GDP growth is 9.2% in 2004–2005 and 7.4% in fiscal year 2003–2004, which indicates a steep increase in the economy. Kerala's per capita GDP — 11,819 INR — is significantly higher than the all-India average. Additionally, Kerala's Human Development Index and standard of living statistics are the nation's best. But Kerala's unemployment rate is variously estimated at 19.2% and 20.77%. The unemployment rate also was increasing during the period when the economical indexes shown steady growth !! You can obviously find a big controversy in these figures.
The same is applicable for all the Indian cities. The reasons are many. I am not getting further into it. Please see the article on Kerala to get the related sources of the figures I mentioned above. Infact, some statements are copy-pasted from that page. --Samaleks


  • Strong Support: This article is an excellent one, and , after having had two peer reviews, is one of the most professional articles I've read till date in Wikipedia. rohith 11:52, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Support: The article is well-written. Improvements made on the article by addressing to the issues mentioned appreciated. The article is well organized, and is a real good stuff amongst Indian cities. I could not find any serious issues for not giving the Featured Star to this article. Full Support from my side. --Samaleks 15:29, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comments: 1) The article seems to have a revert/edit war over the naming of the city. This should be resolved, and the article made stable. 2) The strategic importance section should be merged with other sections ... it is a nonstandard section for city articles, and projects an opinion rather than information. 3) Education section is a mess ... should be cleaned, a photo added, and the list removed. 4. Instead of making climate a lone subsection under geography, remove the subsecton header, and rename the section as "Geography and climate" . That's all for now ... --Ragib 07:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
* Just two reverts doesnt means that there is an edit war going on.. The section Strategic importance is not a mere opinion. It is very much informative, and is well tailored with relevent sources. Adding a photo in the education section can be done. But as of now, there are no photos(which is not copyrighted) available. We can fix this as soon as any editor is uploading relevent picture. The section Geography is changed as per your suggestion. Cheers, -- Rajith Mohan (Talk to me...) :-) 18:35, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
* Education section is cleaned up, and a photo is added. Cheers, -- Rajith Mohan (Talk to me...) :-) 22:42, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


  • Support: Beautiful article with well organized data. --Sathyalal 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments It is rather late for proofreading but this being a Friday evening and having nothing better to do, I checked the intro and the first four sections. Some questions and comments :

  1. The early rulers of the city were the Ays.  : Ays is currently linked to an Egyptian dynasty.
  2. Thiruvananthapuram was made the capital of Travancore in 1745.  : This clashes with Travancore#Dharma_Raja and Padmanabhapuram both of which says that it was in 1795.
  3. the Observatory (1836), : 1837 as per Swathi_Thirunal_Rama_Varma#As_a_Ruler
  4. A political conference of the Congress was held in the city under the presidency of Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramaiah, in 1938. : What was this ? Just a conference or something bigger than that ?
  5. The first Indian space rocket was developed and launched from the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) located in the outskirts of the city in 1966. : What is the reference for 1966 ? The online sources mention 1963-67.
  6. Technopark has developed into the largest IT Park in India  : The official site says that it is "among the two largest IT parks in India today", which usually means that it is not the largest in India. This news item from last year talks about a larger one which is "in progress".
  7. The park has around 110 companies employing over 12,500 professionals : Elsewhere it is "close to 100 companies" and "about 12000" professionals.
  8. Many references point to the homepage of http://www.keralaitmission.org/ and not to the specific article(s).
  9. The city was rated as the best 2nd tier metro : The list of cities includes Kolkota which is not 2nd tier.
  10. There are around 20 government owned and 60 privately owned medium and large scale industrial units in Thiruvanathapuram : The reference provided is http://www.kerala.gov.in/statistical/panchayat_statistics2001/thiru_cont.htm and http://www.kerala.gov.in/statistical/panchayat_statistics2001/thiru_10.pdf is the link of Large/Medium/Small scale industries. It is not obvious how the figures of 20 and 60 were arrived at. Tintin (talk) 11:34, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

A few more :

  1. As someone who is somewhat familiar with Tvm, it would have helped to say clearly what comes under Trivandrum and what does not - a map of the city would be even better. For eg, it is not obvious for a non-Trivandrumite whether places like Vellayambalam and Pappanmcode are in or out.
  2. Ref 17 (http://www.keralaports.gov.in/vizhinjm.htm ) isn't working.
  3. The increase in the unemployment rate was from 8.8(1998) to 34.3(2003) The reference (http://www.sacw.net/Labour/uneployementkerala.pdf ) mentions the unemployment rate in the Thiruvananthapuram district, not Thiruvananthapuram city. This makes the assumption that the urban and rural rates are the same. Is this correct ?
  4. Ditto for suicide rates.
  5. Aaraat of Padmanabha Swamy Temple,  : It is not explained either here or in the temple article what aaraat is.
  6. The literacy rate in Thiruvananthapuram, according to the 2001 census, is 89.36 percent 92.68 percent among males and 86.26 percent among females. This is again for the district.
  7. The importance of the city, apart from being the capital of India’s most literate[36] and socially developed state,[37][38] is a strategically important city in Southern India. : Grammar Tintin (talk) 12:02, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

There are a few Trivandrums scattered around the article - The people of Trivandrum are , (CRPF) based in Trivandrum, Trivandrum also holds the distinction etc. It should use Thiruvananthapuram throughout. Tintin (talk) 12:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Wow... That was a real good proof reading, Tintin. I'm working on your points. Here goes, a few of it :

  1. - Removed the wrong link to the Ays
  2. - Regarding the shifting of capital. Well, this part is quite ambigous. It was in 1745, that the capital was shifted when Marthanda Varma shifted his residence to here. It became more relevent when he surrendered his country to Sreee Padmanabha through an act referred to as 'Thrippadi danam'. But, still the government officers were in Padmanabhapuram. It was during the reign of Dharma Raja, that the entire administrative section got shifted. Any ways, majority historians refer to 1745 as the year when Thiruvananthapuram became the capital. Brittanica also says the same [1].
  3. - Corrected . Observatory was started in 1837 [2].
  4. - It was a conference of INC, that was held under the presidency of Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramaiah.
  5. - Corrected. The first rocket launch in India was from TERLS in 1963. Here is an interesting article for you to read..
  6. - Regarding Technopark, The link you provided says that the upcoming park in Chennai will be having 1.2 million square feet by 2007. In Technopark, the current built up space is 1.5million square feet. This does not include the Phase 3 expansion of Technopark. The office space of the new building Thejaswini is also not taken in to account in this figure.
  7. - Regarding the number of employees and companies; Corrected . It is 12500 employees in 108 companies, as the official site says.
  8. - The site is using scripts to get in to the page. There is no seperate urls for each page, as you notice in html web sites.
  9. - Will reframe the sentence
  10. - i will try to find the source of it.

Rest soon.. -- Rajith Mohan (Talk to me...) :-) 00:26, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Ref (http://www.keralaports.gov.in/vizhinjm.htm ) - It is working fine in my PC !
  • suicide rates and unemployment rates - Split in the urban and rural rates are not available. The same holds for literacy also.
  • Aaraat of Padmanabha Swamy Temple,  : Done in the article; Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple
  • Occurances of Trivandrum is changed to Thiruvananthapuram in the areas where it is mentioning the city name.

Cheers, -- Rajith Mohan (Talk to me...) :-) 00:30, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Re. Technopark and things whose status may change at any time, it may be safer to add a "as of 2006".
  • Vizhinjam is now working for me too !
  • Suicide, literacy rates etc : In the current form it is misleading. For literacy, I guess the rate in the Tvm city will be a few percentages higher than that of the Tvm district. (To use an extreme simile, it is like taking the literacy rate of the Kerala state and presenting it as the data for the Tvm district !) If it is for the district, it may be mentioned in the article; or if the data is not available for the city, it may be dropped altogether. Tintin (talk) 06:24, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Object - The article seems to really requires a thorough proof reading by someone not attached to the project. Sentences like "The importance of the city, apart from being the capital of India’s most literate[37] and socially developed state,[38][39] is a strategically important city..." make little sense to me. Information can be presented without making it sound like an advertisement. What does being capital of blabla state have anything to do with strategic importance? I will not even go into why an entire section on strategic importance is not needed for an Indian city that is farthest located from Pakistan and China. --Blacksun 03:48, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment: I believe that the word "strategic importance" is not to ne equated only to proximity to China or Pakistan. Well, "strategic" has myriad connotations, it could denote vital importance in the military, commercial or even the scientific spheres.

1) Trivandrum is the southernmost major city in India. Its location at the tip of the subcontinent is strategic for its command of the northern Indian Ocean. The airforce base here provides a launch pad for maritime patrols and long range radar surveillance.

2) Trivandrum is the Headquarters of the Indian Air Force's Southern Air Command. The HQ commands air force bases all across South India. The triservice Aerospace Command is likely to be set up here as well, considering its importance. A Recent Update

3) The city is located very close to international shipping channels. Just ten nautical miles offshore is the Persian Gulf/Suez - Malacca ship route which accounts for almost one-third of all traffic on the seas. This is why the upcoming Vizhinjam International Transshipment Terminal assumes so much importance combined with its world class natural draft.

4) Trivandrum is also by far the most important location for the Indian Space Programme with the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and associated facilities which are responsible for almost all components of the space programme. Indeed, the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) was one of the first spaceports in Asia and the very first in India.It was only phased out later due to the proximity to the city.

Guess that summarises some of the reasons that sentence was put in. Hope it goes some way in settling the doubts that existed. Cheers! Ajaypp 18:50, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

All things that can be said for many other Indian cities. At end of the day it is really not that strategically important to merit an entire section. Anyways their are MANY other problems with this article. I am shocked at the "strong supports" it is getting. Just a quick glance shows spelling errors. Furthermore, it has illogical things like Ayurvedic resorts under strategic importance section. How exactly is that strategically important? The quality of the prose is inconsistent with some very dodgy sentence structure. This article does not meet the standards of FA in its current state. --Blacksun 06:11, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Strong Support: With a strong list of comprehensive supporting articles and concise wording in the main article, it paints a clear picture of the city, its life and people. I think it should definitely be a Featured Article. Ajaypp 14:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Strong Support: A great article which explains the heart and soul of a great city. This document describes all the faces of this cosmopolitan city. Anyone who read this document can come to trivandrum as if to their home. It is that much descriptive. Santhosh J(aka Ponnambalam)21:00, 10 October 2006 (IST)

Strong Support: Excellent article with well organized and concise information about the city and people --Altruist 03:39, 11 October 2006 (UTC)