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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of National Institutes in India

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was No consensus - Though there has been lengthy discussion below, there appears to be no overarching agreement not only on whether or not to delete the article, or indeed, on whether the article should be renamed instead and even then, what name it should have. I would recommend continuing the discussion with regards to the article's name on the relevant talk page. PanydThe muffin is not subtle 12:14, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of National Institutes in India

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List of National Institutes in India (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • Stats)
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I have not been able to find a definition of "National Institute" nor is one supplied by the article. There are no criteria, which are required by WP:LSC, nor sources showing that such a grouping exists. Without these, this seems like an arbitrary list, bordering WP:OR. Muhandes (talk) 10:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: [1] was added as a source. However, it is a self published list by one Roy Mathew, and as such not a reliable source. It still contains no criteria. [2] [3] and [4] added later are similarly unreliable. --Muhandes (talk) 10:58, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please don't be selective regarding the references. Among the references provided, [5], [6] and [7] are very reliable sources (government websites) of the existence of this category of institutes. [8], [9] and [10] should convince anyone that this is a widely spread usage of the term, and not something that I just made up. Aravind V R (talk) 04:51, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
— Note to closing admin: Aravind V R (talk • contribs) is the creator of the page that is the subject of this AfD. Muhandes (talk) 08:07, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • What is happening Mr. Muhandes? Discuss your points first on the talk page of the concerned article. How can you directly go for posting some deletion notice? I am reverting your edit. First discuss your point. I thought you would have understood from the edit summary that I had written. Let me detail them here.
  1. References: No list contains any reference for individual items. The users can go to each of these articles to read referenced text regarding them
  2. Notability: Do you really think the national institutes of a nation (with 1/6th of world's population) doesn't have noticability? That is one of the most frivolous arguments I've heard. In fact in Civil Service Examination written by some 5 lakh students every year contains questions regarding the locations and functions of these institutes.
At first, I thought some novice kid is playing with random articles. That is why I didn't care to comment on your talk page. But just now I have seen that you started editing from 2008 and regularly from 2010. How can then you act in such irresponsible manner? Show respect in these fora. We all are trying to improve the flow of information in the world. I'm reverting your edit again. If you are still unsatisfied with the explanation, COMMENT ON TALK page first. And please reply quickly.Aravind V R (talk) 10:26, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please read WP:AFDFORMAT on how to contribute to an AfD discussion. Your did not respond to any of the issues I raised. And at the very least, discuss the article, not the person. --Muhandes (talk) 10:50, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What I try to make you understand is that you cannot post some deletion notice with such arrogance and casual manner. Do you know how much time I spend to assort all these items to a single list? It is not normal to put references for list articles. If one goes for finding references for all these items in the list and include them in the article, what a mess it would be? The term National Institute would just mean institute run by national government (Except for small nations like Israel, all nations have are national and state/provincial governments). What kind of reference that require? But since your activities are too annoying and I have lot of other work to do (some important exam next week) I tried to put the references I could find and added to the article, for your satisfaction. Please reply soon. Aravind V R (talk) 11:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hello friend I am waiting. If you are not replying soon I would conclude this discussion to be over and remove the del template. Aravind V R (talk) 11:41, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No you will not. The discussion is not just between the two of you. Dricherby (talk) 11:49, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As a matter of manners, you should use "should not" rather than "will not". Other than that, it is good that someone else responded. May be I'm also in a bad mood, since this unnecessary discussion is taking away too much of my time just one week before the most important examination in my life (But still I can't just allow someone to mess with my article for which I devoted a lot of time). Please understand my limitations and since I might not be that regular in seeing my watch lists I want to conclude this discussion ASAP. If you need time, then please care to put a talkback tag in my talk page. Aravind V R (talk) 12:04, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please read the deletion rationale and answer the concerns raised. Please read WP:AFDFORMAT. By continuing to address me instead of addressing the issues, you are not doing the list any good. --Muhandes (talk) 12:02, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm the one who should have said this. You have done something and put forth some arguments. I refuted it and put the counter arguments. You didn't reply anything regarding the arguments. Annoyed by that I went one step far and did what you asked. To add the references. Still you didn't reply anything regarding the arguments. I went to all places (edit summary, your talk page, this page) and posted my arguments. Even then you didn't reply anything regarding the arguments. You are bringing up some "how to behave" pages (like I, who is in this business from 2007, have not seen this) to say that its me who are not behaving properly. If I offended you please consider me apologized. But I really cannot understand what made you think so. Aravind V R (talk) 12:16, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is not your article (WP:OWN) and you have no right to dictate the pace of events. It is unfortunate that this has come up while you are very busy but please note that it is not a matter of you having to defend the article single-handed so please don't take it personally. If the consensus opinion is that the article should stay, then it will stay; if the consensus is that it should be deleted, it will be deleted. If you post a clear argument that the article meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines, it is not necessary for you to rebut each individual point made by people who feel the article should be deleted. Dricherby (talk) 12:29, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well I didn't mean I own that article (If it was just for me I would have saved it as a document in my computer). If I say my country or my wikipedia, I am not claiming their ownership :). It is just about how much I care. I have done debating in deletion of articles where there are reasonable arguments behind. But here, to accuse the list of premier institutes in my country of not having notability and lack of references for a list seemed too frivolous to me. But yes since he has initiated the process, I should wait for the normal proceedings, I know. Aravind V R (talk) 13:12, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
With all due respect, did you read the deletion rationale at all? Does it say anything about notability? --Muhandes (talk) 13:30, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep WP:LSC is met as the entries of the list appear to be individually notable. The question remains whether the list itself is notable: WP:LISTN requires "A list topic is considered notable if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources" (emphasis in the original). That is, the requirement is for discussion of "the National Institutes of India", as distinct from discussion of each Institute individually. If there is such discussion in reliable sources then it should be cited. If not, perhaps a category, rather than a list is more appropriate? Aravind V R, please note the arguments to avoid in deletion discussions, particularly WP:MERCY and WP:ADHOM. Dricherby (talk) 12:19, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I did think of making it a category. But there are certain issues with that.
  1. I wanted to add location and year of establishment (These info are really important since being asked in every public service examinations). This was not possible with category.
  2. There are many unwritten articles in the list. I hope that those who studied in these institutes happen to see this list they might try to contribute.
  3. Earlier, education was a state subject (to be managed by state). Later it was included to union list as well so that union govt. in India could set up centres of excellence in each field. The list therefore contains the pioneering institutes in the country.
  4. There are already many lists like this (eg: List of engineering colleges in Delhi) which helps in getting the overall picture in a way much better than categories do.
Aravind V R (talk) 13:01, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dricherby, I'm not sure I follow the argument you make. Clearly, as you quoted from WP:LISTN, some independent reliable source discussing the term should be provided. But no such source is provided. In fact, the term is completely undefined and can mean practically anything. Could you please explain? In addition, WP:LSC requires some selection criteria to be provided and none are. --Muhandes (talk) 13:05, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
@Aravind R V 1. Wikipedia is not a revision guide for the Indian public service exams but that would be legitimate information to include *if* it is approproate to have this as a list. 2. The institutes themselves are notable so that should be enough to encourage people to write the articles and, per WP:LSC including redlinks in a list is not the right way to encouraging people to write the articles. 3. If this point can be reliably sourced, the article is a clear keep as it would establish notability of the list. 4. The existence of other pages isn't really relevant: WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS.
@Muhandes The selection criterion is clearly "every institute that meets the definition". The definition appears to be something like "the national research institutes set up by the Indian government". I agree that more clarity is needed and that, to decide whether this should be a list or a category, we need to determine whether the institutes are discussed as a group. Dricherby (talk) 14:37, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I could argue quite a bit about this definition, but lets continue working with this. Since you said "Keep" I presume you found independent reliable sources discussing this group as a group. I had a look and each and every of the sources provided in the article (at one point, more are being added) and they were either unreliable (self published mostly) or they did not discuss the list. --Muhandes (talk) 15:44, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If I'd found independent deliable sources, I'd have said so and added them to the article. That's why I'm continuing to ask the question about whether this is a specific designation of the Indian Government. If it is a specific designation of hte Indian Government, there must be sources that say so. Dricherby (talk) 16:21, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We agree them. --Muhandes (talk) 08:07, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
— Note to closing admin: Dricherby has crossed out his !vote and cast a new one below. --Muhandes (talk) 08:07, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Defining "national institutes"
  • Comment - The word "national" as an adjective is defined by Oxford dictionaries as "of or relating to a nation; common to or characteristic of a whole nation:
this policy may have been in the national interest
a national newspaper
 • owned, controlled, or financially supported by the federal government:
plans for a national art library"
The word "institute" as a noun is defined by Oxford dictionaries as "a society or organization having a particular object or common factor, especially a scientific, educational, or social one:
the Institute for Advanced Studies
a research institute"
Oxford dictionaries doesn't have a definition for the term "national institute." The term "national institute" therefore pertains to scientific, educational or social organizations that operate/function on a national level. Other groups/organizations (e.g. professional organizations) that function on a national level would also apparently qualify. Northamerica1000(talk) 15:51, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Some examples of national institutes:
  • What is the National Institute on Aging? – The NIA is one of the 27 Institutes and Centers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
  • National Institute of Justice – the research, development and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice
  • National Institutes of Health – The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the nation’s medical research agency—making important discoveries that improve health and save lives.
  • National Institute for Social Media – The National Institute for Social Media (NISM) is the first organization to dedicate itself to social media education and certification. We use the knowledge and experience of industry professionals to develop our certification exams. These certification exams are used by educators, organizations and consumers to validate the core skills essential for success in the world of social media.
  • National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence – NICE is here to help those working in the NHS, local authorities and the wider community deliver high-quality healthcare.
—Northamerica1000(talk) 16:04, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The question is whether the phrase "national institute" has a specific meaning in India or whether the meaning is just an institute (per dicdef) that is in India and national (per dicdef) in scope. The analogous case in the US would be a page "List of National Institutes of Health": would it be a page listing the US Dept of Health facilities you talk about above, or would a notable independent organization calling itself something like the National Institute for Cancer Studies be included because it's an institute, it's national and it's to do with health? And what about an "American Center for Cancer Studies"? Now, in this hypothetical example, we can point to the Dept of Health's page and say exactly what "National Institutes of Health" means; this clarity seems to be lacking in the case of the Indian National Institutes. Dricherby (talk) 16:19, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
@ Dricherby: Actually, it's not entirely lacking, the problem is we have "Institutes of National Importance" defined by act of parliament, and any addition or removal has to be approved by both houses. Just juggling the words confuses the issue. These are in reality federally funded institutes, not all of them national in nature, some of them on the list not even institutes, while some others aren't included (which can be rectified). At the least this ought to be renamed to suit the defining characteristic: they are funded by various departments of the central government, such as Ministry of Human Resource Development, Dept of Science and Technology, Dept of Biotechnology, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Tourism etc and their various sub-units. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 17:28, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:45, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:46, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:46, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "National" and "Institute" are just two English words. The meaning is implicit and should have been obvious. As I am trying to stay away from internet for the next week for some personal reasons please do the discussion on "definition" with Northamerica1000. I think he/she can convince you better than I could. Unfortunately National Institute is not written properly and I cannot contribute to that at this point of time. Aravind V R (talk) 19:12, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or Rename. Since it is now clear that the list has no criterion for inclusion, it should be either deleted or restricted to something more definite (such as the Institutes of National Importance, or federally funded institutes). Dricherby (talk) 20:00, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Going over the sources you provided one by one:
  • [18] does not mention the term "National Institutes". It describes "DST Scientific Institutions & Professional Academies" and "autonomous institutions". In fact, it does not deal with centrally funded institutes in general at all, just with 15 funded by the DST.
  • [19] is an MS-word file completely devoid of context. Where is it published? Can you please link the location in which the British Council describes where it comes from? Furthermore, there is no discussion at all, just a list. WP:NLIST requires the list to be discussed as a group.
  • [20] is not a reliable source. It is self published by one Roy Mathew, see below it says "Roy's Home Page". Furthermore, there is no discussion taking place.
  • [21] does not mention the term "National Institutes". It discusses "ICAR Institutions, Deemed Universities, National Research Centres, National Bureaux & Directorate/Project Directorates", but never "National Institutes". In fact, it does not deal with centrally funded institutes in general at all, just with the ones funded by the ICAR.
  • [22] is a blog, not a reliable source.
  • [23] and [24] seem to have a copy paste of the list used by the other pages, with no discussion at all. I am incapable of evaluating their reliability.
To summarize, I have still not seen a single reliable source discussing "National Institutes" in the context of India. --Muhandes (talk) 08:07, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • This was written at the same time as Muhandes's comment; we cover much of the same ground but I've posted my comment as it's more detailed in some places. In the following, "the source" means the link I'm talking about from the ones Aravind V R just posted; "the page" means List of National Institutes of India, which lists about 140 institutes.
  1. The Dept of Science and Tech discusses only the institutes they fund, not the wider group. It doesn't use the phrase "national institutes" to describe the group; only "autonomous institutions".
  2. The British Council gives what seems to be a substantially different list to the one at the page: approx 170 entries; only 8 of the first 10 institutes in the source appear on the page and only 7 of the first 10 on the page appear in the source. Either somebody has made a lot of mistakes or the term has no fixed meaning.
  3. Cyberjournalist doesn't appear to meet WP:RS; his list has approx 170 entries and seems largely the same as the British Council's (first 20 entries are the same, though the BC has the Wildlife Institute of India and Cyberjournalist doesn't).
  4. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research, like the Dept of Sci&Tech, only lists institutes within its own area. It refers to "National Research Centres" but doesn't use "national institute" except as a component of some of the institutes' names.
  5. municipalitiesgov.blogspot.in doesn't appear to be an official blog of any part of the Indian government, so doesn't appear to meet WP:RS. Again, this source's list of about 90 institutions appears to differ substantially from the other ones.
  6. Education Worldwide India lists approx 165 institutes; seems mostly the same as BC/Cyberjourno.
  7. Kerala Yellow Pages gives approx 160 institutes and seems mostly the same as the others of about that size.
In summary, there seems to be a lot of disagreement between sources about what the National Institutes are, and the government doesn't seem to use the term, suggesting that it's not an official classification. 08:16, 8 May 2012 (UTC) I'm signing this again as it somehow didn't come out right, the first time. Dricherby (talk) 09:35, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • My explanations/arguments here.
  1. In India, anything prefixed by "National" or "Central" means run by the National/Central/Union government (we don't normally use the term Federal) and anything prefixed by "State" means run by the state government (In fact, I never thought I would have to convince someone the meaning of this term at any point of time. May be people from nations with small area have not heard about this. I would request SpacemanSpiff to explain whether he is aware of the term). For example, there are national universities and state universities. You might see List of state universities in India as an example of such usage. Interestingly this list has been created by Muhandes. According to his own argument it should have been renamed to List of universities funded by state governments in India.
  2. Institute of National Importance (INI) says it is a "status" that "may be" conferred to "some" institutes (funded by state govt, national govt or private???).
    1. The list of INIs, contains the national institutes coming under a single ministry only, viz Ministry of Human Resource Development. There are other ministries as well.
    2. The list contains only "some" institutes under MHRD which the central govt thinks as important. Obviously, it is not an exhaustive list even for that single ministry.
    3. It is just a proposal so far. The process started recently only and not a real thing as of now.
    4. If I could add all these institutes in the list to the page Institute of National Importance I would have done that only. But it is completely erroneous to do so. For example National Institute of Industrial Engineering cannot be added to that page since it is not an INI
  3. Since there are no "What links here" tools outside wikipedia I may not be able to find the page with a link to the word document in British Council website. Please tell me which wiki policy needs such a page with link to that doc. [25] doesn't describe what is a state university either, which is the only reference to the page State university (India).
  4. The list is certainly not a complete one. This is an effort to make a complete list of all national institutes. Therefore you cannot say only 7 or 8 of them matches with the other list of same criterion. Please add the unmatched ones to the list or I would do it when I get time.
Aravind V R (talk) 05:40, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  1. [26] says "In addition, capacity of the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare (NIHFW), 20 State Institutes of Health and Family Welfare and 5 National Institutes under TB programme will also be built "
  2. [27] says "The nominations are normally recommended by heads of universities, national institutes and scientific departments of the Centre."
  3. [28] says "...with prestigious national institutes likes the IITs and the IIMs..." -- Aravind V R (talk) 06:02, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You are missing the point again. No one doubts the term "national institutes" has a meaning in English. The claim is that the group is not discussed by reliable sources as a group. None of the sources you brought discusses the group at all, they just mentioned the term in passing. The first source mentions five institutes, not the group. The second uses the term in passing, never discussion it. The third uses it in an extremely broad manner, including for sure List of autonomous higher education institutes in India, Central University, India and Institute of National Importance. By this definition the list will include thousands of institutes. --Muhandes (talk) 06:34, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • What? With all due respect DBigXray, If you don't know about something, please restrain from commenting about it. I have read Constitution of India many times and have never seen even any mention of IIT or any Institute. (I'm not asking you to show me the article in CoI with a mention of IIT because I have studied in detail about all the articles in CoI). Institute of National Importance is statutory (but not constitutional) is a definition that HRD Ministry had come up with in order to give special recognition to some of its institutes through an Act of Parliament. Each of the institutes listed in List of National Institutes in India are also established by Acts of Parliament. Please read my reply to SpacemanSpiff as well. Aravind V R (talk) 09:14, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Again, you are making ad hominem arguments, after three requests to stop it. The point raised (repeatedly by several editors) is that unlike INIs which are statutory, you have not shown any reliable source giving the institutes in your list any statutory definition. --Muhandes (talk) 09:52, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't agree. Requesting to not make any incorrect statements certainly doesn't amount to Wikipedia:ADHOMINEM. Just like state universities mean universities by state government, national institutes mean institutes by national government. Are you saying that Indian government should make laws for defining each word in English? One doesn't have to mix it up with INI. When government wanted to group some of its institutes for technology, they did so and called it IITs. National institutes meant for management studies got grouped into IIMs. Similiarly when govt. thought some of the instutes are very important, the grouped it and called INI. All these are subsets of national institutes in India. Aravind V R (talk) 11:15, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think you haven't noted the request I made to you in reply to your earlier comment, whether you are aware of the usage of the term "national institute". Please answer. Aravind V R (talk) 11:24, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have made my points quite clear, you've received responses for everything, you don't listen and that isn't my problem. If anyone else has something to discuss, I will be available. —SpacemanSpiff 11:30, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • No you haven't made it clear. What Muhandes has been arguing is whether the usage "national institute" exists. Hence your response, since you seem to be from India, is important. Please answer in yes or no. Are you aware of such usage ("national institutes" for institutes by national govt.) in India? Aravind V R (talk) 12:03, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - The article's criterion (as of this post) is stated as: "National Institutes or Central Institutes are established by the Union Government of India." to evolve them into centres of excellence in various fields of learning." Listings that don't qualify under this criteria can simply be removed by editing. This is a useful page that aids readers in navigating Wikipedia, and its focus is narrowed per its criteria for listing inclusion. Northamerica1000(talk) 12:33, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Could you please clarify how you see the inclusion criteria? Are you saying "to evolve them into centres of excellence in various fields of learning" is part of the criteria? How is someone suppose to tell if an institute was set to "to evolve ... into centres of excellence in various fields of learning"? Would this exclude all research institutes which do not teach (95% of the current list I believe)? --Muhandes (talk) 06:39, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Struck part of the comment above, and also removed this from the article (essentially original research.) Now the article's criteria for inclusion is "National institutes or central institutes are established by the Union Government of India.". Northamerica1000(talk) 13:11, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Again, it is not showing the group of national institutes, just nine institutes. If at all, it serves to show the group is not well defined. --Muhandes (talk) 06:27, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • And again, quoting WP:LISTN: "A list topic is considered notable if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources". You have shown two dozen irrelevant sources. You have not shown a single reliable source discussing all the institutes as a group or set. You can bring three hundred more sources mentioning "national institutes" in different contexts, and it will still be meaningless. --Muhandes (talk) 10:39, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Aravind V R has posted several sources listing National Institutes under various government departments or listing things that are national institutes (in the dicdef sense of being an "institute" that's "of national scope") under a certain department, except that the department uses some other phrase. Would the following be a reasonable compromise? Break the list into several subheadings within the page, such as "National Institutes of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment", "National Institutes of the Department of AYUSH", "Autonomous Institutions of the Department of Science and Technology" and so on. Each sub-list would then have a cast-iron source (not third-party but, I think, fine by WP:SELFSOURCE) and the criterion for including a sub-list on the page would be that the "sponsor" has to be a government department. Dricherby (talk) 10:34, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In principle, such lists will be notable and well defined, and I would have no principle objection. In practice, each such list should be judged by its own merit of course. --Muhandes (talk) 10:42, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Northamerica1000 had given the definition of "National" as "owned, controlled, or financially supported by the federal government" eg. "plans for a national art library". Not merely the scope is national. But it is established by the national government. So national institute includes all institutes established by national government Aravind V R (talk) 11:20, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Individual listings wont do any good. As you can see the wiki page for AYUSH contains the list of national institutes coming under them. Some ministries, like ministry of corporate affairs has only one institute under them. Neither we can create separate pages for each ministry (as some contain only one or two items) nor we can include any ministry page to an education category. All that can be fixed by this page. Govt of India manages everything under these ministries only. Each ministry got a website. There are no combined website that detail all the institutes. GoI website also has these institutes arranged under each ministry [31][32] under the heading Autonomous bodies. No combined list I have seen till now other than those made by private individuals and that in British council. Also note that they are called Autonomous bodies in GoI website, which is not suitable for grouping institutes. Even private companies are in a sense autonomous bodies. Aravind V R (talk) 11:39, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and Rename. While I find nothing wrong with Northamerica1000's argument, I am not very convinced, because there exists no such classification by the Government. And wherever such a classification exists (as pointed out by some links above), we don't know for sure that such a classification refers to institutes funded by the Central Government. What I'm trying to say is that the Government's definition of a "National Institute" (wherever it is mentioned as such) may not match with the dictionary definition. I think that a move to List of institutes aided by the Central Government of India should be a better title, though its a tad lengthy. Lynch7 12:48, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • It should be dictionaries which define words like "national". Not a job governments should do. That is, the title of the page "History of India" should not be changed to "Past events happened in India" because you haven't seen a govt. website define the term "history". Regarding the use of the term by government, these links [33][34] and many more through a google search [35] are enough, I think. Aravind V R (talk) 17:47, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That comparison would be a bit unfair. Anyway, yes, the Government does use the term, but do we have an exhaustive list (third party) which says that there are XYZ number of National Institutes, and here's the list? Ideally, dictionaries should define the terms, but in India, there are many classifications of universities (central, state, deemed, etc), so we shouldn't really be confusing people thinking that this is another such officially defined term. Lynch7 02:04, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the govt tried anywhere to define the term "central university". As you can see here they take it for granted that the reader would understand central university as universities established by the centre. All central universities come under Ministry of HRD and hence you can see a common list. But each ministry of GoI, publishes only the institutes coming under them. So you have to combine all of them to make a common list. Please don't get confused between a university and an institute. Universities set the courses, conducts exams and awards degrees/doctorates through their departments and affiliated institutes. Institutes and university departments are the places where teaching/research happens and they cannot give affiliations to other institutes. Aravind V R (talk) 05:17, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the government has defined "central universities" by law, through the "Central Universities Act" (and previous acts). It lists all of them in at least three official places (see the article). It did not define "national institute" through any such device. It does not list these institutes as a group. --Muhandes (talk) 05:24, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please read my above argument once again. I never said that there is no law regarding central universities (For every university/institute by the centre there should be some law). I said nowhere govt made an attempt to define the term central university as "university established by the centre" since it was obvious. And you can see a single list since all of them are under a single ministry. Aravind V R (talk) 06:52, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Aravind V R, I appreciate you creating this list, but I must tell you that I find your comments a bit uncivil. We're not waging a war on you, we're just trying to have a discussion. Lynch7 12:48, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that I was a bit annoyed at the beginning of this conversation since I was unable to understand why there was a discussion in the first place and the nominator didn't care to tell me his rationale behind his nomination (He actually did write his rationale but, instead of being in the talk page of article, it was in the talk page for Indian Education project which I didn't see). Only at a very later stage I understood that the issue is the confusion with regard to "List of autonomous higher education institutes in India, Central University, India and Institute of National Importance". Also thanks a lot for your appreciation. I didn't get it much from here. Aravind V R (talk) 17:47, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • BIS is not an institute but an Indian agency. National Institute of Training for Standardization (NITS) should be certainly included in the list since it is meant for training its employees. I don't think there is any need for confusion since no body in India has "National Institute" in its name which have no relation to learning (teaching/research). As you can see from the definition Institute means "organization that has a particular purpose, especially one that is connected with education or a particular profession". Eg:a research institute, the Institute of Chartered Accountants, institutes of higher education. Again the usage of English words in India is inherited from UK. So the definition confines to "organisations which are carrying out research at the highest level or to professional bodies of the highest standing" as stated here. Aravind V R (talk) 11:02, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The BIS is an "organization that has a particular purpose" and undertakes research: it looks very much like an institute, to me. You say that "NITS should certainly be included in the list" but yet it isn't included in any of the sources you proposed earlier in the discussion. This surely demonstrates that the inclusion criterion is not at all as self-evident as you're claiming. Dricherby (talk) 11:36, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I said the broad definition of institute doesn't apply to Indian institutes. This one is related to education and research. According to the definition with respect to UK. Also you cannot see any Indian institute doing any other work than this. BIS is a regulatory agency under some ministry that sets the standards for the industry. Why did you think it as a research institute. NITS is for training purposes. [36] says "To take care of training needs of Industry, BIS had set up the National Institute of. Training for Standardization (NITS)". You could have googled it. Aravind V R (talk) 11:58, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • At 19:12, 7 May 2012, you said "'National' and 'Institute' are just two English words. The meaning is implicit and should have been obvious." Now, you're saying that actually, we can't just use the dicdef of "institute" because the broad definition of "institute" doesn't apply; only some of the aspects. BIS was established by the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 1986; section 10(1)(i) of that Act says that one of its functions is to "undertake research for the formulation of Indian Standards in the interests of consumers and manufacturers." Telling me to Google NITS is a bit rich, don't you think, since I was the one who made you aware of its existence in the first place? And you didn't answer the question: how can it be that the inclusion criterion for "national institutes" is self-evident and does not need explicit definition if you say that NITS is obviously a national institute but isn't included in any of the lists you linked to? Dricherby (talk) 12:18, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • We were discussing about the usage of the term "national" only when I said that. In my country, "Institute" has been used to define only two categories
  1. Bodies for learning puroses. like those in the list.
  2. Proffessional bodies. Like IEEE, ICWAI etc. This is used very rarely though.
  • The dicdef(Oxford) also says the same. That this term can be used to define any random organisation is a new knowledge to me. If there are really many people who can get confused like this, I won't object to renaming it to "national educational and research institutes". BIS is certainly not any research organisation. In no govt website you can see BIS being called an institute. That they might undertake some research activities doesn't mean they are. Companies also might do market research etc. You wanted NITS to be listed in the list. Certainly, I'm hearing about it for the first time. Though much info regarding the institute may not be available, you could have understood that it is related to training by mere googling. If the national institute in its name is not sufficient, just don't add it to the list. Aravind V R (talk) 05:32, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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