The single most important happening in the history of Bangladesh, one of the major happenings in the Cold War with major implications for India and Pakistan and some implication for USA, USSR and China, one of the major political geographical change in the post-WWII world besides splitting of Korea and merger of Germany and the biggest genocide of this period, and a somewhat a cause celibre for the flower generation besides the Vietnam War - this certainly warrants some attention... well, a lot of attention. The article has just gone through a collaboration of active WikiProject Bangladesh participants who are not large in number, and needs a lot of help from the community. Please, post your comments, and lend a hand hand, too, if possible. Thanks. Aditya(talkcontribs) 17:57, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]


The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

  • Please expand the lead to conform with guidelines at Wikipedia:Lead. The article should have an appropriate number of paragraphs as is shown on WP:LEAD, and should adequately summarize the article.[?]
  • Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), months and days of the week generally should not be linked. Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.[?]
  • Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 000 km, use 000 km, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 000 km.[?]
  • Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Build the web, years with full dates should be linked; for example, link January 15, 2006.[?]
  • As per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), dates shouldn't use th; for example, instead of using January 30th was a great day, use January 30 was a great day.[?]
  • Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings), headings generally do not start with articles ('the', 'a(n)'). For example, if there was a section called ==The Biography==, it should be changed to ==Biography==.[?]
  • Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) may be too long- consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per Wikipedia:Summary style.[?]
  • Please make the spelling of English words consistent with either American or British spelling, depending upon the subject of the article. Examples include: honour (B) (American: honor), armour (B) (American: armor), harbour (B) (American: harbor), neighbour (B) (American: neighbor), defence (B) (American: defense), organize (A) (British: organise), organise (B) (American: organize), recognize (A) (British: recognise), recognise (B) (American: recognize), realise (B) (American: realize), criticize (A) (British: criticise), criticise (B) (American: criticize), ization (A) (British: isation), isation (B) (American: ization), curb (A) (British: kerb).
  • Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
    • Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
  • As done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space in between. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2][?]
  • Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.[?]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, DTGardner 22:01, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have gone through the article making detailed criticisms.

  • Political differences
    • Statements need footnotes referencing sources   Done
    • "After the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan in 1951..." Say who he is in brackets.   Done
    • "The military dictatorships of Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan," give dates in brackets after each name   Done
    • "Finally, when Sheikh Mujib's Awami League won a clear majority in the elections of 1970" you need to explain this a lot better
  • Military imbalance
    • This section is too heavily weighted to Bengali grievances.
    • Can the Pak Army's beliefs about martial races be traced back to their British military heritage.
    • "The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 over Kashmir also highlighted the sense of military insecurity among Bengalis as only an under-strength infantry division and 15 combat aircraft without tank support were in East Pakistan to thwart any Indian retaliations during the conflict." This is very biased. What fighting was on the East Pakistan front in 1965? How many Indian divisions faced W Pakistan, and how many E Pakistan.
  • Language controversy
    • Statements need footnotes referencing sources   Done
    • What is the West Pakistan POV?   Done
It would help the balance the tone of this article if it were moved to Bangladesh War of Independence --Philip Baird Shearer 17:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Mohammad Ali Jinnah – say who is was in brackets   Done
    • "Later, in memory of the 1952 killings, UNESCO declared February 21" when did they do this?   Done
  • Impact of the tropical cyclone
    • Very biased   Done
    • Statements need footnotes referencing sources   Done
    • Please can we have some W Pakistan or Pakistan Government sources   Done
  • Prelude to war (first part)
    • Well written, but statements need footnotes referencing sources
    • Need to explain ZA Bhutto's POV
  • Violence of 25 March
    • Need to explain Pak government POV
    • Need better sources for the casualty and rape claims. Estimating casualties is difficult. In the 1965 war Indian and Pak casualty estimates differed by a factor of 3 – before criticising this remember that the US made much worse enemy casualty estimates for the campaigns against Iraq in 1991 and 2003+, and against Serbia in the 1999 Kosovo conflict.
    • Statements need footnotes referencing sources
  • Declaration of independence
    • This section is good – but give full references to sources in footnotes, not the text.
    • However make the statement "In July 1971, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi openly referred to the former East Pakistan as Bangladesh.[16] Some Pakistani and Indian officials continued to use the name "East Pakistan" until 16 December, 1971." part of a new section India
  • India
    • Now would be a good point to explain what neighbouring India was doing. The meeting between I Gandhi and the CoS needs recalling. She was very angry that he told her that the Indian Armed forces were not ready for war, but she took notice of him, and got the Army ready for war. These events are of enormous significance. You need to explain how India supported and encouraged the insurgency.
    • You also need to explain the Pak government's understanding of what was going on with respect of Indian military preparations.
  • The war
    • You need to work on the structure of this part of the article and of the one on the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 so that a reader can relate them
    • You need to explain the Pak Army military strategy. (It is worth having a section comparing and contrasting the Pak efforts in 1971 in Bengal with the J&K Army's strategy against Pak-sponsored insurgency in 1947)
    • You need to explain what the Mukti Bahini were.
    • The Mukti Bahini's naval campaign using frogmen with limpet mines was an astonishing achievement. This need explaining
    • Phase 4: December 3-December 16 should explain how the Pak Army was deployed – it had a lot in common with that of the J&K Army in 1947
  • Atrocities
    • I have my doubts about the reliability of many of the sources. Try to find Indian military sources; Indian military writers tend to have credibility.
  • Foreign intervention
    • You should quote Indian military sources on how IAF pilots expected to have to make attacks on the USS Enterprise in their Hunters.

--Toddy1 19:11, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]