In 2000, Verma was appointed to a position as scientist at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology... - "as scientist" reads a little strange to me, and probably requires an indefinite article as in, "...to a position as a scientist at..."
Another instance of the above in ...returned to India to continue to work as scientist... You might consider rephrasing this or the above the to, "returned to India to continue his scientific work," or something similar.
Sorry, I'm using quotes above to indicate the specific phrase that needs, but this wasn't a suggestion to put the phrase in quotes— they should be removed, but the hyphen should be kept.
In the awards section, CSIR Technology Award-2008 should probably be changed to "CSIR Technology Awards in 2008", and something similar should be done for BioAsia Innovation Award-2009.
2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
Little bit of citation overkill in the 2nd paragraph of the section on universal primer technology. Consider breaking these citations up a bit more within the section, or if they are redundant, you can just remove them.
Seems to be an issue with the SeaFood Business Magazine link to the article Fighting fraud: Can an honor system unmask seafood scammers? in that it redirects to a general page about the magazine. Is the article still available? I, JethroBTdrop me a line06:15, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).
The claim under the universal primer technology section, ...the most noted seafood scandal in Florida and other parts of America requires sourcing that the scandal has been considered in that manner.
Concerned about the reliability of this source here. It appears to be a memorial website. I can't access the main page, and on their about page, it's not clear to me whether the info they post is actually researched or investigated.
But this is, by definition, a source that is not independent. I realize it's nice to be able to talk about family a little in biographical articles, but the sources need to be appropriate. The source is being used to discuss his father, which is not crucial, so I think it should be left out unless a reliable source can be produced. I, JethroBTdrop me a line02:28, 24 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Patents relating to this invention have been filed in several countries and the research papers published in various journals. - I see the part about the patents supported by this source, but not about papers published in various journals.
The "Influences" under the infobox do not appear to be substantiated in the article. Unless there is a source for these, they should be removed.
I read this info on his article Here. I quote his statement on that article:
"I was always curious to know, why the university was known as the mother of “Green Revolution” I learned that it was due to the role of university in adopting and further developing the dwarf varieties of wheat, which were created by the transfer of “Norin 10″ gene in the tall wheat varieties by an American biologist “Norman Borlaug” in the decade of 1960s. The development of such dwarf varieties of wheat was a major revolution, since the dwarf varieties were not only high yielding, but due to their small height and strong stem, the plants were resistant to fall and damage by wind, flood and other extreme environmental conditions."
"Borlaug’s work on the development of dwarf varieties of wheat saved the lives of millions of people! India became self sufficient to feed its hungry population by growing good quantity and quality grains within the country! Several hundred years of hunger and tragic moments of the country ended just because of this single discovery and the vision and work and of “Norman Borlaug”!
"The work of the Indian scientist “M.S. Swaminathan” on further improvements of wheat varieties by the way of “mutagenesis” was another major historical breakthrough that inspired me."
Since you previously suggested that this website appears to be maintained by Verma I delete this from the info box for now until a better source is found. If you think that self statement by the subject about such a personal stuff (influence) could be OK, I shall then include this in infobox with a reference to this article. Please let me know. I personally feel that no one other than the subject himself/herself can tell about his or her influence/inspiration for his or her own life, hence the above source should be OK, even if it is maintained by Verma as you have suggested previously. Educationtemple (talk) 21:20, 24 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I think that self-statement from Verma about Borlaug is sufficient for an influence as you've described, and you can provide this reference to support it. It's appropriate for a claim like this one (though I think independent, biographical sources discuss influences can be appropriate as well). But because it's self-published, we just need to be careful about what claims it is being used to support, because they shouldn't be things that could be reasonably challenged. I, JethroBTdrop me a line19:36, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a little confused about why the findings of this article are described as a "re-discovery of the pygmy hog," when the abstract of the paper appears to be about classification. Granted, my background in biology is quite weak and I could be wrong about this. Can you explain to me why it is a re-discovery? I, JethroBTdrop me a line19:50, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Great comment! Your background in biology may be weak (as you say) but your commonsense and power of observation is remarkable! I try to explain why it was called re-discovery - but before I go ahead please read these (1, 2) two news articles. As mentioned in the articles, it was believed for long time that this species had become extinct. I quote from the articles - "a species so rare it was once believed extinct" but the group of these researchers found that this was not the case, the species not only existed but also belonged to a unique evolutionary line (see below). This was a re-discovery of this species after a century or more.
Article 2 writes, I quote: "The pig’s current Latin name is Sus salvinius which reflects the widespread belief that it is closely related to the domestic pig and other members of the Sus family which also includes wild boar." This belief over this name of the species continued for more than a century until in 2007 Verma and colleagues discovered a unique DNA in this species (read this) and based on this study renamed the species as Porcula salvania (as later accepted by world) (also read this latest news article). Interestingly, the genus Porcula was also believed to become extinct for more than a century, but when Verma and colleagues found that Pygmy Hog is indeed only living member of Porcula on earth in their study, this genus also came into existence once again after more than a century of darkness in this area.
Aricle 2 explains - "the authors found that Victorian taxonomist Hodgson was correct in his original suspicion that the pygmy hog is indeed a unique genus and the scientific name he gave it, Porcula salvania, should be reinstated."
It does, but I think this consequently requires some clarification. The researchers in the first two news articles you provided are credited with the debunking the pygmy hog's believed extinction, whereas the paper on which Kumar is a co-author represents a discovery of the animal's correct genus, and that it is not related to members of the Sus family. Calling it a "re-discovery" does not provide the reader with a lot of information by itself, so I suggest that we describe the findings more concretely. Here is a suggestion: Verma's research in the area of signal transduction and wildlife conservation led to the reclassification of the pygmy hog – an indigenous Indian endangered species – from Sus salvanius to Porcula salvania.I, JethroBTdrop me a line08:10, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I came across this article about a dispute between Verma and Paul Hebert, a University of Guelph zoologist over universal primer technology. What is your opinion about mentioning this dispute under the Universal primer technology section? There is only one major article about it as far as I can see (the text has been republished in other places though).
You are right. I am aware about this news and it was also published in "Nature" group of Journals (This). There is a reason to include something about it into the article on Sunil Kumar Verma as well as DNA barcoding since "Nature" does not publish anything so easily and there is a reason to believe that Paul D.N.Hebert (Guelph zoologist) has said Nature - I quote "Hebert told Nature India he was "unaware of Verma's involvements in this field" until Verma launched a major email campaign in May 2014 claiming priority of UPT over DNA barcoding. Although Verma had filed his patent claim in 2001, "his work was invisible to members of the international scientific community for a substantial interval since his patent was not granted until 2006," Hebert said in an email." This reason given by Paul Hebert, for non-crediting the work of Verma et al., does not sustain in Science as also said in some critiques - I quote from article"ignorance of published work is unacceptable in science and failure to cite a legitimate and cite-worthy prior published work is one of the internationally accepted criteria for defining plagiarism". This is a bigger issue than I (and anyone else) originally thought since DNA barcoding is considered as a big discovery, and credit for this discovery is on dispute. I think that we can include and quote some of the statements from the Nature's article but I am afraid that it may initiate an editing war on Sunil Kumar Verma itself since the matter has not been discussed yet in great depth in the world outside amongst experts from world. That was the reason, I did not include anything about this in my article. If few more news, articles appears in coming times, we can then update about this not only in Sunil Kumar Verma but also in DNA barcoding.
Having said this, we could precisely include in the article some of the facts that are evident such as - the fact that "Nature India" article was published, along with news coverage in national media (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), no one can deny this). We can quote some of the statements of Paul Hebert, and others in the story including the member of ethics committee, but we can not say at our end, whether Verma is right or Paul Hebert is right, since this story is not yet concluded (as cited above) and leave the matter un-concluded at our end. If you agree with this, I can work upon the text with my friend @W.carter: and get back to you. Educationtemple (talk) 01:30, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Much about the dispute can be described in more detail on an article about universal primer technology. On a biography about Verma, I think it is enough to report the following, which can perhaps be done in two sentences:
That Verma has argued that DNA barcoding, a technique independently developed by zoologist Paul Herbert in 2003, is essentially the same analysis for species identification as UPT and is generally credited in the literature.
That Verma launched an e-mail campaign in May 2014 to persuade colleagues that UPT, which Verma claims was developed earlier, should be fairly credited. Herbert argues that he was not aware of UPT because its patents were not visible to the broader scientific community.
I don't think any direct quotes from Herbert are necessary. This article should be about Verma and should not go into the back-and-forth nature of the dispute, which should be saved for the article on the analysis itself. I, JethroBTdrop me a line08:48, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Done. However, I added this in a new section named Universal primer technology Vs DNA barcoding. Hope it is OK and that the content of this new section + citations are also OK and are inline to your suggestions above. Cheers! Educationtemple (talk) 12:07, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
Verma's biographical coverage in this article seem consistent with our guidelines on due weight based on the sources available. The focus is appropriate; much of Verma's coverage is associated with his work developing and using universal primer technology.
4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
Content present in the article is presented in a non-promotional manner. That said, See 3a for a question about coverage a dispute regarding the development and crediting of universal primer technology that Verma is involved in.
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
An AfD and DRV were opened for this article last year, but those concerns have clearly been addressed here. I see no evidence of edit wars, disputes, or other disruption.
6.Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
All media are under one of the appropriate CC-BY licenses which appear on the websites where the content is found. There are no non-free images for consideration.
All media are certainly appropriate for the biography and are well described. Photos of Vumar receiving the CSIR Technology Award and his audio recording are both strong additions.
Did Verma sign this document as a delegate? I can't tell, but I think it'd be helpful to point out where his signature is in the caption if he did.
Done. I zoomed it and I can read "sunil...." in blue colour at 'bottom middle' in the document (just above the green comment and signature by VS Ramamuthy, Secretary). Pointed this in the caption. Educationtemple (talk) 01:56, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
7. Overall assessment.
Done. Hello dear @I JethroBT:! Thanks for kind suggestions. I have tried to address almost all the issues raised by you so far. They were good suggestions. Thank you! Please have a look if these are better now. Educationtemple (talk) 14:29, 15 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Hello dear @I JethroBT:! Thanks for kind suggestions. I have tried to address almost all the issues raised by you so far. They were good suggestions. Thank you! Please have a look if these are better now. Educationtemple (talk) 14:29, 15 February 2015 (UTC)