h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Postcodes of India - A87830166
Author: kerhalkar - U15000404

My first entry. Please help to improve it!

Excellent start and a good idea for an entry

ideas
Well for a start some history the people involved civil servants, the post men, how the mail is delivered in inaccasable regions.

How the system was developed. And a few interesting stories.

And how do the country folk post a letter you don't see any obvious post boxes in rural areas.

That's about it to start with please work on this it promises to be a fascinating entry.

I think this is a really good idea for an entry – h2g2 has an article on German number plates, so I enjoyed reading about postcodes in India. Like Bob, I would like to read more background about the system – such as is it used only by India Post, and is India Post a State-run or commercial postal service? Do other delivery companies use the system?

You've also mentioned that the system is designed around post offices twice, but not personal property or business addresses at all. This seems to imply that letters get delivered to post offices, rather than individual addresses. Is this correct?

I look forward to learning more!

<BB<

Yes, this has the potential of being a fascinating entry, I do not believe that the UK members have much of a clue of how a mail service would work in a subcontinent with over 500 languages, an iliterate rural population and several thousand year history.

You need to give a paragraph or two on the history of the post service in India.

How does the service cope with all the different scripts and handwriting. The mind boggles!

Is there a difference in urban versus rural delivery?

Are there still professional letter writers available for illiterate people?

Do post offices in India offer banking or faxing services as well as jut dealing with the mail?

Are there social aspects to to the post office---is it a place to meet your neighbours and catch up on the news?

How long does it take for mail to get from one part of India to another?

How has the Internet infrastruction of India impacted mail service?


These are just questions that you might find useful in fleshing out this entry, there is a lot of things readers would be interested in.

Welcome to the site, we are thrilled to get researchers from all over the globe and India is such an interesting place.

This entry is still work in progress. I will edit it much more later!

Hi there kerhalker!

Very pleased to meet you, and glad that you've considered writing for us.

We certainly need people from the Indian subcontinent!

Please accept people's suggestions as just that - suggestions. The Entry is 'yours'. While I think it is worthwhile writing some of the background to the Postal Service as an introduction to this piece, to include information on every facet would make this particular Entry too long and cumbersome. I'd prefer just a few salient facts.

You're the expert here. If you find you can distill some pertinent information along with a breakdown of Indian Postcodes - then in my opinion - this would be enough. Choose some of the more important suggestions and write a few lines about those aspects of how post is sent and delivered in India.

After that - we've plenty of room in the Guide for supplementary pieces on all walks of life that you have firsthand knowledge of.

Good luck - and if there is anything you need to ask, please reply here.

Lanzababy - Guide Editor

Interesting entry

I find it a bit unbalanced having the list of postcodes at the start. I think I'd rather these were placed after the main entry.

In fact, when you take these out, you've actually written more about the history of India Post than the postcodes themselves. Would this be a better subject to hold the entry together?

I suspect that Indian postal history is a massive subject, but I believe you could make this a great entry if you expanded this a little, perhaps covering more on how the post was delivered over the years, how partition affected it, etc. You've made a great start, though, and the facts you've chosen are very interesting.

* * *

I was especially interested to hear your fact about Henri Pequet and the world's first airmail service. I actually write about this feat in another entry, but my research found that Gustav Hamel had done this in September 1911 - a few months after you say Pequet did it. See A15850514 :

"To mark the coronation of King George V, Gustav Hamel, the son of the German-born Royal Physician, flew a Bleriot monoplane all of 21 miles between Hendon and Windsor on 9 September, 1911. For this he has been credited with flying the world's first official airmail service."

If you can give me a corroborating link to say that Pequet was first, then I'll have my entry changed.

Icy

It is a bit hard to find reliable information on the Internet... The bit about Pequet was taken from Wikipedia.

This is a nice entry, and you haven't made the beginner's mistake of trying to be too quirky. You have understood what the Guide is about really well.

If you can embellish on some of the points, and maybe include answers to the questions asked in this thread, so much the better. If not, that's OK too.

As a consumer, I would add the questions: How long does it take for a letter to get from, say, the centre of New Delhi to somewhere way out in the country, and vice versa? Do the postmen wear uniforms? Do they deliver on foot, by bicycle or moped? But these are only peripheral points with regard to the Post Code system.

Is the Post Code system based on the American system? (Sounds rather like the French system to me) Which system was used as the basis for designing the Indian system?

Are the post codes read by machine? Are there stipulations as to where they should appear on the envelope, or within the address? Can the machines decipher handwriting?

Was there a marketing campaign when the post codes were introduced? Does everybody understand the significance of it, and use it correctly? Is it always used? Are there addresses which don't have post codes at all? Is there a delay if you don't use the post code?

How small an area exactly does a 6-figure post code cover? Or, in other words, how many addresses would be allocated to each Post Office?

In Britain, people are used to their 6-figure alphanumerical post code being for just their house or group of houses. In Germany and France, the post code applies to a whole town, and is useless without the rest of the address.

As I understand it, the difference between a Guide entry and a Wikipedia article is that the style of writing aims to be more rounded, and the entry is the work of a single individual. An entry cannot easily be re-edited once it is uploaded and is therefore not susceptible to being altered, e.g. facts added or changed without scrupulous peer review.

So hats off to everyone who opts to write for the Guide!

A good entry, but it looks like the author has ed. I'd like to propose the Flea Market.

<BB<

Umm... I'm still here! Sorry for my inactivity. So it's going for Flea Market is it?

Personally I say that the article would be better named as 'India Post' because it covers not only the postcodes themselves, but also some info on the service.

Well thats a good idea please finish this entry it is very good. It is very nice to see you back on this site.

The flea market is not a waste bin it is a safe place for unfinished entries where you or someone else can adopt them. So dont worry it is still yours until it is adopted then you get joint credit with the researcher who adopts it.