India Postage Stamps 2016: Stamp Poll

Choose your favorite (best design or subject) commemorative postage stamps issued by India Post in 2016. The poll will remain open for a month, until 03rd February 2017.

Legend in the Making: Legendary Singers of India Stamps

Update (22 Dec 2016): The last word on this story had yet to be said. India Post will release the Legendary Singers of India stamps on 31st December 2016. Sheets of 45 stamps for each singer is being sold on ePostOffice for pre-booking. This does again raise the question about commemorating the same singers with a second stamp (six out of 10). We highly recommend that the list at the end of this post must be considered for issuing stamps on India's well known singers.

Here begins another saga with recalling of Indian postage stamps from all philatelic bureaus (after Guru Granth Sahib stamps in 2005). This current one dates back to July 2015. After a meeting of the Philatelic Advisory Committee of India Post, it was announced that series of stamps would be released on singers, writers, dancers, painters and freedom fighters. The first series of stamps were to be released on legendary singers of India. The Minister along with senior department officials must have decided on a set of names of playback singers of Indian cinema to be commemorated with a set of stamps. The following ten singers were chosen:

Shamshad Begum

Manna Dey

Geeta Dutt

Bhupen Hazarika

Hemant Kumar

Kishore Kumar

Talat Mahmood

Mukesh

Mohammed Rafi

T. M. Soundararajan

BetterPhilately had reported this on 04 April 2016 (http://betterphilately.blogspot.com/2015/10/india-post-stamp-subjects-for-2016.html), while pointing out that stamps had been previously released on 6 out of 10 (highlighted in blue) personalities selected this time around. Within a few days, some other options for famous playback singers was provided on the BetterPhilately twitter feed (https://twitter.com/BetterPhilately/status/719343350193790976). Now it has been reported on Facebook that these stamps along with the miniature sheet of 10 designs have been recalled by India Post. All philatelic centers have been asked to send the stamps back to New Delhi. What led to this adhoc decision?

- Was there a realization in India Post that these stamps do not well represent all regions of India?
- Were these postage stamps released prematurely by some philatelic offices and this recall will help identify the culprits? Returns from whichever post office do not match the quantity originally sent could be easily found.
- Are there some errors in printing or logistical issues behind the release?

Stamps recalled: Legendary Singers of India (Source: Pan India Pictorial Place Cancellations Facebook Page)

We recommend this series of stamps be re-considered and the following singers be instead commemorated on Indian postage stamps:

Shamshad Begum

Manna Dey

G. M. Durrani

Mahendra Kapoor

Talat Mahmood

T. M. Soundararajan

P. B. Sreenivas

Spelling Bee in Postage Stamps

It's been a while since the last blog post discussing errors in spelling on Indian postage stamps. Here are a couple recent ones. Both these stamp subjects were recognized in the new definitive stamp series, Makers of India. One of them, Syama Prasad Mookerjee (1901-1953) was also honored with commemorative postage stamps in 1978 and 2001. The first stamp in 1978 had English rendering of Mookerjee's name in a signature form, but the second one in 2001 showed his name typo-graphed in English and Hindi. It appears that Mookerjee's name in both the commemorative stamps is spelled similarly, but the new definitive stamp (2015) is quite different. So, now there are two variations of Syama Prasad Mookerjee's spelling. Why can't India Post use information from official documents such as Parliament records to confirm this prior to printing postage stamps? As far as the Hindi (Devanagiri) spelling goes, it is a well known tradition where the Mookerjee last name can also be replaced with Mukhopadhyaya as well. The problem here is that India Post puts this flexibility to full use. The stamp issued in 1978 and the new definitive stamp (2015) use Mukhopadhyaya, but the one from 2001 has Mookerjee on it. The Great India Post Confusion.

English renderings:
Syama Prasad Mookerjee (1978 and 2001)
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (2015)

Vernacular Hindi spellings:
Syama Prasad Mookerjee (2001)
Syama Prasad Mukhopadhyaya (1978 and 2015)

Another stamp released as part of the Makers of India definitive stamp series, is to honor Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. There have been two postage stamps released in his memory (1966 and 1988) prior to the most recent one last year (2015). The first stamp in 1966 shows Azad's name as Abul Kalam Azad, not using the Maulana title. The next one to celebrate his birth centenary in 1988 shows his name as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, but the one in 2015 changed the spelling for his title from Maulana to Moulana. This change not be a significant one, but the issue is about consistency. Firstly, India Post must try refrain from repeating stamp subjects, but if pressed, stamp designers on its artists panel should at least attempt for uniform naming convention for well known personalities, institutions or events. Here's hoping things will be better in 2016.

English renderings:

Moulana Abul Kalam Azad (2015)

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1988)

Abul Kalam Azad (1966)

Choose Your Favorite 2015 India Postage Stamp

Lame Designing - Is it really 2015, India Post?

Note for Clarification: There are ample good ideas such as crowdsourcing and stamp designs that are often used by India Post. Gandhi Return from South Africa (2015), Swachh Bharat (2015), India-France Joint issue (2015), Charkha (2015), Indian Musicians (2014), Border Security Force (2015) etc. are some recent examples of decent quality work.

But, being a stickler for good design, at least five stamp issues in the last couple years (2014 and 2015) stand out for poor execution. Stamp designs, either appropriating logos or using poor imagery reduces the overall quality of a stamp program. Logos for meetings, celebrations or any other events are typically designed to be used for publicity and to provide an identity, a connect with its audience. Rarely should postage stamps be utilizing such logos as the design backbone. Enough other related research material is generally available for design considerations. Three of these lazily executed stamp projects are shown below by comparing the stamp design and source material. Although the Yoga Day stamp depicts the official logo, the miniature sheet was well designed with elements of nature along with yoga postures.

Three Logos and their replica on postage stamps:
World Hindi Conference (2015), International Day of Yoga (2015) and Nabakalebara (2015)

One would think that famous Hindi writers like Phanishwar Nath Renu, Nirmal Verma, Rajendra Mathur, Makhanlal Chaturvedi, etc. could have been released to commemorate the World Hindi Conference. Similarly, the Yoga posture series from 1991 could have been continued with stamps on additional yoga postures being released. Nabakalebara 2015 should also have been commemorated with stamps depicting some aspects of the traditions involved in idol making.

Stamp design for a couple other issues, viz. Kuka Movement and Old Seminary Kottayam showed a clear apathy toward philately and research in general. Kuka Movement coins were released in 2012 to commemorate 150 years of the struggle. The coin design was similar to the stamp as well, but appeared to be better than the coin. Stamps generally have more space and better technology for printing rendering it a better medium of expression. The Kuka Movement stamps thus appear to lack innovation and planning during the design phase. One could easily envision including Satguru Ram Singh Ji's image as the main theme for this stamp. 

Kuka Movement stamp (2014; above) and commemorative coin (2012)

The last stamp issue for discussion is the Old Seminary, Kottayam stamp released in April 2015. The seminary turned 200 years, but the stamp to commemorate the bicentenary shows a recent addition to the institution, its main entrance! Red arrows on the image below show the cut-paste job done to create the stamp design. An image from the internet exactly matches the one on the stamp with a superimposed blue sky. There are many more images on the seminary's website that could have commemorated 200 years of this institution better than the main entrance alone.

Pazhaya (Old) Seminary images from Malankara Orthodox Church TV website  (above top left and right). Top right image was most likely used on the stamps. 

List of Stamp Designers

Design Flaw - 3rd India-Africa Forum Summit 2015

A  set of six stamps were released at the concluding session of the 3rd India-Africa Forum Summit held from 26 to 29th October 2015, in New Delhi. These stamps were also released in a miniature sheet format (regular miniature sheet and embossed hot foil miniature sheet). The theme - easily predictable - for the stamps was animals in India and Africa, specifically, lions, rhinos and gazelles. Full marks for the idea and the paintings as well (designed by Suresh Kumar Achari). There are a few minor issues that show a sense of urgency in designing as well as printing from SPP Hyderabad.

The first design flaw (blue arrows in the image below) appears to be the location of the stamp title, '3rd India-Africa Forum Summit' in the two gazelle stamps. The other four stamps have the title well aligned to the top of the stamps. On the same two stamps, names of the gazelles (yellow boxes), Black Buck and Thomson's Gazelle are capitalized oddly. First letters of both words, for e.g. Indian Lion and African Lion appears to be a common approach on stamps, but the second words on Black Buck and Thomson's Gazelle are not capitalized (it reads Black buck and Thomson's gazelle). The last issue is most likely due to space constraints and a personal preference (red boxes). The two Lion stamps have the country name, stamp title and the denomination, all appear on the same top alignment making the stamps overcrowded.

Suggestions to mitigate such issues:
1. Proof reading the final designs will ensure spelling errors or capitalization mistakes don't occur (read another blog post about needing a research group in the Philately Division). Re-checking the final designs will also ensure simple design errors are caught and this exercise would be aimed at ensuring consistency and a well made final product for stamp collectors.

2. A radical approach to this particular stamp issue could have been to restrict the scope of work itself. Similar to the 2011 Africa-India Forum Summit stamps, where Indian and Africa elephants were depicted in a well designed miniature sheet (designed by Kamleshwar Singh), either rhinoceros or lions could have been chosen as the theme. A limited number of stamps could have ensured maximum sale (lower costs for the philatelists) and saved a couple ideas for future commemorations (potentially even joint issues with African nations). Below is shown a cropped image of the 2015 miniature sheet with rhinos only and the 2011 stamps.

Happy Dipavali or Deepavali?

Festivities for Diwali are winding down and this appeared to be a good time to draw attention to this glaring spelling error (Hindi spelling) in the Diwali stamp released by India Post in October 2008. This stamp spells Deepavali in English correctly, but when the Hindi script is transliterated to English, it reads Dipavali. The word Deepavali includes 'Deep' or lamp. It cannot be spelled as 'Dipavali' because 'Dip' has no meaning in Hindi. Another Deepavali stamp, a joint issue with Israel, celebrating the festival of lights was released in 2012. For good reason, the Hindi spelling was corrected this time around. Spelling Deepavali in Hindi is generally taught in elementary school, so it isn't a difficult error to miss.

दिपावली (Reads Dipavali) - Incorrect                                                                                     

दीपावली (Reads Deepavali) - Correct   

Anyways, Happy Diwali!

Interesting Find: Two Preps for Gandhi 2015 Miniature Sheet?

Two stamps commemorating the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi's return from South Africa were released in January 2015. A miniature sheet (souvenir sheet) containing both the stamps was also released. Now it appears there was another design with two additional features that did not make it to the final version. The other design contained an image of the Sabarmati Ashram, Ahmedabad and a logo describing the 100 years (1915-2015). Apart from these two differences, two other important changes were the denomination of the second stamp that shows the landing scene with a ship in the background as well as the stamp description. Increasing denomination of some stamps to provide for foreign postage is an on-going trend with India Post. It needs another blog post to better understand how higher denomination stamps inflate the cost of stamp collecting. This Gandhi stamp could have reached a lot more collectors and sold better had the cost of the miniature been restricted to 10 rupees instead of twenty five.

Stamp description changed from Mahatma Gandhi's Return from South Africa to 100 Years of Mahatma Gandhi's Return.

Left: Image from India Perspectives (indiaperspectives.in)
Right: Actual Miniature Sheet

Check the Spellings #1

It is important to have the correct spellings on stamps and related philatelic material (brochure, FDC etc). In the last decade there have been numerous occasions of typographical errors on Indian postage stamps. These are mostly related to the vernacular (Hindi) spellings. 

First one being a postage stamp issued on 30 June 2008 to commemorate 50 years of Madhav Institute of Science & Technology, Gwalior during the valedictory function of the Golden Jubilee Celebrations. The postage stamp has a spelling error in the Hindi alphabets. The Hindi word for 'Technology' is 'Praudyogiki'. It uses a letter, 'dya' in its spelling.  The stamp on the contrary mentions it as 'Praudhogiki', making no meaning out of it. It has replaced 'dya' with 'dha'. The Ministry under which the Department of Posts functions is Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, having 'Technology' in its name itself! Such blunders are an insult to the department, which cannot even take care of spelling mistakes in postage stamps, referred to as being a nation's reprecentatives to the world. The fascimile on the borchure shows the name spelt out correctly. The error could have cropped up during the printing process.

Another mistake can be found in the Brahmos missile postage stamps released on 22 December 2008. The FDC carries the spelling of the Moskva river, in English as MOSKAVA whereas it is correctly mentioned at MOSKVA on the miniature sheet. The version in the vernacular language, on the FDC reads as MASKOVA and on the miniature sheet as MOSKOVA. So, these are four different ways to the original MOSKVA river, after which the BrahMOS cruise missile is partly named. I request the artists to be more careful, since postage stamp is a miniature art form that conveys a message and thus needs attention to perfection. A proof-check of the philatelic materials should be done before being sent out for printing. These postage stamps are the message-carriers of a nation and this postage stamp in particular, will have significance in Russia as well.

A variation in spelling Satyajit Ray's name can be found in a definitive stamp release on the legendary filmmaker, a builder of modern India in March 2009. The vernacular spelling of Ray's name is different on the other stamp released to honor him in January 1994. The stamp in the definitive series translates his last name 'Ray' name to ' रे ' where as the commemorative version has is as ' राय '. One is curious to know what goes in the making of India postage stamps and why little to no attention is paid to the details and accuracy. It may not always be wise to question the spellings for proper nouns (individual's names) but, there is ample scope to improving uniformity in this regard.

This topic is one that deserves attention. The last word on this has not been written yet. As I finish writing this, there is a new postage stamp on Indian Ocean and Rajendra Chola 1 and there are a few minor errors on that postage stamp as well. Rest for later.