Ashwin,

Thanks for this note and the previous one, both well articulated. A few points:

1. A lot of the edits on the dam article were IP edits, whereas Manmohan Singh is a protected page - only autoconfirmed users can edit, hence IPs are ruled out. Further, the dam was in the news, which gave it limelight and made it a good COTM choice (though, as I said earlier, the limelight often makes the article unstable which would mean a fail at GAR).
2. As I mentioned earlier, several India GA/FAs have been demoted. A few like Mumbai have received attention and have been re-promoted. Most demoted articles just havnt received thart sort of attention - primarily due to the retirement of a bunch of editors who worked hard to get the pages to GA/FA status, there arnt people enough for this.
3. The COTM doesnt have too many regular active editors, hence making a GA from scratch is difficult, working on a demoted one may be a lot easier
4. Depending on the response, the COTM should be extended - this may mean articles which may not be upto the mark within a month get to a decent level - people dont stop editing it abruptly.
5. This is probably going to be very controversial - I suggest only people actually taking part in COTM get to vote in the choice for the COTM every month. Rationale being its those chaps that do the work, if they arnt interested in the topic chosen, it will probably be a failure as they wont be motivated enough to participate. Hence, its important that the active editors get their choice of articles not what others want them to do.
6. Online outreach - there are Indian editors active on en wiki that arnt on this list or active offline and do not wish to mingle with Wikipedians offline. I feel a major push is required to include these sort of editors in COTM - as these are some really active editors who can make a big difference to this initiative.
7. A lot of previously very active editors are a part of this list. Im not asking you to come back and be an active part of this initiative - you are probably busy with other stuff, however, it would be greatly appreciated if you guys had a look at the COTM article say maybe on a weekly basis and gave your input on it - either on the talk page or on this list. Playing an active role will always be appreciated, however if you cant, we would love to see you guys mentor next-gen editors participating in COTM :)

Kind Regards,