[tz] zoneinfo : ist : error

[Robert Elz]

    Date:        Fri, 21 Dec 2012 03:49:43 -0500 (EST)
    From:        Mayuresh Kathe <mayuresh at wolfman.devio.us>
    Message-ID:  <alpine.BSO.2.00.1212210322010.3813 at wolfman.devio.us>

  | population wise, mumbai (bombay) is quite larger than kolkata (calcuta), 

I'm not sure why Kolkata was picked over Mumbai (or Calcutta over Bombay)

  | and will continue to grow in "density" (which should be the real measure).

There's no "real measure" here, nor is there any correct vs incorrect.
These things are just file names, anything unique would work (and at
times I've thought that we should remove all the current names, and replace
them with numbers, so india might be tz107 or something - that way we'd
get less arguments).

  | but, just like kolkata is at the eastern extreme, closer to +0600,
  | mumbai, is at the western extreme, closer to +0500.

That is completely irrelevant - as long as both of those places have
their clocks set at UTC+0530 they're part of the same zone.  Very
few zone names label cities that are particularly close to what would be
the natural longitude for the zone time offset.

  | if, what i've read is right, please note, delhi would be more apt because 
  | it fits the bill better than either mumbai or kolkata;

  | 1. delhi is more populous than kolkata.

This one is the one argument for possibly changing - the question is
whether the disruption os worth it.

  | 2. delhi is closer to +0530 than either mumbai or kolkata.

That's irrelevant.

  | 3. delhi has no name change problems like mumbai, kolkata, chennai, etc.

Since they aren't likely to change again (I'd guess) this doesn't
matter any more.

  | 4. having delhi as the marker for india gives every indian a sense of
  |     pride which is absent in the case of any other indian city.

These names aren't meant to be used (or even visible) that way.
They're just file names, or evnironment variable values, which
shouldn't normally be very visible to almost anyone.

kre