Partition of India potential for increased violence, the new viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, advanced the date for the transfer of power, allowing less than six months for a mutually agreed plan for independence. In June 1947, the nationalist leaders, including Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad on behalf of the Congress, Jinnah representing the Muslim League, B. R. Ambedkar representing the Untouchable community, and Master Tara Singh representing the Sikhs, agreed to a partition of the country along religious lines in stark opposition to Gandhi's views. The predominantly Hindu and Sikh areas were assigned to the new India and predominantly Muslim areas to the new
Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan coauthored with Dillon Ripley, was published in 1983. The plates from this supplement were incorporated in the second edition of the "Handbook". The second edition was completed by others, notably J. S. Serrao of the BNHS, Bruce Beehler, Michel Desfayes and Pamela Rasmussen, after the deaths of Ali in 1987 and Ripley in 2001. Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan The Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan is the "magnum opus" of Indian ornithologist Salim Ali, written along with S. Dillon Ripley. Appended to the title is the phrase ""together with those of Bangladesh, Nepal, Sikkim,