And the nominees are ...

Thanks to all the Jurors we now have the list of Nominees for Indibloggies 2004 ready. We reproduce it here with Juror comments. Voting starts soon :)

Category : Best Indiblog

• Deesha [Author: Atanu Dey ]
  
  • One of the most incisive thinkers on India and its developmental issues. Amazing insights and innovative solutions to India's problems can be found in almost every post
  
  


• World is Green [Author: Suhit Anantula ]
  
  • Displays a good understanding of rural and semi-urban India and his blog covers related business and economic trends, technologies and ideas.
  
  


• Gautam Ghosh on management [Author: Gautam Ghosh ]
  
  • Consistently blogging good stuff on Management and HR from an Indian point of view.
  
  


• Varnam [Author: JK ]
  
  • Topical, thoughtful, interesting, identifies and covers the topics that really matter, non-pseudo; Sharply opinionated erudition qualify them to be contenders for the top award.
  
  


• Gigaom [Author:Om Malik ]
  
  • A thought leader and one the most influential Indian bloggers around.
  
  


• Vichaar.org [Author: Various ]
  
  • A group blog that brings good insights to a wide variety of topics from terrorism to classical music.
  
  


• Niraj [Author: Niraj Agarwalla ]
  
  • A great blog with specific interest in all things Bangladesh, excellent analysis of South-Asian and American politics.
  
  


• Emergic.org [Author: Rajesh Jain ]
  


• Tsunami Blog [Author: Various ]
  
  • It mobilized the various people around the world and provided a single point of information for the Tsunami relief. A great example of power of blog medium.
  
  


• Sepia Mutiny [Author: Various ]
  
  • A group blog by a bunch of Indian Americans who write about all sorts of topics. Their eclectic mix of entries makes it a must read for anyone who is interested in Indian Blogging!
  
  


• The scientific Indian [Author: Various ]
  


• Amardeep Singh [Author: Amardeep Singh ]
  
  • Thoughtful posts on a wide range of topics
  
  


• Instant Kappi [Author: Hemanth ]
  
  • Like the variety in this blog, plus it's clean and unostentatious. Off late contains a lot of links and pictures, you won't miss any interesting story of the day if you subscribe to the blog.
  
  

Best Group IndiBlog

• Sepia Mutiny


• Teakada: Relevant, topical, and multi-opinionated.


• The Scientific Indian


• Zoo station


• Caferati


• Vichaar.org


• Akshargram: Witty, naughty and very bharteeya

Best Sports IndiBlog

• 23 Yards: Focused, Professional, Informed, insightful (and not just passionate opinions). It does have an articlish feel, rather than that of a blog.


• The Blockhole: Opinionated, Sports != Cricket here, bloggers seem to be genuine sports fans

Best science/technology IndiBlog

• Ramesh Jain: the guru of multimedia search, internationally.


• Sadagopan's weblog: Extensive in writing and has personal insights on the IT industry. Sadagopan's weblog is an excellent commentary on various Emerging Technologies, Thoughts, Ideas, Trends and Cyber world. Very well written and shows the thought process from a deep experience. Although he could use a little bigger font on his blog; Lots of new info with explanation and analysis of emerging trends placing technology in context.; Extensive in writing and has personal insights on the IT industry.


• Movalog: Helps in building on the cutting edge of this new technology. Actually useful resource for MT users.


• Gigaom: He has the uncanny ability to review and analyze various things happening in tech world. When world was singing praises of Gmail he raised the flag of disenchantment. Popular around the blogosphere for not just news on broadband, as his tagline suggests, but on technology in general. Ofcourse, being a part of Business 2.0 helps a lot in getting various scoops he manages to obtain.


• TechWhack: Don't take his younger age for his naiveté in tech areas. If you subscribe to google news you would often find his posts on the front page in TechSection.


• Scientific Indian: Scian brings some very informational tidbits on science. It is a welcome change just when your head starts spinning with all the politics and philosophical talk going around. They too have a mela of sorts called the "Scian Melt". Overall it tries to make things very interesting for readers.


• Wordlog


• The Dreamer: Though this is not purely technical, there is quite a bit of technical posts.


• Emegric.org: One of the most well known of the Indian bloggers..:-)


• The Radiohead: Very well written technical blog.


• Weblog Tools Collection


• Trend Space: Tracks trends and look for patterns in popular culture, technology, demographics.


• Trinetra

Best IndiBlog directory/service

• Blogstreet India: India's First Blogs and RSS Portal. This year also saw the launch of the most ambitious project in the history of Indian blogging. They organize the blogs based on geographical location and rank them based on inter-linking amongst the blogs that are in the directory. Also cool is the feature on their site is the book, music and DVD recommendations.


• Chittha Vishwa: One of the most unique dynamic service built upon open resources that includes a hand-sewn blog aggregator, blogger profiles, blog reviews and up-todate list of Hindi blogs. The first ever such effort in Hindi blogdom all over.


• Kamat Blogportal

Best Topical IndiBlog

• Blame India Watch:The other side of the offshoring story. As it says - Don't blame India, or Indians.


• Tsunami Help: Its commendable what these guys are doing - useful stuff.


• Media Musings: Somebody needs to monitor Indian media, seriously.


• AnarCapLib: For he is doing more to help understand economics, for his genuine attempt to change India and Indian's way of thinking - for being a good source of what is current and relevant to India


• A time to reflect: Though a market researcher, she probably knows more about creative writing and advertising and advertisers more than professionals


• Shiok: Food for thought. thoughts on food -whichever way, he sums it up well - and i have had more than one dinner due to him


• Spontaneous Order: Attempting to impart some sense into economic policy-making. For their stubbornness they end up being nominees in the one-track mind category.


• Amardeep Singh


• The Acorn: Separates himself from the crowd and dedicatedly writes on the issues of Terrorism and Security affairs of the Nuclear powers in the South East Asia and Gulf. In terms of posts he is a curt machine, always awake and churning out those commentaries and news analysis as they happen.


• DriveBlog

Best Indi-Photoblog

• Hints, allegations...This is not exactly a photoblog, but it usually contains a lot of wonderful photos


• Phantasmagoria


• Raj's Photoblog: Breath-taking! His art has a distinct uniqueness that takes you into each picture as if you were there in person. The diversity of his subjects and his skill at framing each photograph just right gives all the other photo-enthusiasts a lot to learn from.


• Shutterbug: The sheer diversity of the subjects in Nilesh's photography alone makes it worthwhile to follow the photolog on a regular basis. His photographic skills and technique are freakin' amazing!; Lots of commentaries, previews into other pics, flawless pics, unique collection of panoramas, in short: a lensmen's perspective for a layman.


• Hacking Photography Bird-Watching: He has very interesting write-ups with the photos he publishes. The technical quality of the photos is almost professional. The only flaw I could find was the breadth of work. But then the title says - "Hacking Photography Bird-Watching". You shouldn't be complaining!


• Prashant Mullick

Best New IndiBlog

• New Delhi times: Very clean and informative blog.


• The Middle stage: Interesting posts, some provokes and some leave you thinking.


• Ramya Kannan: always managing a new thought, a new perspective, a new opinion with her posts, everytime she writes something - for proving that journalists are the best source of opinions and ideas - for easily managing to hide where her profession ends and hobby begins


• Kalpana Komal: For the name - the person -some of the writings, and most of the ideas


• Armorgeddon: Musings of a military man in Iraq talking about things you can only see in the news about, by Neil Prakash.


• Fursatiya: one of its kind new addition to Hindi world. His terse commentary on India's culture and its unique idiosyncrasies is a must read. Healso takes his shots on the hindi bloggers and is a joyful addition to hindi blogger cabal.


• Brooding dude: for the depth in his brooding


• India uncut: for the range in India Uncut


• Secular right India: 'opinionatedness' of the Secular Right make them stand out.


• Reportage

Best Humanities Blog

• Lazygeek: he is by far the most adept movie reviewer, he lives and breathes movies - for he truly loves the medium - for if he didn't exist, we would still be reading rediff reviews; Because he ain't so lazy in his blogging


• Anand K: The nerd of Indian and western cinema - for not being able to see movies like all the rest of us do - for reviewing it like it ought to be.


• Teakada: For it is the typical tea shop of madras - politics, movies, gossip and more, cussed, discussed and dismissed in much the same way - for a brief glance at teakadai gossip is enough to keep one upto speed on the latest happenings in Tamil moviedom and its extension - politics


• Dristikona: A blog from a well experienced person Indra Sharma talks about Indian society and the challenges it faces. He never says a thing in vain and always proposes a solution to these hurdles. We all can learn a lot from his lifelong experiences and thoughts based on these which he shares through his blog. Hope more folks like him will join the bloggerdom.


• Tilotamma

Best Indiblog Tagline

• Kingsley: because, he made taglines his regular posts - because, with his taglines -he spoke more than with his posts.


• Ravikiran: Very witty and different.


• Gopi Sundaram: For he really brings to light the problems faced by pants - every week. he made changing taglines a fashion - and changed it as often as I changed my pants -for he is funny. Well, this tagline reminds me that I need to adjust my pants too :)

Best Designed

• Muthukumar Rajamani: Simple, clean, uncluttered design - header graphic
• Divya Manian: Good design, simple - and nice use of the tabs


• MadMan: One of the best designed blogs around - I don’t like the pale orange colour, but the other features are cool - a daily link blog, toolbars that hide, good categories, uncluttered design. Elegant and simple design with very nifty features like the Daily Links. Very user-friendly and appealing to the eye while being easy on it.


• A Jolt of...: there are hundreds out there... but, it's different:


• Turban head: has all the snaz to show off!


• Shiok - Chef's Notes: Simple and elegant in design and rich in content must surely be doing wonders for this blog authored by a restaurant owner in Madras Bangalore. Madman is really elaborate in his recipe descriptions and I am sure quite a few bloggers from India have at one time or the other visited his site. If you haven't, then do take a look and try out his recipes.


• Sepia Mutiny: In perfect sync with its title.


• ShutterBug.nu: It is an uncluttered design and uses some unique design tricks (like the translucent borders). The various sections of the website are
  clearly demarcated. The archives page is easy to comprehend for a non-blogger and a search feature helps search through the archives.


• Amit Karmakar: Again a clean and well coded site. Inspite of the content overload, Amit has managed to place this heavy content in a neat presentable manner. Plus its a snappy website. Quick response is due to the fact that there are so few images.

Indiblog Lifetime achiever

• Kingsley: for, even if he is hibernating, I have to visit his blog daily - for if there was one person who inspired me to blog it could have been him -for he is Madras' best blogger - and probably India's too - for he doesn't believe he ought to blog just to break the silence


• Dina Mehta: for she has made blogging on blogging a thing to aspire for - for she never ceases to amaze me with her perspectives on blogging, technology and community building


• Vin: Never short on new perspectives, never afraid to speak his mind, even to his best friend Jivha - and for his constant re-invention to keep himself relevant.


• Kiruba: Blogging's PR man.


• Vinod's Blog: Thoughtful analysis on politics and libertarianism by Vinod, an Indian living in America; amusing and thought-provoking.


• JK: great blog with emphasis on historical events and archeaology


• Alok Kumar: He is first Hindi (read purely Indi) blogger and is maintaining all the Hindi resources out there to help everybody...


• Nitin Pai: A day is never complete without reading the opinions from his opinionated mind. His writing frequency and insight to the political/foreign policy/financial measures is commendable. He is also proxy-present in Hindi blogger world via his guest posts.


• Niraj: started blogging (and blogging very well) just after those Giant Lizards left on their inter-galactic voyage after burying their bones in random locations


• Shanti: her idea of starting the Bharatiya Blog Mela more than qualifies her for this nomination. The Blog Mela still draws huge crowds today, two years after the first edition.


• Vikas Kamat Blogging since July 2001 his is one of the oldest blogs. The author of Kamat's potpouri writes less frequently and the interest smoulders.

Best Indic Indiblog [Tamil]

• Dubukku: Because of the tag line. Because of his way of not taking himself too seriously. Because I find him extremely funny. Because, a dubukku (the clever fool) ought to win every once in a while.


• Desikann: Because he is the exact opposite of Dubuku. Because he is trying to do something thats rarely done in Tamil - write a book on a writer of books


• Badri Seshadri: For he has been blogging in tamil for a long time - for he really cares that tamil be taken to the web and the blogworld - for his latest interview in the Hindu in which he tries to sell tamil publishing


• Thamizan

Best Indic Indiblog [Hindi]

• Mera Panna: Has great posts on everything from India to technology. A good read; has to be the 200 mph train of blog world. He started with blogspot and quickly outgrew to his own domain. His writing style is again unique and he uses various characters real or imaginary god knows for his blog. His writings are the talk of the town in this part of blogging world. There are times when only person writing in Hindi is him.


• Life in a HOV lane; A book in blog form, and it had a committed publisher too :)


• Roznamcha: a Hindi blog gem. He is known for his lucid writing style and various techniques he develops like how to measure if you are an NRI
  etc. He also has a blog-book about his memoirs in US.


• Ravi Ratlami ka Hindi Blog aur Ghazals: One of the most prolific writer in Hindi cyber world. He writes on socially relevant issues and all things technical related to Hindi. An accompanying gazal is his trademark and leaves people wondering how does he do it in such a short time.

Best Indic Indiblog [Marathi]

• Mee Maza


• Paulvat

Best Indic Indiblog [Malayalam]

• Paul Raj


• Kevin and Siji


• Peringodan


• Ashik Mathew