We Can Make a Difference

In the fifth article of the ongoing series "Hum Blogistani" Saket Vaidya maps his own blog journey and ponders on the impact of blogging. Saket maintains that the phenomenon is still urban and predicts that blogging from Indian Corporate would be the next big thing.

Saket is a recruiter-headhunter in the technology domain, working for the executive search division of a major Indian job portal. He has been blogging since June 2004, better known as Vulturo in the trade. Saket is an avid reader of Indian blogs and a contributor to the team-blog Desipundit.

W

riting an article, pursuing the course of the Indian blogosphere through the times can be an exciting experience. Despite not having been an ‘early bird’ blogger, I still have a lot to remember. The past year and a half has been a period, where I learnt a lot about myself, and the world around me.

The power of the collective conscious

Continuing the series “Hum Blogistani!" we present the fourth article of the series where Chandrachoodan dwells upon the power of blogging, its ability: to take-up causes and follow them up to the hilt.

Chennai based copywriter Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan has been a well-known signature in the Indiblogging community. His posts almost always carry a tint of wit and humour. After blogging incessantly for about 2 years, Chandroo recently pulled the plug and bid-adieu to blogging, which he subtly hints has been “a childish attempt to be popular". But we sincerely hope he would be back.

Long ago, so long ago, there lived a great person. Herman Ebbinghaus. Or not so great. I ain't debating that. Nevertheless, this person did exist. And he did do something in life. What, you might ask. Well, he came up with some thing called the Ebbinghaus Curve of Forgetting. Big, big words. Very simple thought. No matter what the subject matter is, a given piece of learning is forgotten by more than half its audience in one hour.

Remember this very carefully. In exactly one hour, I will give you folks a surprise test. And we'll prove Herr Ebbinghaus wrong.
That, folks, is the subject of this rather rambling piece. That blogs defeat the Ebbinghaus Theory. A blog, by its very nature, tends to keep issues and learning fresh in the mind of its readers, and by extension the society.

The Great Indian blog bhelpuri

In the third article of the series “Hum Blogistani!” where various bloggers are doing some self-contemplation we present Charu’s take on the theme. Charu suggests that the Indiblogdom, with its growing size, should start focusing on the content, do away with the “personal” journals and shed inhibitions of blogging about one’s profession.

Charukesi Ramadurai is a Mumbai based independent qualitative research consultant and one of the popular female bloggers of Indiblogdom. Her blog “A time to reflect” was adjudged the best new Indiblog at the Indibloggies 2003 and is one of the widely read and respected blogs. Charu also blogs at Mindspace and Mediamusings, a collablog on the Indian media scene.

A

post reminiscent of the Indian blogosphere's journey so far - the idea struck home immediately. For, I am forever reminiscing about the "good old days" of Indian blogging. The good old days, meaning a couple of years ago when there were fewer bloggers, more personal interaction between the bloggers, and certainly lesser nastiness. I guess, with size comes other complications.

I have been blogging for over two years now, and these two years have been extremely rewarding. From being a space to park my random thoughts, my blog has now become a space that triggers many new thoughts and ideas, mainly through the comments and discussions around the posts. I have met some wonderful people, online and later offline, people who otherwise would never be part of my life. And I am sure it is the same for most of us bloggers. At the same time, I can sense a definite change in the space over this time. My feelings as I see the Indian blog space expand so quickly and so much are mixed. I watch with a somewhat amused and fond look (if that sounds pompous, I admit it but I take my “old blogger” status seriously!); I see the space grow larger than I ever thought possible, and feeling a little perplexed by it too.

Possibilities boggle the mind

In the second article for the series "Hum Blogistani!" we have Gautam Ghosh focusing on the subject of Business blogging and predicting that Blogging will evolve into something much more than blogging. Gautam, an alumni of XLRI-Jamshedpur is a HR and Training professional. He works in the areas of Management & Professional Development, Organizational Learning, and Knowledge Management. Gautam's other areas of interests are Organizational Development, Human Resource Development, Communities of Practice, Cross-Cultural Working, and Learning Organizations. His blog was nominated in the best Indiblog category at Indibloggies 2004.

When I started blogging at Gautam Ghosh on Management, more than 3 years ago it was to use it as a tool of personal knowledge management. I was a hopeless contributor to some HR and KM e-groups and first approached a blog as a repository for all the mails that I used to send out to the groups.

Soon I discovered that people were linking to me and since my writings were related to HR and Management, I was getting some little traffic from other HR related blogs. These were not desi blogs and I started interacting with other bloggers outside the country. Of course, I came across Dina and Rajesh's blogs as both are interested in KM and we interacted a couple of times. My blog has followed my career interests, so going through the posts from 2002 you can see how my interests have changed.

A tool for social change

Blogging is gradually becoming the talk of the town In India. The number of Indibloggers is steadily on the rise and talking about the numbers while we are still far off from the Chinese count of 6 Million plus bloggers, we are only better off than, Brunei perhaps. This worldwide phenomenon may still be in a nascent stage here and there might be an upper skew as well, since the average blogistani comes probably from an affluent background with good “connectivity”. Yet, in a country where bijli, sadak and paani almost always collide with the dreams of bringing Technology to everyone, there are now so many blogs you would surely need some device to calculate the numbers.

The sheer variety in the desi-blogdom is sure to startle anyone. So there are the ubiquitous techies, there are students, professional authors, journalists, researchers and there are homemakers and occasional surfers. There are gossip blogs, cartel blogs, journals, splogs, bad blogs, good blogs, good-looking blogs, shabby blogs, celebrity blogs, popular blogs, abandoned blogs, English blogs, Hinglish blogs and Indic blogs, blogs as vivid as our country itself. Given all this and since it is the Indibloggies we can take the liberty of doing some introspection here. As they say, mauka bhi hai aur dastoor bhi!

Staring today Indibloggies features a short thought-series called "Hum Blogistani!" where various bloggers would do a guest-post for the Indibloggies with their views about the Indi-blogosphere, evoking its journey so far, probably doing the SWOT analysis and predicting the road-ahead. And who else but Amit Varma of 'India Uncut' to do the kickoff.

A couple of days ago when Debashish asked me to write this piece, the first of this series called “Hum Blogistani,” I was intimidated at the thought. The subject – the Indian blogosphere – is rather vast, and I wouldn’t know where to start on a piece of that sort. One can’t contain an ocean in a thimble, and so on. Also, I’ve been blogging for little more than a year now, and India Uncut, my flagship blog, is not even a year old. But it has been an enormously enriching time for me, and I thought I’d write about some of the things I’ve learnt, from a thimble point of view.

When I started surfing Indian blogs, the first thing that struck me was the diversity I encountered. Most non-bloggers think of blogs as just online diaries, which is a ridiculously narrow view of blogs. I often have to remind such people that “blogging” is as wide an umbrella term as “writing.” A writer can write novels, short fiction, political tracts, history, opinion pieces, reportage, travellogues, poems, promotional fluff, erotica and diary items. Bloggers can blog their way through the same areas, though with more flexibility (as I’ve elaborated here, in the context of journalism). And Indian bloggers cover all these areas and more.

There is one huge difference between writing in the traditional sense and blogging, though: anybody can find an audience by blogging. Many talented writers who have the potential of building relatively small, loyal audiences cannot do so in print because the costs of publishing are high, and publishers are averse to taking a risk with them. But there are no such entry barriers for bloggers. It costs only the cost of internet access to blog, as there are plenty of free hosting sites and user-friendly blogging software available. I’m pretty hopeless at tech stuff, and Blogger and Blogspot work really well for me.

As a result of this, many writers who would otherwise not break through into print manage to publish themselves and find an audience. These audiences may often be relatively small, but so what? There is a satisfaction to having a readership that may be geographically spread out, and that you wouldn’t have had access to before blogging was born. Blogging helps people reach out, and I can’t emphasise enough how rewarding that can be.

While blogging is thought of by many as a solitary activity – one person and a computer – it has enlarged my social life in ways I never expected. That is something that many other bloggers have experienced as well. As we write our blogs and read those of others, we get in touch with people we share interests with, and mutual respect often turns into friendship. I have made friends I haven’t yet met in the flesh, who are a continent away, and this would not have been possible to anything like the same extent ten years ago. As I wrote here, this is quite the most rewarding aspect of my time as a blogger.

But blogging is about a lot more than social networking: it can also be a tool for social change. Blog readerships in India are too low for that now, but as internet penetration in India grows, more and more people will become aware of blogging, and more and more people will blog. Readership will expand massively, and blogs will actually be in a position to influence events in the real world, or meatspace as some of us call it. In addition to the prediction I’d made in this post, I’d like to make another one: the most influential Indian blogs of the next ten years will be those written in Indian languages.
Most of India does not speak English, and for too long the elites have condescended to them. This will change. As internet access becomes ubiquitous, more and more people will want to read content in their own languages. And while the regional papers, set in their fixed ways, will largely disappoint them, bloggers will not. Language software today is easily available and easy to use, and a whole generation of free thinkers and fearless writers will emerge. They will write in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati, Urdu, Oriya and every other language and dialect of this country. They will reach out to an audience of hundreds of millions of people, not the mere tens of thousands we bloggers in English have access to right now. They will truly do what some us vainly and bombasticly speak of sometimes: they will change the country.

It will take years, but it will happen.

We invite all Indibloggers to share their thoughts with us. If you feel strongly about the theme of this series, don't hesitate to send us a short writeup at indibloggies at gmail dot com and we would be glad to publish it. Please note that the piece sent to us cannot be cross-posted to any other website, though you may link to here. Thanks!

Blogs cannot change India: Atanu Dey

A Hindi version of this interview is also available at the World's first Hindi blogzine, Atanu Dey, winner of the Best Indiblog at the Indibloggies 2004 and author of Deeshaa did his bachelors in mechanical engineering, then moved to computer science and received a master's degree. Product marketing at HP in the Silicon Valley kept him occupied briefly for six years. He traveled in India, US, and Europe for five years before realizing that he knew nothing about economics. So he studied economics at the University of California at Berkeley and received his PhD for his thesis on the Indian telecommunications sector. In his spare time Atanu listens to classical music, practices Vipassana meditation, reads physics, gives lectures on Buddhism and maintains his blog. He is also a published poet.

Atanu was interviewed for Indibloggies by Nitin Pai and Debashish Chakrabarty.

How has been the experience winning the Best Indiblog award at the Indibloggies? Do award sites such as this do any good to the blogging world?

The experience has been very positive because the ideas that I explore on my blog got wider exposure because of the contest. This exposure was a secondary effect of the contest. For instance, Brad Delong, Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley noted the award on his blog and hundreds of additional visitors started coming to my blog. Tim Worstall and Om Malik were among those who also wrote about my blog on their blogs and increased my readership.

I do believe that such contests serve a function. They reduce information imperfections. That is, more people get to know about the good blogs and this raises the bar.

Why do you think blogging provides a good platform for what you say? Do you blog with a purpose?

Blogging is a great platform for an individual's viewpoint to be made accessible to the world at large (or at least, the connected world.) Each of us has a unique take on the world, which may be of value to others who may be geographically remote but psychically close. A web log allows a kindred spirits elsewhere to connect.

I blog for the reasons above, of course. But more importantly, it forces me to write. To me, writing is a process of self-discovery. When I write, I make explicit to myself what I implicitly know but I may not be fully conscious of.

What is that one thing you think Deeshaa achieves?

Deeshaa achieves connections. There is a core aim to the blog: discovering through dialogue, experience, exploration, observation and introspection what India is and where it is going. Deeshaa connects my efforts with others who have a similar quest.

Which are your favourite blogs?

I am not one of those people who read scores of blogs. It takes me time to carefully consider what others have written. Therefore, my reading is fairly limited, although eclectic. Mostly I read blogs of those who I know, either directly or only on cyberspace.

Rajesh Jain’s Emergic is my favourite tech blog. For India's rural news and viewpoint, I read Suhit Anantula's World is Green. My group blog of choice is Wetware, which was started by Reuben Abraham. Veerchand Bothra's Mobile Pundit is a great source for mobile related content. Brad DeLong is among my favorite professors and has an incredible economics and political blog. "It is all trivial and obvious except ..." by Tim Worstall of the UK is another eclectic intelligent viewpoint that I find remarkable. Sonal Vaidya writes "A potpourri of thoughts" from New York, which is guaranteed to entertain, inform and make you wonder. Oh, I should not forget Stupid Evil Bastard. Should not be missed.

Do you use any tools like w.bloggar etc to blog? Which newsreader do you use?

I use Movable type for my blog. Don't use any newsreader.

Do you actually have a life? How does life interfere with your blogging?

I should take the 5th on that question. Answering it may incriminate me. But seeing as I don't give a damn on my blog, I may as well answer that question. OK, I admit that I no longer have a life. Before I came to Mumbai nearly a year and a half ago, I had a life.

Do you think Indian blogs can change anything anywhere, especially in India?

Blogs change India? Are you kidding! Nothing can change India, least of all a bunch of stupid blogs that are written by a bunch of people who need to get themselves a life and read by those who desperately need to get out more often.

Blogs can bring alternative viewpoints to the public discourse

Seriously though, blogs can bring alternative viewpoints to the public discourse. In fact, blogs bring the public into the public discourse. The mainstream media can be very insular and incestuous. Blogs inject much needed diversity of viewpoints.

What do you mean by an Indian blog?

Since distance does not have any meaning when it comes to cyberspace, Indian blog means a blog that has as its major focus matters concerning India, irrespective of who the person writing is.

Tell us something about yourself.

I am just an average guy living in this material world, trying to scratch out a living without stepping on too many toes, and wondering how it is all going to come out in the end. I am on my third profession. Trained as an engineer first but did not practice that trade. Then moved to computer science and left it because I find computers artificially dumb and find natural stupidity rather intriguing. So I got a PhD in economics because economics has something to say about why people behave as stupidly as they do. Now I am concerned with what can be done to counteract the natural stupidity of people. I am working on figuring out an educational system that will make people grow up smart instead of being as dumb as doorknobs.

How do you analyse the current economic scenario of India?

India is a huge complex economy. One can partition India in many different ways and even with a huge number of partitions; each partition can be large in absolute terms even though in relative terms they may be insignificant. Depending on which partition one focuses on, one will get a different story.

For instance, take IT enabled services such as BPO. A million Indians work in that segment and things can't be better for them. Yet, they only represent 0.1% of India's population. The IT-enabled segment is rapidly evolving and progressing. The whole urban sector is also gaining grounds rapidly. But that is only 20% or so of India. What about the 70% of India that is in rural India? Things are not so rosy over there. What are the urgent and important problems that face rural India and how can they be addressed is the question critical to India's future.

Overall, I am cautiously hopeful about India's future. My guarded optimism springs from the realization that bureaucracy and politics can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory very easily as they have demonstrated in the past.

A Hindi version of this interview is also available at the World's first Hindi blogzine, Nirantar.

Indibloggies 2004 : And the winners are...

Innumerable contestants, close to 100 nominated blogs and 16 winners emerging in the grand finale to the Indibloggies 2004. This year’s event has been spectacular for Indibloggies with an unprecedented nine sponsors offering prizes worth above Rs.25000 and a panel of 12 Jurors who had the momentous task of frisking the list. I do not have enough words to show my appreciation for all those who participated in the event. The apprehensions on the award's credibility also prompted me to reveal my identity, I had resorted to the pseudonym Indiblogger when I started the affair because I thought an identity is always accompanied with prejudices, I am happy I was proven wrong.

So here is the much awaited final list of winners. My congratulations to all the winners. My thanks also to all those who voted and kept visiting these pages. Winners Must send me an email at indibloggies at gmail dot com with subject "Prize claim" so that I could forward their details to the sponsors.

• Indiblog of the Year : Deesha (38% Votes). Atanu Dey wins:
  
  • Goodies worth Rs.500 from Jitendra
  • $25 Amazon gift certificate from Shanti and..
  • A copy of Blogjet's Weblog client for Windows worth $19.95


• Best Group IndiBlog : Zoo station (31% Votes).
  • Wins a Gift Certificate from Amazon or Crossword, courtesy Blogstreet.


• Best Sports IndiBlog : Cricinfo : 23 Yards (90% Votes).
  • Wins a license of FeedDemon 1.10 worth $29.95.


• Best science/technology IndiBlog : Sadagopan's weblog (45% Votes).
  • Sadagopan wins a 1-year Typepad Plus subscription worth $120, courtesy Anand.


• Best IndiBlog directory/service : Chittha Vishwa (72% Votes)


• Best Topical IndiBlog : Shiok (43% Votes).
  • Wins a license of FeedDemon 1.10 worth $29.95.


• Best Indi-Photoblog : Phantasmagoria (43% Votes). The blog wins:
  • a license of FeedDemon 1.10 worth $29.95.
  • A copy of Blogjet's Weblog client for Windows worth $19.95


• Best New IndiBlog : India uncut (45% Votes).
  • Amit wins books worth Rs.500 from Ravishankar Shrivastava


• Best Humanities IndiBlog : Lazygeek (77% Votes).
  • Wins a license of FeedDemon 1.10 worth $29.95.
    
• Best Indiblog Tagline : Ravikiran (58% Votes).
  • Ravikiran wins a copy of Blogjet's Weblog client for Windows worth $19.95.


• Best Designed IndiBlog : MadMan (37% Votes)


• Indiblog Lifetime achiever : Kiruba shankar (52% Votes).
  • Kiruba wins a license of FeedDemon 1.10 worth $29.95.


• Best Indic Indiblog [Tamil] : Badri Seshadri (39% Votes). Badri wins:
  • a $25 Amazon gift certificate from Sidharth Sivasailam
  • Goodies worth Rs.750 from Jitendra


• Best Indic Indiblog [Malayalam] : Paul Raj (67% Votes)


• Best Indic Indiblog [Hindi] : Roznamcha (53% Votes). Atul wins:
  • Goodies worth Rs.750 from Jitendra
  • books worth Rs.500 from Ravishankar Shrivastava
  • one copy of Microsoft Office 2003 Hindi from Microsoft, India


• Best Indic Indiblog [Marathi] : Mee Maza (67% Votes)

We have one ritual left for this years awards so do visit again. If you are into statistics, the polls have been archived for posterity here.

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

The Sponsors

We are delighted to introduce the volunteer sponsors who are giving away prizes to the winners of Indibloggies 2004:

• Ravishankar Shrivastava will give away books worth Rs.500/- each to the "Best Indic Blog (Hindi)" and the "Best new Indiblog". Thanks Ravi!
• Jitendra Chaudhary will award goodies worth Rs.750/- each to the "Best Indic Blog (Hindi)" and Best Indic Blog in the language category that receives the largest number of nominations. He will also award goodies worth Rs.500/- to the "Best Indiblog". Thanks Jitendra!
• Shanti Mangala will award a $25 Amazon gift certificate to the "Best Indiblog" at Indibloggies 2004. Thanks Shanti!
• Anand M will give away a 1-year Typepad Plus subscription worth $120 for the winner of the "Best science/technology Indiblog" category. Thanks Anand!
• Bradbury Software would award 5 licenses of FeedDemon 1.10 worth $29.95 each to the winners of the Best Humantities Blog, Best Sports Blog, Best Topical Blog, Best Photoblog and the Indiblog lifetime achiever. Thanks Nick :)
• Microsoft, India will award one copy of Microsoft Office 2003 Hindi for the Best Indic Blog (Hindi) category winner. Do visit Bhashaindia.com where they are trying to promote Indian language computing on the Microsoft platform. Thanks Deepak!
• Sidharth Sivasailam will award a $25 Amazon gift certificate to the "Best IndicBlog (Tamil)". Thanks Sid!
• Blogjet will award one copy of its weblog client for Windows worth $19.95 to each winner of IndiBlog of the year, Indiblog with the best tagline and Best IndiPhotoBlog. Do visit their website. Thanks Dmitry!
• Blogstreet will award a Gift Certificate from Amazon or Crossword to the winner of Best Group IndiBlog. Thanks Veer!

Thanks to all the sponsors from the bottom of our hearts :) Your gesture will surely add strength to the community.