I was reading the Times' list of 40 notable bloggers the other day. Inspiration enough for me to go looking into my Google Reader account and make a list of 100 Indian blogs that I read often. I reached one-tenth of target and found there were only 10 or so Indian blogs I was reading often.

Favorite Personal Finance Blog: Subramoney  - Because he has a sharp knowledge of the money scene and his posts have insights.
Favorite Media Business Blog: Medianama Nikhil Pahwa has made Media Business reportage his domain.
Favorite Startup Blog: Pluggd.in  Ashish Sinha started out great. However, of late, the pressures of running a business seems to have taken a toll. It has more generic news, events and less of analysis and interviews of startups.
Favorite Media Monitoring Blog: Churimuri and Wearethebest 
Favorite Group Blog: Blogbharti  Although they have a small contributors' pool, the passion is still there.
Favorite Group Blog with an Original Editorial Viewpoint: Kafila Read this blog for the stories Indian Media glosses over.
Favorite Blog on Politics and Policy: It is a crapshoot between Acorn and, a couple of other blogs hosted on this domain. It is a de facto monopoly.
Favorite Blog on India by a foreigner: Jason Overdorf and Shailaja Neelakantan at Delhibelly
Favorite Hindi Blog: Ravish Kumar's Naisadak blog. Ravish also maintains a useful blogroll of interesting Hindi bloggers.

Some bloggers have dropped their game a bit:
Amit Verma at Indiauncut.com takes himself too seriously and mostly does passing-by 'hey i just read this' type of posts. I loved his "how government wastes your money" posts.
Gaurav Mishra at Gauravonomics.com started out nice, but then he has deteriorated as a self-promoter of his social media abilities. Now he mostly writes self-congratulatory posts.
Rashmi Bansal of JAM magazine and of Youthcurry blog posts less, which is a pity. She has a great 'non-talking down' voice for young readers. I think her book projects keep her busy.
Most newspaper blogs are forgettable, mostly an afterthought of lucrative newspaper column writing.
There is still no readable movie blog. All the movie critics at the big media outlets are pretentious, bad writers.
I used to Arnab's Great Bong blog, but after a while the funny posts seem repititive. May it is just me, but Arnab sure is a good writer.

For some topics, I am better off reading from all over the internet: SEO, Social media, Tech Tips & Tricks

You mght ask, why is the Indian Blogging scene sad?
I was the founding Managing editor of Instablogs, so I have seen how the business works. I saw my best bloggerss moving off to gigs in Technical writing at IBM and other outfits. Of course, most bloggers will tell you otherwise, pointing to their social media dicks (Twitter following, RSS feed subscribers, Media Mentions via a friendly reporter, so on and so forth), when in reality their content is mostly recycled stuff.
Moreover, who needs yet another “Lalit Modi sucks” post anyway?

1. Few people have the time, inclination or ability to mouth original stuff.
2. Blogging does not pay, unless you are a technology rewriter.
3. Many good bloggers have moved on to gigs that pay.
4. More and more Indians online make do with shouting it out on Twitter. It is time-efficient.
5. Few people write about their professions: Pressure and restriction from the bosses, I imagine.
6. Fewer are willing to take a contrarian view.

What do you think? Do you know of any good blog that I missed? Kindly share.

Related Reading:
A simple guide to greatest moments in Indian Blogging History