I read

primarily from an illuminated screen these days. And apart from wikipedia, the ones that manage to catch my attention and interest strongly enough are :

1) India Uncut : Amit Varma is easily India's most famous blogger. The new site has a lot more than the blog, including crosswords(thankfully not cryptic), fantastic links and trivia. The blog however, remains the main attraction. I often don't agree with him, but that's a question of ideology. For individualism, atheism, Hemingway, cows and Chomskyian semi-semantic yet fully syntactic sentence constructs, kindly proceed without further ado.

2) Youth Curry : Rashmi Bansal - editor of JAM, popular figure among Mumbai's student community, no stranger to controversies. Wonderfully balanced and achieves its stated intent of providing an insight into India's youth to a large extent. The blog that prompted me to pick up the cyber-pen in the first place, so much so that (and this was totally sub-conscious, I swear) I ended up choosing the same template.

3) Vantage Point : Came to know about this one from the IIPM controversy. Gaurav writes coherently about libertarianism and America and cracks PJs that should qualify for the 'PJs that only engineers can crak - Hall of Fame'. Used to post quiz questions that severly dented my self-opinion of trivia king, but that feature has been missing for a long time.

4) Recursive Hypocrisy : Cool name, though very often there's no recursion, only irony. Recent find, though apparently this guy is super-popular(in a cultish, non-mainsteam way) on the blogosphere.

5) Sanjana : Are you feeling sad or depressed? Do you need sunshine? Are you ready to listen to nostalgic anecdotes about wonderful animals and tributes and backhanded compliments to Freud and classical mathematicians? Do you want to read dreams and visions and sentiments and rants that may leave you smirking at the author's naivette yet absolutely charmed by the idealism,information and sensitivity? If yes, do visit.

6) Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind : Humour is difficult to do. To do so consistently over sustained periods of time requires a rare talent. He is not as godly as many of his commentators describe him to be, but the chief priest and prophet of Mithunism is a bloody good read anyway.

7) The Examined Life : Another member of the libertarian cartel, he has apparently defected to form a new cartel himself. Doesn't update anymore but back when he used to write, he managed to get serious, non-sarcastic non-puke comments from the great Nilu. Read him for some meaningful explorations on law, economics, ethics, you get the dirft.

8) Kalachakra : She is perhaps the most popular new blogger in the Indian blogosphere. Another libertarian, and one who often lets her perceptions colour her observations (but don't we all). The legal angle she brings to issues makes her a worthwhile read though.

9) Kaleidoglide : Infrequently updated but I visit this on and off to keep myself updated on the latest on net-feminism. Thanks to her I atleast know who Andrea Dworkin is.

10) Known Turf : Has begun to write in a dangerously Arundhati Royesque manner, both in terms of content and stylistics, which means that I'm not a regular reader anymore. However, her knowledge of the Hindi heartland is almost encyclopaedic, and this post should probably be part of a 101 course on gender issues and sexual harassment.

11) Sonia Faleiro : Journo blog. Seems wonderfully non-judgemental at first read, an image that gradually breaks down on further investigation as the prejudices reveal themselves. However. she writes about a lot of things that most of us do not bother ourselves with. The interview with Jockin Ananthapuram is a classic.

12) Falstaff : Finally, a guy who manages to be more pedantic than I am. His pedantism is usually quite non-offensive though, and he has a brilliant way with words, writes some damn good fiction. His footnotes on economic discourses though, are the reason I ever read him in the first place.

13) Sauce : If you are, like me, somewhat of a voyeur, you'd enjoy an excursion into the world of the JUDE girls. I read this on and off to nullify the effects of all the serious pop economic philosophy that I subject myself to.

14) The Indian Economy Blog : Largely dominated by the libertarian cartel. The discussions in the comments sections are usually a lot more informative and meaningful than the posts themselves. Don't read this very often either but this is a one-stop shop, so.

15) Yazad Jal : This hasn't been updated in a long time. Read the archives posted by a guy called Sauvik who has written some insane articles in the ToI in the past to know exactly how prejudiced rhetoric in the name of economics makes for cringeworthy journalism.

16) Psychotic Ramblings of a Mad-Man : Vulturo describes himself as a 'rabid individualist', and I agree. For me, once the first term of that phrase is established, the second is inconsequential. Why then do I read this? Simply because it has been witness to some of the most interesting and insanley hilarious flame wars in the blogosphere.