CHENNAI/PRNewswire/ --

The Nominations to be Judged by an Independent Jury of Acclaimed Personalities From Different Areas of Expertise

IndiBlogger.in, the largest network of Indian bloggers, announced the biggest ever Indian Blogger Awardswith over 4500 nominations so far. The awards are aimed at recognizing the best blogs in over 50 categories that include lifestyle, sports, nation & politics, business, technology, regional Indian languages, etc. There are some special categories as well, such as 60 plus and under 18.

A blogger can nominate his/her blog through the IndiBlogger.in website. The final results will be announced online based on the judgement by an independent jury. The marking will be done based on content, originality, interaction and usability of the blog. Any blogger fairing well in all of these elements stands a chance to win the award in his/her category. The members of the independent jury include (in alphabetic order):

• Amit Agarwal , Founder, Digital Inspiration & personal technology columnist;
• Amrish Kumar , Creative Director at Ritu Kumar;
• Ayappa KM, AD film director at Early Man Films; recently directed the Big Rock and Flipkart ads;
• Bibek Debroy , an Indian economist & professor at Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi;
• Gul Panag , Actor-Producer;
• Jamshed Wadia , Digital & Social Media Strategist at Intel, Asia Pacific;
• Judy Balan , author of Sophie Says and the best-selling, Two Fates: The Story of my Divorce;
• Karthika VK, Publisher and Chief Editor of HarperCollins Publishers India;
• Kunal Daswani , Advertising, Fashion, Food, Product & Interior Photographer;
• Poonam Kaul , Director of Communications for Nokia in India, Middle East and Africa;
• Rajiv Makhni , Managing Editor-Technology for NDTV; India's gadget-guru and TV presenter;
• Rashmi Bansal , writer, entrepreneur and a youth expert. She is the author of five best-selling books on entrepreneurship;
• Sameer Guglani , Founding Partner at Morpheus Venture Partners & a Serial Entrepreneur;
• Sidin Vadukut, Managing Editor, Livemint.com; author, writer, columnist.

This is the first time that Indian bloggers are getting a big platform like this to nominate their blogs and win awards. So far, the only recognition bloggers in India got was through winning blogging contests. Some popular bloggers even became published authors. However, there was never an organized process in place for recognizing best-in-the-category blogs.

Talking about the initiative, Renie Ravin, MD, IndiBlogger.in, says, "We started IndiBlogger.in 6 years ago as a place for Indian bloggers to connect with each other. Over the years, we have launched many blogging oriented tools such as IndiRank, the only organic ranking system for bloggers, IndiForum - a space for bloggers to discuss various aspects of blogging and exchange ideas; blogger meets, blogging contests, product sampling, et al. We realized that it's time to go a step further and give formal recognition to this brilliant community of passionate bloggers."

Ganga Bharani, a blogger from Chennai, says, "Today, blogging has become a platform to enter the big stage you dream of; be it cinema, writing, designing or even technology. I started blogging short stories and today I am on the verge of publishing my first book. For most of us, blogging is passion. It has given us a lot in life but what we always missed is recognition as 'bloggers'. We were read, our works were enjoyed by our followers but a formal recognition was always missing in the blogging community. IB Awards 2013 is something that will fill that gap. We, as bloggers, are happy that there is finally someone to look at us, recognize us and pane the spot light on us. These awards will also inspire more and more people to take up blogging!"

So far, the response has been overwhelming. Within a week of the launch, there were more than 4000 nominations. All bloggers registered with the IndiBlogger.in network can nominate their blog for a category they write for. The final announcement of winners will be done on 15^th August 2013, which coincides with IndiBlogger.in's 6^th anniversary. 

About IndiBlogger.in:

IndiBlogger.in? is the largest social network of Indian bloggers, headquartered in Chennai. The network is a place where bloggers can connect with other bloggers, promote blogs, recommend blog posts, etc. It has unique features such as IndiRank? (an organic system of ranking for blogs based on various criterion), IndiForum (a place for bloggers to discuss everything about blogging), blogger meets (on ground networking for bloggers), IndiVine? (a place to find blogs under various categories), etc. It was launched on August 15th 2007 with a core team comprising of Renie Ravin (Managing Director), Anoop Johnson (Director - Marketing), DR Karthik (Director - Business) and Vineet Rajan (Director -Strategy). For more details, please visit www.IndiBlogger.in

Primary Media Contact: Swati Maheshwari, swati@indiblogger.in, 91-9881379779