Namma bloggers involved in intense political debate

G Saravanan
17 Apr 2009
CHENNAI:
Unlike the previous Lok Sabha Election in 2004, when there were nil presence of language-based blogs (except English) to either register or to debate certain poll-related issues online, this time, Tamil blogs hog the limelight among ‘namma bloggers’ as it become the most sought-after avenue to ‘express’ their views on political developments.
Though the Tamil blogs started making inroads among the Tamilians living across the globe only three years ago, its importance being now felt among the bloggers who preferred to find solutions to some burning issues to their logical end via this mode.
While there are thousands of Tamil blogs in the cyberspace, blogs related to Lankan Tamils, Lok Sabha elections and about Tamil political leaders record maximum hits and the trend itself shows that cyberspaceenabled people in the state believes in ‘disseminating’ their thoughts about the elections.
Besides putting lots of information on the Lankan Tamils on the cyberspace, bloggers also intensely debate the political opportunitism employed by different parties on the Lankan Tamils online.
Visit to several blogs revealed that the stand of VCK leader Thirumavalavan and Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on the Sri Lankan Tamil issue has become the hottest debated topic among the bloggers who give both views and counter views on the issue.
With the Tamil blogs record good number of visits by net-savvy and info-hungry people across the state and even globe, compiler sites like www.tamilveli.com, www.tamilmanam.net and www.thiratti.com have compiled such blogs to present the users with choices.
While many visitors like the content of the blogs, a few express that the new-found avenue for dissemination is being misused by anonymous bloggers who only use the forum to tarnish political leaders’ image.
“I used to visit Tamil blogs regularly to follow developments in Sri Lanka. But there are a few sites which were only used to blast political leaders,” said Mahendran, a city-based software professional.