The Recently released India online 2006 survey has revealed that of the 21.4 million net users* in Indian a staggering 85% (that’s roughly 18 million people) regularly check blogs. The study conducted by Juxt consult, New Delhi also revealed that there is a 22% rise in number of Indian net users from last year’s figure of 17.7 million. The users are mostly urban and most of the blogs, the report says, are maintained by net savvy people. A recent Economic Times report, published during the blanket ban on blogs initiated by the government, had cited that there are approximately 40000 Indiblogs around (not too far off my own little hunch).

A heartening fact highlighted by the report is that a lot of people who check blogs do not necessarily blog themselves, surely a big respite from the general conception that the blogs mostly thrive on bloggers “scratching each others’ backs”, that only a close group of bloggers generally read each other’s blogs. Another fact, that only solidifies my faith in the Indicblogs is that 42% of the Indian netizens also read blogs websites in Indian languages.

* The CIA Factbook thinks there are 50 million internet users in India.