The ToI reports that the GoI (now that rhymes) is thinking ( and that is an oxymoron) of accrediting internet journalists and bloggers. In a 5 years past its sell by date quote, the Principle Information Officer Shakuntala Mahawal said:

We are framing the rules for giving accreditation to dotcom journalists, including bloggers

dot com - i thought that the term was well and truly buried in 1999. Trust the GoI to ressurect it.
I can just imagine an irate blogger having a conversation with a patient government official on accreditation.

Blogger: my site is myopinion.org and I want to be accredited.
Govt. Official: but it is not a dot com and our rules say that only dot com bloggers can be accredited.
Blogger: it is the same
Govt. Official: But section 14, subsection 94 of the Post and Telegraph act of 1857 states that….
(sound track of blogger tearing out his/her hair)

And of course ToI compounds this by stating:

This augurs well for independent bloggers, or web loggers, who are increasingly being recognised the world over as cyber journalists.

I am not quite sure if bloggers, world over, are being looked at - or even act as- cyber journalists. There may be a few who are journalists and bloggers, but the majority of blogs are maintained by those across all professions.
Maybe, the error is in the mind of ToI. For over a decade its journalists have been publishing personal blogs in the name of news, so it automatically assumes that blogging is a subset of journalism. Well, it may be in the ToI - but not in the rest of the blogsphere.
Coming back to the Government accreditation, it should be fun seeing it getting implemented.

Tags: Blogging, Social Software