Using 'i' as first person in place of 'I'

Have you read the articles that Shashi Tharoor has been writing in the Sunday Times these days? He has been recently writing on the US Presidential elections in the editorial page.

I've observed one thing in his articles. He uses 'i' in place of 'I' as first person whenever he has to use this in the middle of a sentence. (He uses 'I' if the sentence begins with it). Is it a new style? Is it some form of humble way of saying 'I'?

(Sometime I too don't feel good to use lot of 'I's in sentences. Many times I prefer to use 'we', specially if I'm working in a team.)

I discussed this in our lunch table group. (I'll write about our lunch table group sometime later in this blog). Yamini, one of the members of the group, googled on the humility front and found some interesting argument and counterargument to the same in a blog. I'm copying her findings below:

Someone wrote:
Personally i use small i's as a sign of humility...

Corey writes...
I think you will find only a very small part of the world will actually understand that a small "i" is a sign of humility - I know I didn't until just now. Most will just consider it a typo or a misunderstanding of convention, on your part.

Another response:

I don't consider the use of a small 'i' to be a sign of humility. As it breaks the convention in written English, it is actually a sign of a lack of humility, as it draws attention to the writer .