2011 is right around the corner – all of us become nostalgic about the entire year and what all we did. For some it’s the time to reflect on what good / bad or useful / wasteful work they did while for others it is the time to enjoy the New Year holidays.
And for me it was about penning down the 10 most important news items / happenings in India. Mind you, this is my list of 10 most important Newsmakers and probably readers may differ from it.
Commonwealth Games
From Kalmadi to Shiela Dixit to Emaar MGF, everyone was in the news for the biggest sporting event in India in more than 25 years. If you are wondering what about the athletes, sadly they weren’t anywhere in the news until the events happened and after that.
From Ashish Kumar in Gymnastics to Krishna Poonia in discus throw our athletes shined like never before with a 2nd place finish. After all the controversies related to the poor organization, disastrous management and corruption, India managed to pull of the games much to the admiration of everyone around
2G Scam
A. Raja wins the title of the scam creator of the year hands down. Reams and reams have been written about it. By giving licences to newer telecom companies like Uninor, Etisalat, S–Tel and many more at very low prices, he managed to create the biggest scam of the year (Note: The 2G scam is currently under investigation and A Raja remains not-guilty till allegations are proved ).
Nira Radia Ki Kahani
From Barkha Dutt to Vir Sanghvi – many well known faces were implicated in a scandal which finally proved what the media really does in today’s world – LOBBYING! It brought the true face of the media finally onto the national consciousness – that of working with famous corporate lobbyists like Nira Radia to decide positions in the government.
Interestingly, Radia works for Ambanis and Tata’s. The Tata’s image as a value driven organization has been tainted in recent days. This story is becoming really interesting now!
Saina replaces Sania
Sania Mirza thankfully got married to Shoaib Malik after a lot of nonsense controversies regarding Malik’s previous wife. And I say thankfully because anyway she wasn’t really doing great on the court so it was better that she moved on to the court of marriage.
Saina Nehwal with her amazing brand of smashes and strokes swept aside Sania and others as the emerging star of Indian sport. In a sport like badminton which is dominated by the Chinese, she showed amazing grit to win the Gold in CWG and also reach the world no 2 position. It’s only a matter of time before she reaches the 1st position
Recession? What’s that?
India seems to have come out of the recession in a fantastic manner. With FII inflows crossing record levels, the stocks rising till 20k and the economy growing at around 8.5%, who would say that we ever had something called recession?
In a recent report, India has been survey to be one of the top 5 best places on the planet for jobs in 2011. Now that is something to look forward to
Indian Telecom Sector
Who would think that brands like Micromax, Karbonn, Spice etc would become famous some day? But that’s what’s happened this year. With Nokia losing around 15-20% market share this year due to its poor attempt at getting a smart phone, many Indian brands have gone ahead and made a name for them.
With new features like insect repellents for rural areas, smart phones starting at Rs 3000 and many other new things, the Indian brands have managed to get a market share of around 10-15%.
The 3G services and MNP service were finally launched this year after a number of delays
Logjam in parliament
More than 114 hours in the first 11 days of the winter session were lost in the parliament due to a wide variety of issues from the scam tainted environment to the indecisiveness of the government. This could be the largest loss of time in history. But I am not surprised, are you?
Not a “Nano” disaster
Nano was billed as the cheapest car in the world at Rs 1 lac. First there was the farmers and Mamta’s agitation and Singur which made Tata’s change its location to Sanand. Then the fires due to manufacturing defects, poor finance, its look as a toy car have caused a disastrous drop in its sales from 9000 units in June to 500 last November. And that is lesser than Mercedes in November.
Indian industry comes off age
It all started with JLR and Land Rover by Tata and then came Ssang Yong by Mahindra and many others. Indian industry seems to have well and truly come on the international map in 2010 with acquisitions and take over’s by the dozen.
There have also been more than 200 IPOs this year probably the largest in the last 5 years or so.
Peepli Live
An interesting satire on the farmer deaths in the country was India’s entry to the Oscars. Doesn’t it make you think of Slumdog Millionare being awarded not because it was a great movie but because of some other reason? (I am sure you know what I mean)
Would love to hear your Newsmakers of the year – Also, did I miss out on any other important event of the year?
Comments
Nice well written article. Wonderful recap of the year 2010 :-)
small change. 2G is first & CWG is next
thanks for that correction :)
Who cares about how Raja brought down Barkha Dutt. I’m just glad that my Uninor connection is saving me some money every month!
Your uninor connection is saving some money, but indirectly you are loosing lot of money which you benefited from this. Raise in every product’s price, inflation, corruption etc. are happening only because of the people like you who think only about individual benefits.