Memories of the year 2010 give us mixed feelings. Though we are a bit disturbed over some of the happenings we are also optimistic on some of the achievements done so far. Agreed we have to struggle with the problems a bit longer but are nothing that cannot be overcome.
Happy New Year 2011
The best part was that we have excelled in the areas of sports, athletics and Cricket to make us cheerful. The medals tally in the CWG and the Asiad tops the list of this year’s crowning achievements. Sachin Tendulkar’s double ton in an ODI was the best thing that could have happened to India followed by the Opening ceremony of the Common Wealth Games followed by the 101 medals at the CWG games.
In the disappointments India was challenged by the spiraling prices, the 2G scam and the PMs inaction to take the corrupt to task.
A.R.Rehman, who got an Oscar for his song ‘Jai Ho’ earlier, was a disappointment for the music he had composed for the opening ceremony. Add to this, the public by and large are disappointed with the numbers of scams they read daily in the newspapers and the PMs inaction against corruption.
It was a year of scams – CWG, IPL, 2G spectrum, Adarsh, Karnataka land grab & UP food scam. The CWG still figures prominently in the list of scams of 2010 despite Adarsh and 2G dominating the news after it; as CWG was a very important event in the minds of the Indian psyche. But the anti-hero of the scams is not Suresh Kalmadi, the architect of the CWG games, but the Raja of the 2G scam who has become more popular hogging the lime-light daily.
The country was then shaken by the news of the Mangalore plane crash where the pilot almost over-shot the runway.
Somehow people react a lot on issues of national pride and have taken CWG issue more closely to heart than the 2G scams. On the bollywood news the Ranbir-Deepika and Kat-Salman split evoked more response that the Rakhi Sawant’s reality show ‘Rakhi ka insaaf’ was voted down by one and all. After the huge success of Kajrare kajrare it was the year of Munni budnaam hui which became seemingly popular.
Then Jullian Assange has been in the news for his big exposures in Wikileaks.
Barrack Obama’s visit to Mumbai and Delhi had taken away our attention from scams and brought our focus to his visit. Obama’s address to the Joint session of Parliament which was telecast live, was probably viewed the world over. Even though Nitish Kumar became the Indian of the year it was Saina Nehwal who stole the lime-light with her three consecutive international victories.
It was a year of revelations – the Ayodhya verdict and the Bhopal gas tragedy verdict.
Things that bring bad memories is the no-ball bowled to Sehwag by the Sri Lanka depriving him of a well deserved 100. Sehwag was on 99 and India needed one run for victory and Randiv bowled a big no-ball. This was a deliberate attempt to deprive a cricketer of international stature, of a well-deserved century and Sehwag had hit a six in the very next ball but his century was not entered in the record books.
And when I speak of no-balls, how can I forget the spot-fixing incident by Pakistani cricketers at UK? Third over last ball will be a no-ball, eh? Think big – think dirty, appears to be the motto of some of the players.
Back home the terminal 3 opened at IGI airport but India is yet to contain the Naxalite threat and still to decide the Telengana issue. The stone-peltings at Kashmir is far from over, even though Bihar had had a peaceful election which was fought on a developmental agenda.
It was also a year of catastrophes – the Haiti quake and the Cambodia stampede and a possibility of military aggression between North Korea and South Korea during the military exercise.
Floods in Pakistan and protests in Thailand were also gaining wide-spread concern. In this year only Obama was shaken but not stirred by the Gulf oil spill and Mukesh Ambani had a chance to boast about his massive residential complex.
The major break-through this year was that US has backed India for a permanent seat in the UNSC and India will have a wide range of nations to engage to secure it’s security needs.
Here’s wishing all my readers a very Happy New Year 2011. May it bring happiness and good health to your lives.