Palestinians hold candles as they take part in a memorial ceremony marking the one-year anniversary of Israel's offensive in Gaza, in Gaza City.
Police detain one of the activists of AIDWA during a protest demanding resignation of Andhra Pradesh Governor N D Tiwari, over his alleged involvement in a sexcapade, in Hyderabad....
Army too was embroiled in corruption this year as the land scam made headlines. The controversy revolves around a piece of land next to the army's 33 Corps Headquarters in Siliguri...
When a local TV channel telecast explicit clippings purportedly of the veteran Congress leader ND Tiwari, the 86-year old governor of Andhra Pradesh, in bed with three women, cyn...
Protesters attack a vehicle of Telugu Desam party's legislative members during a strike to press the demands for the creation of a separate Telangana state at Osmania University ca...
On January 7, Ramalinga Raju’s faxed confession heralded the new year-- a Rs 7000 crore fraud that turned out to be the biggest in India Inc's history. Postcript: The year 2009 ...
After being on top of the Test rankings, India did not wait for the year to end before they sealed off the One Day series against Sri Lanka with the help of chanceless centuries fr...
Sock It To ’Em
The climate certainly changed for the worse—in Pilibhit and beyond—in the spell of one tempestuous campaign by a Gandhi.
N. Gopalaswami vs Navin Chawla
CEC N. Gopalaswami took on CEC-in-waiting, Navin Chawla, saying the latter should be sacked for his Congress bias. Swami even took except...
Corruption in higher judiciary remained in news through the year. Finally, a petition seeking impeachment proceedings against beleaguered Karnataka High Court Chief Justice PD Dina...
Former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda was in news for alleged money laundering, diversion of state funds and making huge hitherto unheard of illegal investments abroad running...
Freida Pinto
Anyone knew her earlier movies? Ask her quickly discarded boyfriend.
Nitin Gadkari
Gadkari who? The RSS man was plucked out of obscurity to lead a young BJP.
David Headley
American, Pakistani, Jew, immigration office owner, CIA double agent?
Susan Boyle
The frumpy, dumpy wonder-voice of England wowed globally. Then, she woke up.
Ravindra Jadeja
Unknown until the day he scored a painful 35-ball 25, with one four, during a desperate chase against England in the T20 World Cup. India lost.
Kobad Ghandy
Doon School alumnus, CA from London, hailing from an affluent Parsi family; he gets a face after decades in the Maoist movement.
Kishanji
He may be Bengal's "Most wanted"but we don't know what the Maoist leader looks like.
Jarnail Singh
Chidambaram ducked, but Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler could not.
The Japanese team performs during the team free final of the synchronized swimming, at the FINA Swimming World Championships in Rome.
Never mind that the first decade of this millennium would only end on December 31, 2010 -- yes, before you shoot off that mail, please consider that there was no year zero in the Anno Domini era -- everyone is happily making their list of the decade gone by. The Pew Research Center has gone ahead and done their own survey:
Clear majorities see cell phones, the internet and e-mail as changes for the better, and most also view specific changes such as handheld internet devices and online shopping as beneficial trends. There is greater division of opinion, however, over whether social networking sites or internet blogs have been changes for the better or changes for the worse.
Most see increasing racial and ethnic diversity as a change for the better, as well as increased surveillance and security measures and the broader range of news and entertainment options.
But the public is divided over whether wider acceptance of gays and lesbians, cable news talk and opinion shows, and the growing number of people with money in the stock market are good or bad trends. Reality TV shows are, by a wide margin, the least popular trend tested in the poll; 63% say these shows have been a change for the worse. Tattoos are also unpopular with many – 40% say more people getting tattoos is a change for the worse, though 45% say it makes no difference and 7% see it as a change for the better.
A ‘Downhill’ Decade
The breadth and depth of discontent with the current decade is reflected in the words people use to describe it. The single most common word or phrase used to characterize the past 10 years is downhill, and other bleak terms such as poor, decline, chaotic, disaster, scary, and depressing are common. Other, more neutral, words like change, fair and interesting also come up, and while the word good is near the top of the list, there are few other positive words mentioned with any frequency.
Read more here
What do you think? Do you reckon the pessimism is largely because of the recession of last year? How would you describe the year gone by? And the decade?
