2009: Good to Ugly - vIndianz.com

vIndianz.com (09 Jan, 2010) — The year 2009 could be easily a forgettable 12 months for majority. What with economic slowdown, disasters, tragedy and scandals, remember Tiger Woods, raining dogs, should we rather says 2009 was Dog’s Year or so. Here we are reviewing the best and a few of the sad moments, events and people of the year 2009.

January

barack-obama

THE BIGGEST NEWS of January 2009 was of course the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president and first African-American president of the United States. Obama created another record when he was awarded Nobel Peace Prize of 2009 in less than nine months into presidency for his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people. Obama, publicly, said he was surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee to award him the Nobel.

February

slumdog

It was Oscar time and India hogged limelight. Thanks to ‘Slumdog Millionaire …’, A. R. Rahman, Rasool Pookkutty and the child actors Rubina Ali, Md Azharuddin et al who made it India proud albeit with a help of Brit director Danny Boyle. Rahman won two awards. Other Indians who played include Anil Kapoor, Freida Pinto, Dev Patel among others.

March

ipl-2009

IPL: Indian cricket as always is in the news. This time Indian Premier League, the Twenty20 version of the cricket competition, was moved to South Africa after Government of India told the local organisers to postpone the popular T20 which includes several top players from the 10 Test playing nations in the background of the elections to Lok Sabha.

Barbie, the world’s best selling doll, turned 50

April

swine-flu

H1N1 (commonly known as Swine Flu) first detected in Mexico spread worldwide in quick time. WHO termed HINI as epidemic and the virus has claimed the lives of 10,000 all over the world and over 700 deaths are from India. The pathogen, born in pigs, had bounced around the globe, infecting people in Asia, Europe and the US.

May

election

Lok Sabha elections were held in six phases during April-May. United Progreesive Alliance led by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, returned to power with a solid backing from across the country surprising the political pundits who predicted a hung parliament. The biggest losers were Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, Left parties including the Communits Party of India (Marxists) and of course the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. Premier Manmohan created a record of sorts by becoming the second prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru, to hold the office for the second consecutive five-year term. Manmohan also played a pivotal role in passing the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Sri Lanka wins the war against LTTE, the rebel Tamil Tigers, who were waging a war for separate Tamil country. Lankan army forces killed LTTE supremo V. Prabhakaran on May 18 virtually ending the 26-year-old civil war which killed over 70,000 people.

June

michel-jackson

King of Pop, Michael Jackson, died from cardiac arrest, the victim of prescription pills, on June 25. MJ was 50.

July

tata nano

Nano, the world’s cheapest car (Rs one lakh) hit the roads. Mumbaikar Raghunath Vichare became the proud owner of the first Nano, after it was presented to him by Tata Motors Chairman Ratan Tata. The Nano comes in three variants and carries a price range of Rs 1.23 lakh to Rs 1.72 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi). The car was first showcased at Delhi Auto Expo in 2008 and was commercially launched in March 2009, where it saw a record booking of over 2 lakh cars.

India joined an exclusive club of developed nations by launching its own first nuclear submarine, ‘INS Arihant’.

Roger Federer of Switzerland registered new record in Tennis. He bagged record 15th major title at Wimbledon, soon after completing a career Grand Slam of titles (Australian Open, US Open, French Open and Wimbledon) at Roland Garros (French Open).

The Delhi High Court decriminalised gay sex between consenting adults. The verdict ruled that the existing 150-year-old statute from the British Colonial era prohibiting homosexual acts was discriminatory and therefore a violation of fundamental rights under the constitution.

Mumbai sea-bridge: The Rs 1600-crore project which is termed as engineering marvel was open to public after many delays. The sea-bridge reduces commuting time from an hour to flat seven minutes between Bandra and Worli in Mumbai, and can handle peak traffic of 70,000 vehicles.

August

lehaman-brothers

For a change, after 11 months, economic slowdown showed signs of easing after the collpase of Lehman Brothers in the United States which triggered a global financial crisis in September 2008. Japan, Germany, France the top developed nations declared that they made a turn around of the economic slowdown.

Usain Bolt, the Jamaican athlete, smashed his own 100 metres and 200 metres world records for the second successive year. The 6-foot-5-inch 23-year-old Bolt clocked awesome 9.58 seconds to win the 100m at the IAAF World Championship in Berlin, Germany and won 200m in 19.19 seconds for another world record.

September

chndrayan

Chandrayaan finds water on moon: India’s lunar mission Chandrayaan-I discovered traces of water on moon after Chandrayaan was termed to to be a failed mission when the Indian space agency Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) lost contact with the spacecraft and aborted the mission ahead of schedule. The breakthrough was made when the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) installed by NASA on board the Chandrayaan probe, detected signs of water on the moon’s surface. The discovery has become India’s greatest space discovery and will help set up future lunar colonies.

CBSE class 10 exams scrapped: Class 10 boards is made optional now. When Union Human and Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal announced that Class 10 boards will be scrapped majority of the students and parents heaved a sigh of relief. Sibal took the decision to scrap Class 10 exmas after finidng that higher education had been too exam-oriented and a source of ‘trauma’ for both students and parents. Instead, Sibal plans to introduce a grade system where students would be evaluated on their overall performance.

Roman Polanski in detention: The 76-year-old French-born Roman Polanski,film director, was arrested in Switzerland at the behest of the US for a rape incident committed in 1977. Polanski had admitted to charges of illegal sex with a teen but fled the US to France before a sentence could be pronounced. Polanski is currently under house arrest at a ski chalet in Zurich, Switzerland. Polanski had fled the US in 1978, just before he was about to be sentenced for having illegal intercourse with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 and was arrested on an international warrant in Zurich.

October

gautam-gambhir

Prof Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, who migrated to the US from Chennai, made a billion-plus Indians proud by winning the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for describing the structure of ribosomes, the molecules that translate the code of DNA into active proteins in the body. The Cambridge sciebtist Ramakrishnan is the seventh India- born person to win Nobel honour.

A series of bomb attacks in Pakistani cities killed hindreds as the army and Taliban led Islamic terrorits and militants were clashed in Souther Wazirstan in Pakistan-Afghanistan border. In May, hundreds of thousands of refuges fled Swat Valley ahead of the imminent army showdown agisnt the Taliban which is still continuing.

Gambhir Test Player of Year: Gautam Gambhir won the Test Player of the Year Award by beating Australian Mitchel Johnson, England captin Andrew Strauss and Sri Lankan Thilan Samaraweera. Gambhir scored 1269 runs from eight matches he played in the voting period with an astronomic average of 84.60 with five hundreds. Gambhir is the second Indian after Rahul Dravid to win the ICC award and is billed as

Indian ‘Second Wall’ after Dravid who is always considered as ‘The Wall’.

November

hamid-karzai

Hamid Karzai was re-elected as Afghanistan president after an election marred by alleged fraud by the opposition.

December

tiger-woods

Tiger Woods, the first and only billionaire in the sporting field, gave up his only game: Golf in the background of multiple affairs. Woods episode is billed as the biggest sex scandal of 2009. The sordid tale of Woods and his seemingly unending supply of alleged mistresses allegedly include Indian actress Lara Dutt. After a November car crash, Woods apologised for infidelity, but never named names. That didn’t stop the US tabloids, which dug up more than 10 women who might have had sex with Woods, including even porn stars, escorts, and cocktail waitresses.

Source: Internet, agencies

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2009: The Good, Bad and the Ugly