The year gone by...

2008 will be remembered as the worst year in our living history because of so many reasons:
1) The collapse of financial giants like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers(remember that Lehman Brothers was the most respected financial conglomerate and most of IIM students' dream company) etc. All this caused by the infamous subprime crisis in US
2) The year when countries world over went bankrupt just like the financial behemoths in US did
3) The year when wolrd saw massive layoffs all over world. From US to China to India to any other country you've heard of...
4) The year when Inflation rose to dizzy heights in India and for that matter all over the world
5) The year when terrorists struck at will on India day after day(remember the Bangalore and Ahmedabad blasts on consecutive days), month after month and the Indian government was busy making strategies to stick to the power(caused by infamous withdrawl of support by CPI/CPM), when it would have been making strategies to tackle terrorism in India!!!
6) The year when the oil was heading towards 200$ a barrel
7) The year when GM and Ford were close to shutting down(last minute bailout from US govt saved them for short while though)
8) Finally this was the year when the most dreaded recession engulfed the world like never before. There was no exception to this. I guess this was the first time in our lifetime that we did understand the actual meaning of the word recession!!! This might be true all over world also...
9) The fall of the Wall(Rahul Dravid) ... :-(
10) The year when India failed to qualify for the Olympics Hockey event
11) The year when the infamous Nuclear deal was signed by India with US(I have my personal reservations against the deal and hence I would list it as worst event of the 2008. In my view this only benefits the billion dollar US nuclear industry and not the comman man as propagated by the ruling party)
12) The year when Sensex crashed from its dizzying heights within few sessions :-( . This was the year when investors lost trillions of money in stocks and many committed suicide due to this loss

The year not only had negatives, it did had some positives also. Few of those are as follows:
1) The year when BJP came to power in South India, in the State of Karnataka.(after the highly dramatized brawl over power handover by JDS to BJP)
2) The year when India won its first Individual Gold medal at Olympics(when Abhinav bindra won the gold in men's 10m Air Rifle event)
3) The year when Australian supremacy in Cricket was broken first by India and then by South Africa(towards the end of the year)--- Good for game of cricket
4) The year when Roger Federrer was humbled on Court by others. This year saw his sudden downfall :-( --- Good for Tennis
5) The year when Hamilton finally won the F1 championship(after missing the last year's championship by a whisker)
6) The year when LTTE was finally defeated in its own backyard.This bodes well for future anti-terrorist operations in the sub-continent region
7) The year when India successfully launched the lunar space mission. This is a huge technological leap for India.
8) The year when Vishy retained world championship
9) The year when Barrack Obama won the US presidential elections to become the first elected African American president.

I am running out of events to list here. please add on to the list :-)

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