Monday, January 7, 2008

Moments-2007

2007 CE came to an end a few days back. There was no Tsunami, Katrina or a Mumbai deluge in 2007 but it was not without its share of moments; both good and bad.

Al'Gore won a "Noble" peace price for going green !! Wonder what the connection really was? Anyway he made his bit of news and got sidelined later in the year as focus shifted to other democratic presidential hopefuls.

Other than that the GOP lost its control over the Senate majority and Nancy Pelosi became the queen of the chair. Bush Jr's popularity touched a nadir in 2007 and kept going southwards way beyond his Texan shores.Chavez and Ahmadnibejad continued to "finger" Bush and USA and got away with it.
Iraq remained chaotic as ever but the "surge" apparently "worked" somewhat.

Paris voted for a conservative regime and so did South Korea. In other world news as India continued clocking 9% GDP growth rate, in neighboring Pakistan, General,President,whatever-Musharraf continued to preside over chaos and more chaos that ultimately culminated in death of Benazir Bhutto.
In all this "Time" magazine found it apt to name Russian Putin as their MAN of the YEAR !!

Narendra Modi fighting all odds stacked against him won a 2/3rd majority in the Gujarat state elections keeping BJP's hope alive. That was my "political moment" of 2007. A "V" from Modi thumbing down national mainstream media of India to its collective shame.

In other Indian political news the Pinky-Pinky-Didi Mayawati dislodged Mulayam Singh's government and became media's darling for a while till Mr.Modi dethroned her.

Also the Indo-US nuclear deal more or less was dumped into dustbin by Karat and co.
Mammohan Singh the "alleged" PM of India remained timid, slow and as impotent to deal with anything as possible. His Guru, Mr Narsimha Rao must surely be turning in his grave.

On terror front there was no letup in India as jihadis continued their free ride all over India. Train from Pakistan was bombed and then a Masjid in Hyderbad was followed by a brutal and sickening strike at a eating joint in Hyderabad. While the soft under belly of the Indian state continued to be exposed after each blast, it continued the tradition of appeasing Muslims, first by bringing about the communal Sachar Report and then playing hide and seek on Taslima issue.

On positive front the greatest moment of 2007 was provided by the Indian Cricket team. The young tigers beat Pakistan in the 20/20 World Cup. A picture of flag waving crowd on west Nagpur's busy road was my personal "signature moment" of 2007

Payton Manning brought glory to Colts finally but start of the new season Tom Brady continued with his upper hand cakewalking to the playoff for 2008 super bowl with record 16-0.

On the Entertainment side Helen Mirren walked all over the Oscars while Madhuri Dixit's "comeback" movie in Bollywood flopped. SRK gave a "Chak De" performance and iced the cake with an OSO.
Ash-Abhishek wedding had the Indian media eating out hands and making the Bachchan's life and TV audiences life miserable with irrelevant details about the wedding.

In TV "The Sopranos" ended their sitcom journey that left a lot of viewers confused and unsatisfied.

On Economic front, the sub-prime issue (some may call it a scandal) continued to ruffle many a feathers. Dollar plunged to record lows. Indian economy grew stronger and was reflected in its booming stocks which touched dizzying heights. Also just another feather in Indian-expat's cap was added when Mr.Pandit became Citi Groups top guy.

The real estate took a real dip in some regions of USA and fears of similar bubble burst in India started doing rounds.

All in all it was a mixed bag.

2 comments:

rathchakra said...

2007 - A year that was devoid of any big human tragedy, but had many small ones. I remember I had a wager with Sunder and Shibin in 1993 - Is the world moving towards Peace or Destruction? We are to meet in 20 years and see where the world stands. The B+ve in me was on the side of "PEACE" (S&S were on the the D side). As each year has passed since, I see my side loosing. 2007 did not do anything to strengthen my side. Hope floats.

kautilya said...

@rathchakra: the world will survive. we have had worse times. remember WWII when half the most powerful nations were at each other's throat.
there were unprecedented casualities then.
i just have a feeling that the "world" in general has a way to "bounce back"