2008 a Small Review

2008 was a year full of surprises in the world of sports. Who would have expected the Indian haul of medals in the Olympics, or the slide of Australia in cricket. And who would have thought Roger Federer losing his top spot to nemesis Rafael Nadal or Ganguly and Kumble playing their last.

Just a few of some of the big happenings:

Sportspersons who made

 headlines 

• Abhinav Bindra wins gold at Olympics.
• Sushil Kumar and Vijender Singh capture bronze in wrestling and boxing at Olympics.
• Ronjan Sodhi bags gold in double trap gold at shotgun World Cup
• Saina Nehwal is ranked world no. 10 and Anand Pawar in top 100
• Vishwanathan Anand wins world title after vanquishing Vladmir Karmik
• Virender Sehwag joins Lara and Bradman to be the only players to score two test triple hundreds.
• Tendulkar is now world’s highest test-runs scorer.
• Anil Kumble and Saurav Ganguly retired.
• S.S.P Chowrasia wins his maiden European Tour event, Emaar MGF India Masters, in Delhi. 

International Personalities Who Made News 

• Barack Obama – made history by becoming the first African American to be elected for the top job at White House.
• Michael Jackson – converted to Islam and changed name from Michael to Mikaeel
• Michael Phelps – American swimmer who has won 14 Olympic gold medals, more than anyone in history.
• Fidel Castro - the undisputed leader of Cuba from 1959 until 2008, when he stepped down making way for Raul Castro.
• Ingrid Betancourt - the 47-year-old Colombian-French citizen, held for 6 years by FARC (Revolutionary armed forces of Colombia) from 2002 till she was rescued in 2008.
• Robert Gates - who assumed leadership in pentagon in 2006 under Bush Administration, is to continue in Osama’s new administration.
• Asif Ali Zardari – President of Pakistan and husband of late Pak PM Benazir Butto. With Islamic militancy on rise and Pakistan on the verge economic collapse, he has a big job in hand. 
• Carla Bruni – Supermodel-turned pop-singer, made headlines for her affair with French President Sarkozy. After a brief romance they married on 2 February 2008 at Paris.

Money and Capital Market

• Reliance power raises $ 3 bn within a minute. This becomes India’s biggest IPO.
• C.B. Bhave takes over as SEBI chairman.
• Duvvuri Subbarao was appointed the 22nd governor of the Reserve Bank of India.

Mergers and Acquisitions

• HDFC Bank and Centurion Bank of Punjab announced their merger, creating India’s largest bank in terms of branches.
• Japanese drug firm Daiichi Sankyo buys a majority stake in Ranbaxy for over Rs. 15, 000 crore
• India’s largest IT services company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) acquires Citigroup’s BPO arm Citigroup Global Services (CGSL) for $505 million (Rs 2,424 crore) in an all-cash deal.

Corporate World In News 

• Tata group is world’s 6^th most reputed company in ‘Global: 200’ compiled by Reputation Institute, USA.
• The Ambani Brothers named among the world’s 100 most influential and powerful by ‘Vanity Fair’.
• Tata relocatedsNano plant from Singur to Sanand in Ahmedabad. .
• Reliance Industries (RIL) Chairman Mukesh Ambani with net worth of $20.8 billion, displaces Lakshmi Mittal to become the richest Indian in the world

Other events that made headlines

• Kalka-Shimla Railway line is included in UNESCO Heritage list.
• Aravind Adiga becomes the fourth debut novelist to win the coveted Man Booker Prize for his novel, “The White Tiger”.
• Chandrayaan 1 successfully launched on 22^nd October from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.