The end of an Indian decade

So its 28th today and we are on verge of end of the year 2009 and with this ends the first decade of 21st century. As we enter the new decade, the new year 2010 i just wanted to think of last 10 years of my life, of an Indian life and of nation India.

lets go back to the year 2K when i was in 10th standard. It was amazing feeling for me and many of other students to welcome 21st century. My mind was so curious about Y2k bug. Few of the newspapers do helped me but still i was not able to manage to get enough of those. There was no pc with most of the middle class families at that time. No internet, no cellphones. But still those are the best days for us.

Then started the era which totally showed up the world the power of India in economic, political and financial fronts. Politically Indian center govt started running for continuous 5 years. Economically Indian GDP started rising and financially a lot of banks,service sector companies, mid size entities were coming up.

I remember the year 2002 when lot of things happened in India. December 2002 when Reliance came up with there mobile phones worth rs 600 with free incoming, free sms from reliance to reliance and various other features. That was really a remarkable time which lead to tremendous growth in cellphone handsets and service providers companies. Reliance, Tata and Airtel were the once which grow with a rapid speed leading to increase in GSM and CDMA users of india. A lot of guys started having a cellphone in the college. I somehow resisted myself from owning one. Nokia 3300 was the famous model among college goers. It weighed more that a kilo but still people having them used that to show off. Its usual for people to show off everytime then own something which others don't.

Another incident of 2002 was the launch of Delhi metro maiden link. It changed the way people looked Delhi.

2003 saw a lot of success coming in telecom, IT and BPO service sectors. IT was booming so are IT companies and BPO. Cellphone users are increasing day by day. I still remember college guys and gals having nokia 2300 and nokia 1100 with the BSNL prepaid connection.

India was shinning only till april of 2004 when a Indian citizens voted for formation of center govt amidst the india shinning campaign of BJP. Every TV channel predicted BJP or NDA to get clear majority but indians voters have something different in store for the NDA thats a big BYE BYE....

I still remember when during lunch i went to the hostel tv room to play carrom on the results day. I was totally amazed by seeing the strong lead of congress and failure of BJP india shinning campaign. I was a strong BJP supporter at that time. Infact i still support BJP. Dont argue on this. I am an anti congress guy but my perception is changing fast. I was totally shocked at that time. I wanted to see NDA to form govt again and wanted to see the pace of indian growth between 1999-2004 to be doubled in next year. Every true indian expected that. But later i realise people of india really voted for the growth and not for the parties.
2004 was really a year which changed the next half decade for India. Sonia gandhi stepped out from Prime minister's post and nominated Manmohan singh for the post.

Then started the congress era where indian economy started growing by 8% annually. Strong GDP numbers along with strong service sector growth led to markets rallies. Everyone was going just great for India.

Year 2004-2006 was really a great boom for IT industry in india. I was placed in infosys in 2005 and joined infy in 2006 alongwith other 20000 employees who joined in the same year of recruitment 2006. Everyone was getting into IT. Engineering colleges were flourishing so were the management and other professional institutes.

Its 29th today and just 2 days left in 2009. So lets remember the period of 2006-2009. It was the year 2006 when IT companies hired at an enormous rate. I still remember the 26th June mysore batch. Life does change from college to company, to proxy to proxy cards, to mass bunks to working on weekends but one thing that didn't change for me and other fellow infoscions was the study and exams. Every week we use to have our online perception tests which were one of the deadliest exams across various companies. What put more pressure is that if you don't get a minimum marks then infy might show you the doors as well. Ahhh well lets get back to the Indian decade. Yes i totally mean that from 2006-2007 outsourcing to India increased leading to increase in small and mid sized IT and BPO companies across India.

Bangalore had no space for a single company but expansion was the mantra which ultimately led to companies searching for tier 2 and tier 3 cities to setup there centers in India. Infosys expanded business to Chandigarh. Tech M (MBT) also followed the suit.

Time was flying and companies were getting a lot of money but a real trouble has yet to come as ripple to the world. The early signs came in Jan 2008 when world markets fell almost 10-20% on a single day. Indian emerging markets BSE and NSE both suffered huge losses. No one was able to understand the actual cause. It was just like a shock which stayed a too long. Market kept falling and touched 8000 during the diwali 2008.
Recession hit the world. India was however not under any direct recession but Indian companies suffered a lot due to the same. There were lay offs, salary cuts, offers being abandoned and a lot of other things which were really a setback for Indians working for such companies.

2008 was the worst year of the the decade. Yes its due to the series of bomb blasts that took place over the year and then terrorist attack of 26/11 on mumbai. I already had enough of those in my previous posts. 2008 shook india on all fronts. But i suppose all is well thats ends well and so we had a good year 2009 wherein Indian citizens give a second chance to Manmohan singh led UPA Govt. The market rallied and closed just 5 mins after opening due to upper circuit on the first working day post election results. On next day too we saw a major increase in indices. It really proved to be booster for markets which were trading below 11K and which later on reached 17K. Various economic plans proved good for India. Overall the year 2009 was a great year. Indian cricket team lost T20 world cup but became No 1 test team of the world later in decemeber after beating srilanka in home series by 2-0.

I wanted to discuss my view on the last decade. Would like to have your view as well. Let me know which event changed the India, which event changed your life as an indian and where do you see India by the end of next decade.