New York: Anna Hazare`s anti-corruption
movement that saw Indians rally in support has been named
among the top 10 news stories in the world this year by TIME magazine, which listed the Arab Spring and killing of Osama
bin Laden as the top attention-grabbing headlines.
TIME magazine compiled 54 wide-ranging lists of the top 10
happenings in 2011 in the field of politics, entertainment,
business, sports and pop culture.
Among the `Top 10 World-News Stories` is "Anna Hazare`s
Hunger Fasts Rock India" with the magazine saying that "in a
year with more than its share of protests worldwide, perhaps
the most striking act of dissent took place in India, where
the country`s ruling coalition took flak for a host of
corruption cases implicating a number of leading politicians".
Hazare`s "fasts ? even the threat of them ? triggered mass
demonstrations of support across India`s major cities and
heaped pressure on the government to create an independent
ombudsman body capable of investigating the nation`s political
elites ? even the Prime Minister ? and bringing the corrupt to
justice".
It said the mass support 74-year old Hazare commanded,
particularly from India`s burgeoning middle class, is a "sign
of the growing frustrations and aspirations of those in the
world`s largest democracy".
The top news stories of 2011 were the Arab Spring that
spread to a number of countries and the killing of bin Laden
in a covert US raid in Abbottabad, besides the famine in the
Horn of Africa, fall of longtime Libyan dictator Muammar
Gaddafi and Europe`s financial crisis.
In a different category, TIME magazine said the death of
religious leader Sathya Sai Baba was among the top 10
`Religion Stories` of 2011. Given that the spiritual leader was one of the "most famous gurus" in India, Baba`s funeral was attended by
hundreds of thousands of people and the "pomp wasn`t
surprising".
In other lists, TIME said the story of Casey Anthony, the
Florida mom accused of killing her two-year old daughter was
the "most overreported" news of the year followed by the
British royal wedding of Prince William with Kate Middleton,
guesswork over the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump and
Sarah Palin, the Dominique Strauss Kahn sex scandal and the
reality TV drama that was Kim Kardashian`s wedding.
TIME said the self-immolation of Tibetan monks was the
most "underreported" story of the year.
"It usually takes a US President tweaking Beijing by
meeting with the Dalai Lama, or a celebrity-studded Richard
Gere fundraiser, to get Tibet into the news these days. Even
then, the attention is fleeting".
As at least eight Tibetan monks, two of them teenagers,
torched themselves this year to protest Chinese rule, the
publication said "hopefully more attention will be paid" to
the issue.
TIME named Slumdog Millionaire actor Frieda Pinto-starrer
Miral among the worst movies of 2011.
"There was his (Director Julian Schnabel) peculiar casting
of Indian actress Frieda Pinto to play the title character, a
passionate Palestinian schoolgirl ? a choice that undercut his
good intentions".
Other lists included the best and the worst tweets,
business blunders, political gaffes, scandals and top crime
stories of the year.
PTI
