As we near the end of the IT Examiner's first year, we asked our writers to reveal their personal high and lowlights of 2008.

Here, in no particular order, are their thoughts...

Andrew Thomas There was no doubt that, for me, the high spot of 2008 was the successful Chandrayaan-1 mission. This almost flawless flight to the Moon is proof of what can be achieved with skill, determination and a surprisingly-small amount of cash. An example to us all, not least Western countries who are at risk of being left behind in mankind's greatest adventure.

There was a tie for my low spot. It was a close-run thing between the feuding Ambani brothers and the DoT and TRAI who appear to be in a permanent state of war. When a judge orders two of the richest men on the planet to pull themselves together and listen to their mother, things have come to a pretty pass. As for TRAI and DoT's mutual loathing and bickering, we can but hope that their mums will bang their heads together and tell them to grow up too.

My high spot this year was the egregious Tesco, writes Mike Magee. As top investigative reporters Bindar Sandat and C Shanti reported, the firm apparently saved £100 million by outsourcing its logistics and many other aspects of its business to India. Tesco is a wonderful, wonderful company. It is a megagrocer. It sells everything. It has a huge share in the wine business in the UK.  Eyantra is a cool name, cool concept.

My low spot is the woefully inadequate PRs at the major Indian companies who never pick up the phone when you call them, apparently forgetting their function is to talk to the press. That attitude will change radically in 2009, I confidently predict.

In Indian terms, the year started off like the lion continued to roar, but there were whimpers of complaint from employees of the big giants, obviously affected by the biggest US banking debacle man or beast have seen in two generations. US firms consolidating or even, in the Lehman Bros case, closing down, have had their inevitable effect on jobs.

Nick Farrell writes:  The launch of the Iphone 3G was launched with much brain washing, or marketing it is now called.  The phone had a dodgy chip set, had its content obsessively controlled by Apple, and was generally shonky. However technology experts, who were not part of Apple's tame hack portfolio watched in horror as the technology took off and knocked better players out of the market.

The best thing in 2008? With his boss Bill Gates stepping down to devote his life to charity, the delightfully understated Steve Ballmer has been thrust into the limelight at Microsoft.   Steve's shy and retiring comments into the nature of the industry make for much better stories than Gates. Already we have heard him make contradictory comments about Vista and what the future of computing is going to be like. We look forward to his straight from the hip comments in the future. 

Subhankar Kundu avers: "No Superlatives from me. I don’t want to sound like a cynic but I can’t really consider any development to be the best."

But, yes, there were some achievements in 2008 which we should mention. The success of Indian space with Chandrayaan is definitely one of them. Many may consider Barack Obama’s winning US presidential election as the best change in the world history but let’s keep our fingers crossed and see how he fares with the International world.

On the technology front, rolling out the third generation (3G) services across countries can bring smiles in the faces of today’s tech-savvy generation but India will carry that forward to 2009, quite unfortunately.

Worst Madness in Mumbai, Killings of Christians at Kandhamal, bomb blasts killing hundreds in multiple Indian cities and, of course restrictions on smoking. We all know that and I don’t want to leave behind the dark memories - the atrocities of heinous criminals in different forms.

The global financial meltdown is the worst thing happened in 2008 that led to mass lay-offs across companies, across countries and across sectors. ‘No one is immune’ – that’s the sense that has been playing on in the minds of people. That’s worst, indeed it is. 

Harsha Pramod The best thing that happened in 2008 in India was smoking ban in public places. A ban on smoking in public places was imposed in India in October 2008 to check the harmful effects of tobacco. People found smoking in public places are liable for a fine of 200 rupees ($4.50). The ban would be of great benefit to hapless passive smokers, who neither smoke, nor enjoy smoking. This sure had smokers up in arms against the ban. For a smoker, this would be the worst news in the year.

According to recent statistics, tobacco smoking in India kills 900,000 people a year, a figure that is expected to rise to one million by 2010. India's health ministry says hundreds of thousands of people who have never smoked die each year by passive smoking. If only the ban was implemented well.

The media missing out on an opportunity to run an effective media campaign against terrorism in India is the worst thing to happen in 2008. The media has underestimated its own power to initiate a chain reaction. The media could have interrogated each person duty bound to prevent or handle such mishaps. They should have been made to answer for what exactly went wrong, why they faltered and what will do.

Instead, the media resorted to showing burning buildings and getting sound bites from page three celebrities and their expressed shock on terrorist attacks in Mumbai rather than focus on real people who could initiate a dialogue and take it forward. There have been some weak attempts, but nothing that could really make a difference. This sort of hype will die down without leading anywhere until another tragedy happens. 

Jayant Mishra No doubt, the series of terror attacks that shocked India and has taken the world's citizens by surprise, making them realize their vulnerability to such uncertainty is one of the worst things to happen this year. But from Indian perspective one should not forget the evil that lies within our territorial boundaries.

The act of vandalism performed by MNS party (Maharashtra Nirman Sena) activists, lead by party leader Raj Thackeray, on account of North Indians residing in the cosmopolitan city, Mumbai, is surely one of the most heinous incidents that took place this year.  Such activities lead by such activities pose the biggest threat to the unity of India and needs to be dealt with strict punishment. The irony is the government, has its own flimsy reason for not acting with courage against such leaders.

To me what sounds and feels the best this year, is the wakening of strong public opinion against all wrong doers. Citizens everywhere have become vigilant and are starting to ask questions. One day, those in power will have to answer to the vigilant citizens.

Debopriya Nandy Being a journalist, I would say the way the media fought for the ones victimized under the global economic crisis this year, makes me feel proud. Even if not being able to undo the dismissal of the laid-off employees, reporters have stood beside them, trying to voice their grievances. More than often (even if not everytime) as a reaction to the revolt of the media houses on behalf of the dismissed ones, the respective organizations have been forced to alter their strategy.  

I personally received gratitude mailed to me twice in my official email account. Both were from candidates who were someway or the other deceived by certain organizations.  One of those had further grievances stored, and the person wanted our site to follow up on the matter. I hope every new year see the fourth estate fulfilling its responsibilities the same way. 
                     
The way the country was left shattered by terror attacks is the most disappointing fact of this year. Starting with the Bangalore bombings on the 25th of July to the 26/11 Mumbai tragedy, mankind has witnessed some of the most disastrous incidents of their lifetime. Not only ones having lost their loved ones, but the entire nation is likely to remember the loss incurred for the rest of their lives, as the most horrible nightmare.

Worst of the worst was the involvement of indigenous powers in some of the blasts, where the country is already suffering under the paws of a lot of foreign rebels. Just as the loss of a life can never be compensated, so shall the Indians pray to never again experience another year similar to the dreadful 2008.

John Oram My high point this year was the major shift in US patent law. In January, I wrote about Apple Iphone's new patent which ignored prior developments dating back to 1984. Developers world-wide have patented business processes which cheapened the fundamental value of the patent process. This autumn, the US Patent Court threw out most software patents. We will write much more about this because yesterday's big ideas are no longer protected by patent law.

The saddest story I had to write was the discovery of the crashed airplane and remains of adventurer Steve Fossett. I think the funniest story was about Google buying a fighter jet and justifying it as a research aircraft. I believe the ARM CPU/GPU/Flash developments will have the greatest impact on upcoming small form-factor computing and mobile phone designs. The dumbest story could only have originated in California where the tax collector lost a court case and ended up owing an inventor $388 million.

Aharon Etengoff The most interesting story of 2008 is that of HCL acquiring Axon Group for a grand total £441 million ($658 million). The company had previously turned up its nose at a competing offer of £407.1 million from Infosys.

Perhaps one of the more disturbing scandals of the year was Moscow's extortionist demands for an additional $2 billion to retrofit the Admiral Gorshkov, a decommissioned Soviet aircraft carrier. New Delhi now claims that the original 2004 contract had "grossly underestimated" the carrier's rehabilitation requirements.

Poor negotiating tactics and a propensity towards over payment? You bet! X