Another year has gone by. India has had its moments in 2009 -- some painful, some memorable.
Rediff.com looks back at the events that captured the minds of the nation.
Click on NEXT to watch the slide show...
Remembering the carnage
Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz walks in front of a wall with bullet holes at Nariman House in Mumbai on November 26, 2009.
Nariman House, home to the Mumbai chapter of the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish movement, was one of 10 sites attacked by gunmen during a 60-hour siege in the city that began on November 26, 2008.
Raging inferno
Photographs: Stringer/Reuters
Happy and 'Gay'
Photographs: Arko Datta/Reuters
A court ruling declared that gay sex was not a crime. The verdict bolstered demands by gay and health groups that the government scrap a British colonial law, which banned homosexual sex.
Dark yet quite a sight
Photographs: Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters
People watch the solar eclipse at Dhulia Gach village, 57 km south of Siliguri on July 22, 2009.
A total solar eclipse began its flight across a narrow swathe of Asia, where hundreds of millions of people watched the skies darken despite thick summer clouds.
'Young' bride and 'young' groom
Photographs: Raj Patidar/Reuters
A large proportion of women in India were married when they were still children, a study has found, and researchers warned that such unions carried higher risks of unwanted pregnancies and female sterilisation.
Nearly all the women who were married before they reached the legal age of 18 reported that they used no contraception before they had their first child, according to the study, which was published in The Lancet. Picture taken April 22, 2009.
Shoe-shocked!
Photographs: ANI TV/Reuters
Jarnail Singh, a journalist, throws his shoe at Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram during a news conference in New Delhi in this combo picture made from two video frame grabs from ANI TV taken and released April 7, 2009.
A Sikh journalist threw a shoe at Chidambaram during a news conference after getting angry with the minister's reply to a question about the 1984 riots in which hundreds of Sikhs were killed.
The shoe missed Chidambaram, who leaned back to avoid it. He later smiled and security guards took the reporter out of the room.
The new Gandhi
Photographs: Jinendra Maibam/Reuters
Gandhi, scion of India's most powerful political dynasty and touted as a future prime minister, hit the campaign trail during the Lok Sabha elections with a populist message to boost the Congress party's efforts to regain power.
The 38-year-old Gandhi, whose father, grandmother and great grandfather were all prime ministers, has become a key tool of Congress to win over youth as well as millions of poor villagers.
Not just a martyr
Photographs: Fayaz Kabli/Reuters
Four soldiers, including Malik and five militants in a firefight with terrorists in the Himalayan region.
'Slumdog' honour
Photographs: Punit Paranjpe/Reuters
Rags-to-riches romance Slumdog Millionaire swept the Oscars on Sunday, winning eight awards -- including the prize for best picture -- in a Hollywood triumph for a movie that almost failed to get released.
Pole experiment
Photographs: Pawan Kumar/Reuters
The show was organised to promote pole dancing in India, the organisers said.
This is the first time such an event has been held in the country. The event drew a sizeable audience, the organisers said.
Taking the bull by the horns
Photographs: Babu/Reuters
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