Bangalore: What a year! Many in India, especially youth who haven't been through worse, will remember 2012 as the worst of times. It saw serial attempts across parts of the world, and specifically in India and China, to suppress Internet freedom. The use of our Information Technology Act's draconian section 66A (finally challenged in a friendly Supreme Court) led to arrests for tweets and Facebook posts, including for pressing "like" on them-- writes Prasanto K. Roy, editorial advisor at CyberMedia India.

But it was also the best of times for social media, and the millions who use it, increasingly from their mobile phones. Governments and people alike just began to get to grips with this: The former with horror, the latter with delight at their individual power and reach, bypassing mainstream media.

The year ended with furious anti-rape protests in India - centered on a brutal Delhi gang-rape - that saw spontaneous mass mobilization, coordinated entirely on Twitter, Facebook and SMS. This triggered off, appropriately, on the second anniversary of the social-media-enabled Arab Spring uprising.

Read also: How Well Our Favorite Tech Companies Fared This Year?