In 2023, Chandrayaan-3 was the most searched term among news events in India, according to Google Trends. The lunar mission, which made India the first nation to touch down on the southern polar region of the moon, found a place in the global list of most searched news events too. It ranked ninth out of the top 10 news topics that trended globally in 2023. Chandrayaan-3 garnered widespread interest across all States in India, unlike other news events wherein searches were mostly limited.
The rest of the nine news events that trended in India this year include the Karnataka Assembly election results, actor-director Satish Kaushik’s demise, the Union Budget, gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed’s murder, the ethnic conflict in Manipur and the train accident in Odisha which killed close to 300 people. International news events that made the list were the earthquake in Turkey, Hollywood actor Matthew Perry’s death and the Israel-Hamas war.
Search interest about the Hamas war and the Manipur ethnic violence sustained for a longer period, given their drawn-out nature.
Chart 1 shows the most searched terms in 2023 and the week these search terms trended. The darkest shade points to the week a particular news term achieved its peak interest. Lighter shades point to interest on other weeks, however, levels were lower compared to the peak. Zoom in for a clearer view of the chart.
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India loved its sports personalities this year too, especially its cricketers, with both the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the Cricket ODI World Cup featuring in the 2023 calendar. Seven of the 10 most searched people in India were sportsmen. These include Shubman Gill, Rachin Ravindra, Mohammad Shami, Glenn Maxwell, David Beckham, Suryakumar Yadav and Travis Head. Along with them, actress Kiara Advani (at the first spot), YouTuber Elvish Yadav (fifth), and actor Sidharth Malhotra (sixth) complete the top 10 list.
Among the most searched sports events, the IPL took the first spot followed by the Cricket World Cup. The Asian Games and Indian Super League were the only non-cricketing sports events in the top 10 list.
The graphic below lists the five most searched topics under a category in India in 2023.
Under the ‘what is’ category, the G-20, UCC and ChatGPT were in the top three. Under the ‘how to’ category, ‘how to prevent sun damage for skin and hair with home remedies’ was the most searched followed by ‘how to reach my first 5k followers on YouTube’ and ‘how to get good at Kabaddi’.
‘Coding classes near me’ was searched the most in the ‘near me’ category. ‘Onam Sadhya near me’, ‘gym near me’ and ‘Jailer movie near me’ are also featured in this category. Jawan topped the most searched movies followed by Gadar 2 and Oppenheimer. Farzi topped the most searched shows followed by Wednesday and Asur. ‘Mango pickle’, ‘sex on the beach’ and ‘panchamrit’ were the most searched recipes. ‘Vietnam’, followed by ‘Goa’ and ‘Bali’ were the most searched travel destinations.
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Globally, the top 10 search terms in the news category were about natural disasters and shootings that happened in North America. Besides them, the world also searched for the Israel-Hamas war (first spot), the Turkey earthquake and Chandrayaan-3, which were common search interests in the global and India list. The ‘Titanic’ deep-sea submersible that went missing in June, was the second most searched news topic globally. While the submersible that went missing was ‘Titan’, the word used for searching was ‘Titanic.’ The war in Sudan completes the global top 10 list.
godhashri.s@thehindu.co.in
Source: Google Trends
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