Google Trends 2020: IPL overtakes coronavirus to become most searched topic; everything that trended in India this year

With the year coming to an end, Google has taken out its list of topics that trended in 2020 in India. As per the search engine giant, when people turned to search this year, the company realised they were counting on it to provide them with a sense of knowledge, certainty and trust. As per Google, coronavirus appeared in the top 10 overall list of trending terms this year globally. In India, however, the Indian Premier League (IPL) came out on top, beating even the US Presidential elections 2020. The Bihar Assembly elections 2020 and Delhi Legislative polls 2020 too saw considerable searches, along with US President-elect Joe Biden and late actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s last film Dil Bechara. Among the top trending queries was the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samaan Nidhi as well. Launched in February, the Rs 75,000 crore scheme sees vulnerable landholding farmer families, having cultivable land up to 2 hectares, being given a direct income support of Rs 6,000 per year. This income support will be transferred directly to the bank accounts of beneficiary farmers in three equal instalments of Rs 2,000 each. In the ‘ how to’ category, ‘How to make paneer’ was the top trend, followed by how to boost immunity and how to make dalgona coffee. The first five of the list was rounded off by ‘How to link PAN card with Aadhaar card’ on the fourth position while the fifth was ‘How to make sanitizer at home.’ The top ‘What is’ searches revolved not just around the novel coronavirus, plasma therapy and hantavirus, but also the viral ‘Binod’ meme, CAA, NRC and nepotism. People in India searched for ‘What is coronavirus’, ‘What is Binod’ and ‘What is plasma therapy’ along with COVID-19 and CAA. The list also saw queries related to solar eclipse. For the unversed, Binod became a huge social media meme, after a trend was started with a YouTube video called Why Indian Comments Section is Garbage (BINOD). It became such a rage that even top brands and personalities shared their take on #Binod. One Twitter user even challenged Paytm to change their Twitter name to Binod, which the brand interestingly played along with. News about a man from China having tested positive for hantavirus became viral. As per reports, hantaviruses are a family of viruses which are spread mainly by rodents and can cause varied diseases in people. In general news, IPL, coronavirus and the US Presidential election triggered the most searches, along with Nirbhaya case and Beirut explosion. Among personalities, Biden ranked on top, followed by Arnab Goswami. Singer Kanika Kapoor and actors Amitabh Bachchan, Rhea Chakraborty , Ankita Lokhande and Kangana Ranaut have bagged the top spots for being some of the most searched personalities on the search engine. Local ’near me’ searches saw people in India searching for food shelters, COVID-19 test, night shelters, grocery stores and laptops. However, according to Google, the top query was ‘Food shelters near me’ followed by ‘COVID test near me’. The top trending movie of the year was Dil Bechara, followed by Tamil action-drama Soorarai Pottru, Tanhaji, Shakuntala Devi and Gunjan Saxena, with Extraction being the only film from Hollywood making it to the list. The most searched web series were Money Heist, Scam 1992, Bigg Boss 14, Mirzapur 2 and Paatal Lok.