Actor Vijay’s selfie with fans most retweeted on Twitter
The tweet from actor Vijay of a selfie with fans posted in February was the mostretweeted tweet of 2020, while cricketer Virat Kohli’s tweet announcing that his actor wife Anushka Sharma and he are expecting theirfirst baby was the most liked tweet of the year, according to trends released by Twitter.
“This year has been quite unusual and unique. One of the majorthings we witnessed was the need to connect because we were physically distanced. Digital has become the most important way for people to express connection...rejoicing in celebratory moments, standing up forthose communities impacted by the pandemic, bonding overrediscovered shows, interests and memes,” Manish Maheshwari, managing director, TwitterIndia, said.
In politics, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tweet on lighting lamps at residence was the mostretweeted tweet, while in sports former Indian cricket captain M. S. Dhoni’s tweet expressing gratitude for a letter of appreciation by Mr. Modi was the mostretweeted.
IPL2020 and Dil Bechara were the top sports and movie hashtags, while ‘Binod’ became the most tweeted about meme during the year.
Unsurprisingly, COVID-19 topped the list of topics in current affairs that Indians had most conversations about. This was followed by late actor Sushant Singh Rajput and the Hathras murder and alleged gang-rape.
“In India, this year we played a very importantrole in three categories — informing, connecting and entertaining. Twitter became the service through which people got to know about how things are evolving, and COVID-19 became the most used hashtag on the service. Within COVID-19, there were a range of hashtags around janta curfew, wearing masks etc.,” Mr. Maheshwari said.
He added that Twitterlooked at about a million tweets from 22 cities over 100 days to understand what were the “top feelings”that people were talking about last year and compared that to this year.“What emerged was that people find joy in every day things... Ludhiana as a city topped the conversation in the area ofromance. The other one is Raipur.
Mr Maheshwari said that there was also a rise in conversations and tweets on various interests and hobbies, such as baking, photography, yoga, fitness and poetry.
“Globally, we have about 7,000 tweets per minute about TV and movies this year. In India also we see interesting trends. The Hindi movie Dil Bechara was the most tweeted about film to release this year, but immediately afterthat we had a Tamil film Soorarai Pottru and Telugu movie SarileruNeekevvaru,” he pointed out.
Asked about the regulation of offensive content and misinformation on Twitter, Mr. Maheshwari said that the “health of the conversations on the platform” was among the most important priorities and the company was investing in this area.
“We keep evolving our policies in response to what we observe on our platform. We learn about new ways in which bad actors do bad activities on the service and, in response to that, we continue to evolve our policies. Our approach there has been how do we provide more credible sources of information,” he said, adding that the company was also investing in its enforcement team to ensure the right enforcement of the policies.
“We have a global team forthat and are adding capacity there. We are also ensuring that they have the right cultural context to understand something in the context of the country that they are enforcing in. They have the relevant language capabilities as well and that is also very important,” he said.
He added that the company had invested in technology, and now “more than 50% of the tweets that are actioned on” are proactively identified by the platform.
Courtesy: www.thehindu.com
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Kerala FM calls for unity among communities, refers to US tariffs in Budget speech
Thiruvananthapuram (PTI): The 2026-27 budget speech by Kerala Finance Minister K N Balagopal saw a call for "unity" among the various communities and highlighted global issues like the tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump and the incarceration of the Venezuelan President by him.
Balagopal said that "unity of Keralites" was the greatest treasure and the guarantee for the future growth and prosperity of the state.
It will help to attract foreign tourists, entrepreneurs and capital to our state, he said.
Balagopal said that the government has earmarked Rs 10 crore for a project to analytically record the history of the religious and cultural fraternity of Kerala so that people of "other lands" may also learn about it.
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It will also help to combat against the "highly venomous communal snakes" trying to destroy the unity of Kerala, he said.
"They have tried many times to poison the serenity of life in Kerala. We have so far been able to combat these poisonous elements by creating a defence of love and unity.
"But we have to realise that these venomous snakes spewing religious nationalism are not the ones who quickly admit defeat and retreat. We must see that they are active with new strategies to communally divide, polarise and subjugate the Keralites. The new strategy preached by ‘election experts’ is to stigmatise those who create the defence of public unity against communalism," Balagopal said.
He said that it was by recognising and respecting various religions and cultures that Kerala reached where it is now.
"Even in the legend of Lord Ayyappa and Vavar, there are yarns of religious harmony laced intricately together. This unity and fraternity may be astonishing to the people of many other lands.
"We have to take forward this historic fraternity of Kerala with more strength and spirit. History of the religious and cultural fraternity of Kerala has to be recorded analytically. The government intends to introduce a project for this, an amount of Rs 10 crore is earmarked for it."
Balagopal also referred to the tariff's imposed by Trump and said that his policies have created severe uncertainties in world trade and commerce.
"There is no doubt that this has adversely affected India and Kerala as well. It has also severely affected the export of our marine products," he said.
The minister further said that the central government yielding to Trump’s threats have adversely affected the state’s tax revenue.
"The details of the new free-trade agreement signed by India and the European economic community have not been revealed completely. However, there is a strong concern that this will have a negative impact on our dairy farmers and industries. In order to deal with the situation, we need to be prepared in advance," he said.
Balagopal, referring to the incarceration of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by the US, said the world was "rolling back from the democratic order" and it was quite "apprehensive".
"The incident that the head of a state is being arrested from the President's house by America and incarcerated by violating all international laws was very rare even in the dark eras of colonial rule.
"Such incidents are a warning to us as well. We, the Keralites should unite and move forward for the best interest of the state. We can overcome any crisis if we stand united for the interest of the state. Our history teaches us so. Let us uphold the interest of our state and move forward to the future, together," he said in his budget speech.
