Indian sportswomen including PV Sindhu, Sakshi Malik, Dipa Karmakar who won laurels and dominated the headlines during Rio Olympics, have emerged as the ‘Top Newsmakers’ of the year, search engine Yahoo announced in their ‘2016 Year in Review’ report.
Other top newsmakers included Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Arnab Goswami and Indian politicians Arvind Kejriwal, Jayalalithaa and Subramanian Swamy, as well as Rohit Khandelwal the first Indian (and Asian) to win the Mr. World title.
‘The Unnamed Soldier’ became the ‘Personality of the Year’ for being perennially at the forefront of national consciousness. And Modi’s demonetisation initiative, Cyrus Mistry’s dramatic exit from Tata Group and Reliance Jio’s 4G network launch were the most significant Financial Events that shook India. In fact, RJio launch made Mukesh Ambani one of the top Business Newsmakers of 2016 as well.
Sunny Leone reigned supreme as the Most Searched Personality for the fifth consecutive year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the Most Searched Politician followed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The US presidential election was widely followed in India, with Donald Trump ranking as the fourth most searched politician in the country.
Autonomous vehicles was the Most Significant Technology Innovation of 2016, with several companies announcing their foray into driverless cars. If people’s searches are a window into the future, areas we may see growth in moving forward include Virtual Personal Assistants, Virtual and Augmented Reality and Fitness Trackers.
Yahoo’s ‘Year in Review’ is a look at the year’s top trends, happenings, and events, which caught the imagination of Internet users in India. In its ninth year now, this review is based on users’ daily search habits and an editorial selection of what they read, recommended and shared most on Yahoo.
