This week, Google Trends remained flooded with search trends linked to work from home (WFH) and gold rate trends after Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged citizens to adopt several measures to boost India's economic resilience. His appeal on Monday followed amid the disruptions linked to the ongoing United States - Iran conflict that has hurt the global fuel supplies.
In his appeal, he encouraged people to prioritise work-from-home where possible, reduce fuel consumption, and avoid non-essential foreign travel for a year. Soon after his message, Indians turned to Google to search a range of queries linked to fuel prices, Swadeshi products, and travel restrictions, and whether work from home will again become a reality like the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Here is a breakdown of the key trending searches that shaped online conversations since the last few days.
1. Work from home
Following PM Modi's appeal to save fuel, several states including Delhi began implementing measures to introduce partial work-from-home for government employees. Delhi CM Rekha Gupta on Thursday announced ‘work from home' for government employees twice a week, staggered office timings and pushed for public transport usage under the 90-day ‘Mera Bharat, Mera Yogdan' campaign. Similarly, Anupam Mittal, founder and CEO of People Group and Shaadi.com, was one of the earliest members from the private sector to announce one-day WFH per week policy for his 500-odd employees. RPG Group has also reportedly launched a similar move.
These developments have led to anticipation among employees from other domains, particularly IT, about potential implementation of WFH policies. People are turning to constant search trends to see whether more companies will adopt flexible work arrangements or whether state governments may introduce such mandatory policies.
2. Fuel price hike
Search trends from Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad and other places continued to emerge as people looked up fuel price hike trends. From May 15, petrol and diesel prices have been raised by Rs 3 per litre. This followed after the government said that state-owned oil companies were reportedly facing losses of Rs 1,600 crore per day due to supply shock following the Middle East war. As a result, search trends around potential impact of fuel price hike and long-term outlook surged in India.
3. Panic buying of fuel
Amid PM Modi's appeal over fuel conservation push, some regions saw crowded petrol pumps as people feared further price hikes. Visuals from Odisha, Raipur, and elsewhere showed crowds flooding pumps, with demand surging up to 50%. Media reports noted pumps running dry in many places.
4. Gold price
One of the other major appeals by PM Modi involved urging Indians to avoid buying gold for a year. Soon after, the government raised import duty on gold and silver from 6% to 15% to conserve foreign exchange reserves at a time of rising global uncertainty. This has triggered search trends linked to gold's potential price movement in the coming months and demand for alternative investment tools.
5. Other trends
Other popular trends that dominated searches and discussions across India in the past few days included weather updates, CBSE Class 12 results, NEET UG paper leak controversy, and the IPL cricket tournament.
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