Hyderabad:
Anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare ruled Indian cyberspace during his 13-day fast demanding the introduction of Jan Lokpal Bill in Parliament.
Search engine Google produces 29 million results when a query is made by entering Anna Hazare's name, while Sonia Gandhi's name yields a little below 9 million results. A page created in the Facebook on Anna Hazare has been liked by 3.64 lakh users against UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi's page which has 57, 291 likes.
An account created in the name of 'Support Anna Hazare fast against Corruption' attracted 1.45 lakh likes. There is also a Facebook page 'I hate Anna Hazare' and it has been liked by 4,137 users.
Hazare's video from Tihar Jail compound, recorded by Kiran Bedi, has nearly 1.6 lakh views in YouTube so far and was rated as the second most viewed video of this month in Indian news and politics category. The number one slot was occupied by a video uploaded by an Indian on the US debt crisis. Similarly, another video on Anna Hazare's indefinite fast against corruption was rated at number 4 with nearly 1.65 lakh views.
Currently, SMSs containing words ''Anna Hazare'' or ''corruption'' are the most circulated in the messages, according to web to mobile Free SMS service providers.
Nisha Parekh, vice president (international operations), SMS Country which runs 160by2.com, said out of 5 to 5.5 million SMS they handle every day, nearly 1.5 million are messages related to Anna Hazare or corruption.
"We expect it to be around 3.5 million SMSes today (Sunday) with regard to Anna Hazare ending his fast," Parekh told PTI.
The social activist, finally, broke his 13-day-long fast on Sunday after Parliament's decision to refer three of his demands - citizen's charter, inclusion of lower bureaucracy and creation of Lokayuktas through Lokpal bill - for the Standing Committee's consideration.
Ten days ago, 160by2 handled 1.34 lakh SMSs on Anna Hzare and the figure reached 2.6 lakh on Saturday. 160by2 has 13.3 million registered users, who use the site for sending bulk SMSes. Currently, 'Anna Hazare' and 'Corruption' are the two most used words in messages sent via Way2Sms, another SMS service provider.
"Messages containing the words 'Anna Hazare' and 'Corruption' have been delivered close to 13.5 million unique mobile subscribers in last 5 days via our way2sms," V V Raju, CEO of Way2SMS said.
He said along with social networking portals, users are largely using way2sms to express their support to Anna Hazare's campaign against corruption and in the last five days, they observed close to 3 million people using the word 'Anna Hazare' in their messages.