Olympic wrestler and newly elected Congress MLA Vinesh Phogat topped the list of most Googled Indians in 2024, according to Google Trends. This year witnessed many highs and lows for this determined athlete. She received a huge shock when disqualified at Paris Olympics but she could turn it around by winning Haryana elections.
Bihar Chief Minister and JDU leader Nitish Kumar, with Chirag Paswan, ranked as the second and third most searched Indians, respectively. The two politicians saw a sharp rise in searches on Lok Sabha election counting day. Nitish Kumar’s party has won 12 seats in the general elections, whereas Chirag Paswan stepped into the limelight, successfully claiming all five seats contested by his party in Bihar.
The cricketer Hardik Pandya found himself on the list while garnering both attention with his on-field performance as well as with his life, including separating from his wife Natasa Stankovic. Pawan Kalyan, actor-turned-politician, was in the list also, due to his party’s quite impressive results in the polls of Andhra Pradesh.
Cricketers Shashank Singh and Abhishek Sharma were among the most searched for this year. Model and actor Poonam Pandey was in the news after a controversy over a stunt in February, which she later clarified as a stunt to raise awareness about cervical cancer. She apologized publicly for the stunt.
Radhika Merchant, who married Mukesh Ambani’s son in a grand ceremony in July, was another highly Googled individual. Badminton star Lakshya Sen, who delivered India’s best-ever performance by a male shuttler by finishing fourth at the Paris Olympics, rounded out the list of top 10 most-searched Indians in 2024.
