Curious case of Google search on Chandrayaan 2 in India and Pakistan

An analysis of Google Trends data about searches made for terms like 'Chandrayaan 2', 'Isro', and 'Vikram lander' shows remarkably different trends in India and Pakistan. IndiaToday.in explains.

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Curious case of Google search on Chandrayaan 2 in India and Pakistan
Isro's Chandrayaan-2 Moon mission has generated a lot of curiosity in India and abroad. (Photo: Reuters)

In Short

  • India and Pakistan searched differently about Chandrayaan-2 and Isro on Google
  • Google Trends data show that just like Indians, Pakistanis too were curious about the Moon mission
  • But, there was a remarkable difference in how the two countries googled about it

People in Pakistan are interested in India and this interest is not limited just to Kashmir. Pakistan's leadership may have a political interest in hurling barrages of hatred to mock Isro's Chandrayaan-2 mission on Twitter and in the media, but that doesn't seem to have made the ordinary Pakistani uninterested in searching about India's Moon mission.

On September 7, the day when the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) was set to land Chandrayaan-2's Vikram lander on Moon, people in Pakistan were apparently glued to their mobile phones and computers, following updates from the Moon landing, just like their counterparts were doing in India. This, despite the fact that Vikram's landing was scheduled around 2 am (IST), a time when most people in Pakistan would generally be fast asleep.

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In fact, their interest to know about the latest developments on Chandrayaan-2 remained very high even two days later, by when the search interest for 'Chandrayaan 2' had relatively dwindled in India.

IndiaToday.in's analysis of Google Trends data for the search term 'Chandrayaan 2' on and around September 7 shows that people in Pakistan were actively googling Isro's ambitious Moon mission. The search interest graph (below) shows that interest for Chandrayaan 2 started increasing around 12.30 am on September 7. After this, search interest on Chandrayaan 2 witnessed a remarkably steep rise and reached its peak at 2.30 am.

Google search interests for terms 'Chandrayaan 2', 'Isro' and 'Vikram lander' in Pakistan. (Data source: Google Trends)

(Click on the image to see an interactive graph.)

This sharp rise coincided with rapid developments in Vikram's trajectory and its coverage by news media. Around 1.37 am, Vikram's landing process started. In a tweet, Isro said the powered descent phase had started and the first part -- rough braking -- was underway.

At 1.49 am, Isro tweeted that the rough braking phase had been successfully completed and the fine braking phase had started. At Isro's control centre in Bengaluru, scientists could be seen smiling and clapping.

But that is also when things started going awry. All of a sudden, complete silence blanketed the control centre. The scientists there could be seen anxiously glaring at their monitors. The seconds crept by, but the silence continued.

Isro had lost contact with Vikram moments before it was about to land on Moon. What happened next with Vikram lander is not known. Isro has said it has located Vikram on Moon, scientists are analysing data and efforts are being made to establish contact with it.

For those outside the control centre, there was no clarity till 3 am when Isro issued a brief statement. It said, "This is Mission Control Centre. Vikram Lander's descent was as planned and normal performance was observed up to an altitude of 2.1 km (from Moon's surface). Subsequently, communication from Vikram Lander to the ground stations was lost. Data is being analysed."

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Now, if we analyse the Google search interest trends in Pakistan during this period, we find that the search interest for Chandrayaan 2 peaked at 2.30 am and remained high till around 5.30 am, by when there was clarity that Vikram had been unable to land on Moon in the manner Isro had planned.

This was also a period when Pakistani politicians, especially the minister for science and technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, were all out mocking India and Isro. In their terms, Isro's mission Chandrayaan-2 had "failed", despite many global experts saying it otherwise.

In a tweet, Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said, "Surprised on Indian trolls reaction, they are abusing me as I was the one who failed their moon mission, bhai hum ne kaha tha 900 crore lagao in nalaiqoon per? Ab sabr kero aur sonah ki koshish kero #IndiaFailed (sic)."

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Messages like these generated heated debates on Twitter but there were also voices of rationality in Pakistan that urged their leaders to refrain from one-upmanship, especially because Chandrayaan-2 was a scientific mission. There were also those who asked the politicians to introspect where Pakistan stands in terms of research on science and technology.

Notwithstanding this debate on Twitter and Facebook, if we compare the search interest graphs for India and Pakistan based on Google Trends data, we find that in India, the search interest for Chandrayaan 2 started declining around 6.30 am on September 7 and became very low by noon.

Search interest trend for terms 'Chandrayaan 2', 'Isro', and 'Vikram lander', in India. (Source: Google Trends)

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(Click on the image to see an interactive graph.)

The search interest for Chandrayaan 2 did not pick up thereafter in India. A possible reason could be that the developments had already been extensively covered by the news media and there were no new developments on Chandrayaan 2.

The graph for other popular terms like 'Isro' and 'Vikram lander' followed a similar trend of peaking around 2 am on September 7 and falling thereafter.

But in comparison to this, in Pakistan, the situation was remarkably different. The search interest graph of Pakistan (below) shows that interest for Chandrayaan 2 peaked at 2 am on September 7. Like in India, it too declined soon but the fall was not as drastic as in India.

Search interest for terms like 'Chandrayaan 2', 'Isro', and 'Vikram lander' in Pakistan. (Source: Google Trends)

(Click on the image to see an interactive graph.)

At 12 pm on September 7, when search interest in India had relatively dwindled, in Pakistan people were still curious and were actively searching about Chandrayaan 2 on Google.

The graph shows that this continued till around 7.30 pm, but even the fall in graph thereafter was not as sharp as the one that can be seen in the graph for India.

Meanwhile, if you see the graph for Pakistan, you will find that search interest for the term 'Isro' and 'Vikram lander' was also considerably high in Pakistan. The graph shows that curiosity among people in Pakistan to google about 'Isro' remained high till about 6.30 pm on September 8.

If we divide the search interest graph further based on the platform where these searches were being made, we find (see graph below) that on YouTube, people in Pakistan remained glued to searching videos related to Chandrayaan 2 for days, unlike in India. The graph for Pakistan shows that searches about Chnadrayaan 2 on YouTube remained high till the morning of September 9, two days after Vikram's schduled landing.

Graph for search interest on terms 'Chandrayaan 2', 'Isro', and 'Vikram lander' on YouTube in Pakistan. (Data and graph source: Google Trends)

(Click on the image to see an interactive graph.)

Thus, while Pakistani politicians may want to trash a scientific experiment to score political ends, its general population may not necessarily be buying their narrative. After all, science and exploration of the universe have kindled curiosity through the ages of history.

WHY ANALYSE ONLY THESE 3 TERMS?

For our analysis, we have focused on the three most popular search terms related to Chandrayaan: 'Chandrayaan 2', 'Isro', and 'Vikram lander'. The reason to select these three terms was that Google searches for other similar search terms like 'Chandrayaan-2', 'Isro Chandrayaan 2', 'Isro Moon mission' etc was very low when compared to these three terms. This was the case both in India and Pakistan.

However, to ensure that there aren't any doubts on this, we are also presenting a Google Trends graph for Pakistan (below) which includes these terms too.

Search interest graph for terms related to Chandrayaan 2 in Pakistan. (Data source: Google Trends)

(Click on the image to see an interactive graph.)

BUT WHAT EXACTLY DO THESE NUMBERS MEAN?

The numbers depicted in the graphs in this article do not reflect absolute search values (i.e. total number of people who were googling for Chandrayaan 2 at a given time). Google Trends data basically reflects a percentage of the total number of searches, which gives an idea on what terms were popular in a region, besides giving insights on the trend of a search term's popularity.

Thus, the comparison of graphs for India and Pakistan above does not suggest that the total volume of Google search in Pakistan was more than India. What it rather tells is that the relative search interest for Chandrayaan 2 was higher in Pakistan and this interest was fairly widespread in terms of number of hours the search term was popular.

According to Google, the data and graph shown on Google Trends comes on a scale of 0-100. This scale does not represent raw data (i.e. exact number of searches for a term). They rather convey a percentage of interest that people have in a particular term vis-a-vis other terms.

"Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term. A value of 50 means that the term is half as popular; a score of 0 means there was not enough data for this term," Google explains.

Thus, a value of 100 means that the search interest for that term was the highest at that specific time, it doesn't mean that 100 people were searching for that particular term.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: HERE ARE VIKRAM'S FINAL 15 MINUTES BEFORE LANDING