Rahul Gandhi, Katrina top Indian cyberspace: Google

The young ruled in the Indian cyberspace in 2009 with Rahul Gandhi emerging as the most popular politician and Bollywood star Katrina Kaif the most popular celebrity, according to a Google India survey.

The new survey--The Google 'Zeitgiest' (Spirit of the times) 2009--based on Google India search queries in a reflection of what Indians were searching throughout the year found that tennis star Sania Mirza held the top position in popular sportspersons category for the third year in a row.

The Saif Ali Khan-Deepika Padukone starrer 'Love Aaj Kaal' was the most searched movie, the survey, which was released today, said.

The results, based on study of aggregation of billions of queries people typed into Google search in 2009, showed that global economic downturn and local implications were clearly on India's mind as 'Budget 2009' and 'Satyam share price' emerged as the fastest rising queries.

Young politicians like Congress leaders Rahul and Sachin Pilot made their mark among the netizens. Rahul was the most searched  politician in India, his grandmother and late prime minister Indira Gandhi was at the second position.

At the third spot was Pilot, followed by Sarah Palin, P Chidambaram, Mayawati, Barack Obama, Sonia Gandhi, Rajesh Pilot and Maneka Gandhi. Interestingly, Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate for the 2008 elections in America, was searched more than Obama, the US President. The top ten fastest rising queries also included 'IRCTC', 'Michael Jackson', 'twitter' and 'election results'.

The glamorous Katrina Kaif was not only the most searched celebrity, pipping Jackson and Salman Khan, she was also at the second spot in most popular mobile queries, coming just after 'Orkut'.

Megastar Amitabh Bachchan does not figure in the top ten most searched celebrities but his daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai is there along with Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor, Shahrukh Khan, Angelina Jolie, Megan Fox and Sachin Tendulkar.

Tendulkar also remained India's most favourite cricketer according to popular search results, though he was at the second spot in top ten "most popular sports stars". This list also has three other Indian cricketers -- M S Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh and Rahul Dravid and one from Australia -- Brett Lee.

At number three was US wrestler John Cena, while Dhoni (4), Portuguese winger Cristiano Ronaldo (5), Yuvraj (6), Brazilian striker Ronaldo (7), tennis champion Roger Federer (8), Dravid (9) and Lee (10) followed.

After 'Love Aaj Kaal', in the list of "most popular movies" released by Google India were 'Harry Potter', 'Slumdog Millionaire' and 'Kaminey'. The most popular child cartoon character was 'Spiderman' with 'Power Rangers' coming next.

The most searched holiday destination was the picturesque hill station of Matheran near Pune. The survey showed that in the 'how to' queries, "how to kiss" was at the top while "how to meditate" was in the third spot.