Amrit Kaal, Caste, Saree: What Are Indians Searching About Nirmala Sitharaman?

India's Minister of Finance, Nirmala Sitharaman, presented the Union Budget 2023-2024 on Wednesday in Parliament. One of the biggest announcements was the change in income tax brackets for salaried people.

"Our vision for the Amrit Kaal includes technology-driven and knowledge-based economy with strong public finances, and a robust financial sector. To achieve this, Jan Bhagidari through Sabka Saath Sabka Prayas is essential," Sitharaman said while presenting the budget.

As she presented her speech, Google and Twitter in India became completely budget-related. One of the top real-time search trends in India was the Union Budget and Nirmala Sitharaman as well.

Here's a look at what people searched about Sitharaman according to Google Trends in the last 24 hours:

Amrit Kaal

Google trend searches in the past 24 hours and the past four hours brackets showed that the words 'Amrit Kaal' were the most searched in relation to Sitharaman and the budget. Not just the vision for Amrit Kaal, Sitharaman also said right right at the beginning of her speech, "I present the Budget for 2023-24. This is the first Budget in Amrit Kaal."

She repeated the word several times during her speech. What does Amrit Kaal mean exactly? Prime Minister Narendra Modi had mentioned it during his speech on the 75th Independence Day in August 2021. He said, "Starting from here, the entire journey of the next 25 years, when we celebrate the centenary of Indian independence, marks the Amrit period of creation of a new India. The fulfillment of our resolutions in this Amrit period will take us to the hundredth anniversary of Indian independence with pride. The goal of 'Amrit Kaal' is to ascend to new heights of prosperity for India and the citizens of India."

Modi had said, "The goal of 'Amrit Kaal' is to build an India where the government does not interfere unnecessarily in the lives of citizens."

What is Sitharaman's Caste?

Not just the budget, people were also interested in personal information about Sitharaman. One of the top breakout searches in relation to Sitharaman was her salary. People were also interested to know about her family searching for 'nirmala sitharaman husband name' and 'nirmala sitharaman son'.

As is always the case with India, people searched for Sitharaman's caste and also wanted to know which district she was from.

Sitharaman's saree

There was also general curiousity about Sitharaman's attire for the budget speech. One of the top break-out searches related to her in the last 24 hours was "nirmala sitharaman budget saree". Sitharaman wore a red saree with a black and gold border.

Budget related topics

Indians also searched for budget-related topics with break-out terms such as "rebate" and "millets". During her speech Sitharaman said, "India is at the forefront of popularizing Millets, whose consumption furthers nutrition, food security and welfare of farmers."

The government has focussed on including millets in G20 programmes and the cereal crop also found mention in the budget. This was after the UN declared 2023 the international year of millets.

Break-out trends also included terms like 'nirmala sitharaman tax' and 'nirmala sitharaman income tax' as a change in tax brackets was one of the biggest announcements this budget.