Bharat Bandh more popular than US Independence Day on Twitter

On the home page of twitter, the phrase, 'Bharat Bandh' (India strike), was at the head of the top 10 'trends', which calculates the frequency of certain phrases used on the social networking tool.

It proved more popular than even 'God Bless America', which marked the US Independence day July 4, and "Last Airbender", the latest film of Indian origin Hollywood director M. Night Shyamalan.

According to trendsmap, software that maps trends geographically, the majority of the tweets on the shutdown were coming from Mumbai, followed by Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai.

Indian twitters were giving reports on the status of the strike in their area, as well as sharing jokes and giving their views on this method of protest.

“Indians are really enjoying their holiday... 12 tweets per minute on Bharat Bandh... Opposition will be happy,” tweeted Meera Chandra.

Kripa Sharma, who tweets under the name, kripss, explained in sms-speak, “Itz bharat bandh... Nt twitter bandh... Hehe”.

Another 'twitizen' noted that trend topics seemed to be inversely proportionate to productivity.

Hira Dewangan, a public relations personnel from Chhattisgarh, suggested on twitter that opposition leaders should join the social networking site.
“(L.K.) Advani, (Nitin) Gadkari, Lalu (Prasad), Mulayam (Singh Yadav), Prakash Karat should immediately join twitter because Bharat Bandh is getting more success on twitter."

The opposition parties have called for an all-India strike to protest against rising fuel prices.