The revolutionary #MeToo movement that started from the United States, swiftly giving voice to courageous women all around the world, is presently at its peak in India, as depicted by Google’s interactive map called Me Too Rising. The ground-breaking crusade has given power to several women in India in wake of the numerous sexual harassment incidents getting reported, as depicted by a visualization of the movement by Google. The website launches with a quote by American poet and activist Muriel Rukeyser from 1968 that stands powerfully applicable in this day and age as well: “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” The interactive Google map was initiated earlier this year in April that shows cities where #MeToo has been the most searched topic as illuminated. Online users can click on any location to learn the top trending stories from that place regarding the matter.<doc-sep>India currently has more #MeToo Google searches than any other county, according to a shocking interactive map. The viral #MeToo movement was born out of victims of sexual assault and harassment using the hashtag to share their harrowing experiences online. Today all of the top five cities searching for #MeToo are in India leaving the country glowing brighter than any other. The year-old movement gathered steam in India in recent weeks with Bollywood figures, a government minister, several comedians and top journalists among those accused of abusing their positions to behave improperly towards women. The spark was Hindi film actress Tanushree Dutta, who accused well-known Bollywood actor Nana Patekar of inappropriate behaviour on a film set 10 years ago. He denies the allegations. In recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Google created a 'Me Too Rising' global map that shows the top 300 cities searching for the phrase. According to Google Trends, the search has been used in every country on Earth but nowhere as much as India which has a population of 1.3 billion. The map has tracked search and social media trends since October 2017 until today. It does not measure the total number of searches but records the number of times 'Me Too' is searched compared to other searches on specific days. 'In the past year, #MeToo has been searched in 195 countries—that's every country on Earth', Malika Saada Saar, Google's Senior Counsel on Civil and Human Rights, wrote in a blog post. 'You can see the cities where it was trending on different dates and see what's happening now at local levels with city-specific Google Search results for 'Me Too'', she wrote. The five Indian cities with the most number of searches were Chicalim, Brahmapur, Angul, Zirakpur and Wardha. Despite having a population of 1.4 billion, there were no searches recorded in China as the search engine is banned. The number of searches has been increasing in India in recent weeks. On the 9th October all of the top cities where #MeToo was searched was in India. This happened again on the 12th, 13th and 14th October, and then again today. According to a 2018 report by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, India is the most dangerous country to live in for women. It ranked as the most dangerous on three issues - the risks women face from sexual violence and harassment, from cultural and traditional practices, and from human trafficking including forced labour, sex slavery and domestic servitude. India has had more #MeToo Google searches than any other county, according to a shocking interactive map. Today all of the top five cities searching for #MeToo were in India leaving the country glowing brighter than any other Tanushree Dutta, a former Miss India, claimed Nana Patekar, a veteran actor now aged 67, had harassed her on sets of a film in 2008. She had made the same allegations shortly after the incident and Patekar denied the allegations. Dutta recently told Zoon TV: 'Back then, these incidents would be discussed only behind closed doors and not openly, as is being done now. No one supported me.' Dutta alleges that Patekar wanted an 'intimate step' with her in a dance number in the film 'Horn OK Please'. When she refused, Dutta alleges that Patekar called workers of a local political party who damaged her car and threatened her. The spark was Hindi film actress Tanushree Dutta, who accused well-known Bollywood actor Nana Patekar (pictured) of inappropriate behaviour on a film set 10 years ago Last week a prominent Bollywood director accused of sexual harassment denied the allegations as he threatened to sue two fellow filmmakers for defamation over the case which has helped fuel India's #MeToo movement. Vikas Bahl is accused of assaulting an employee of Phantom Films - an edgy production house behind Netflix's first original Indian series, 'Sacred Games' - in a hotel in 2015. In accusations published on HuffPost India, the unnamed woman said Bahl had insisted on escorting her to her room and pretended to pass out drunk on her bed, only to awaken and masturbate on her. Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane, who along with Bahl and another filmmaker founded Phantom Films, released statements on Twitter later that day backing the woman. The report came after they had announced they were dissolving the production company. Bahl, director of 'Queen', a 2014 hit movie about female empowerment, issued a denial through his lawyer earlier this month in his first public statement responding to the allegation. The year-old #MeToo movement gathered steam in India, sparked by claims made by actress Tanushree Dutta against a well-known Bollywood director TOP TEN MOST DANGEROUS COUNTRIES TO BE A WOMAN The Thomson Reuters Foundation asked 548 experts which of the 193 United Nations member states they thought were most dangerous for women and which country was worst in terms of healthcare, economic resources, cultural or traditional practices, sexual violence and harassment, non-sexual violence and human trafficking. Here is the list of the top ten. 1. INDIA Tops the list, with levels of violence against women still running high, more than five years after the rape and murder of a student on a bus in Delhi sparked national outrage and government pledges to tackle the issue. India ranked as the most dangerous on three issues - the risks women face from sexual violence and harassment, from cultural and traditional practices, and from human trafficking including forced labour, sex slavery and domestic servitude. 2. AFGHANISTAN Second in the list, with experts saying women face dire problems nearly 17 years after the overthrow of the Taliban. Ranked as the most dangerous country for women in three areas - non-sexual violence, access to healthcare, and access to economic resources. 3. SYRIA Third after seven years of civil war. Ranked as second most dangerous country for women in terms of access to healthcare and non-sexual violence, which includes conflict-related violence as well as domestic abuse. Joint third with the United States on the risks women face of sexual abuse. 4. SOMALIA Fourth after being mired in conflict since 1991. Ranked as third most dangerous country for women in terms of access to healthcare and for putting them at risk of harmful cultural and traditional practices. Named as fifth worst in terms of women having access to economic resources. 5. SAUDI ARABIA Overall fifth, but the conservative kingdom was named the second most dangerous country for women in terms of economic access and discrimination, including in the workplace and in terms of property rights. Fifth in terms of the risks women face from cultural and religious practices. 6. PAKISTAN Sixth most dangerous and fourth worst in terms of economic resources and discrimination as well as the risks women face from cultural, religious and traditional practices, including so-called honour killings. Pakistan ranked fifth on non-sexual violence, including domestic abuse. 7. DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO Listed as seventh with the United Nations warning millions of people face "hellish living conditions" after years of factional bloodshed and lawlessness. Ranked as second most dangerous country for women as regards sexual violence, and between seventh and ninth in four other questions. 8. YEMEN Eighth in the list after ranking poorly on access to healthcare, economic resources, risk from cultural and traditional practices, and non-sexual violence. Yemen is still reeling from the world's most urgent humanitarian crisis with 22 million people in need of vital assistance. 9. NIGERIA Ranked as ninth, with human rights groups accusing the country's military of torture, rape and killing civilians during a nine-year fight against Boko Haram militants. Nigeria was named fourth most dangerous country along with Russia when it came to human trafficking. It listed sixth worst on the risks women face from traditional practices. 10. UNITED STATES The only Western nation in the top 10 and joint third with Syria for the risks women face in terms of sexual violence, including rape, sexual harassment, coercion into sex and a lack of access to justice in rape cases. The survey came after the #MeToo campaign went viral last year, with thousands of women using the social media movement to share stories of sexual harassment or abuse. Advertisement A legal notice released to the media and seen by AFP said Bahl 'denies all allegations'. 'Vikas Bahl issues defamation notice to Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane threatening civil and criminal action,' it added. The notice accused Kashyap and Motwane of 'professional rivalry and jealously' and of trying to jeopardise the release of Bahl's upcoming film 'Super 30'. It called for them to withdraw the claims and issue an apology or face being sued. Earlier this month, Mumbai comedian, Utsav Chakraborty, found himself at the centre of a Twitter storm accusing him of sending lewd messages and requests for topless photos to women and young girls. He later apologised. The HuffPost article on Bahl appeared before a host of women journalists accused M. J Akbar, a well-known former editor and now a junior foreign minister in Narendra Modi's government of sexual harassment. Akbar is yet to comment publicly on the allegations and the government is yet to issue a response. Earlier this month, writer and producer Vinta Nanda accused veteran film actor Alok Nath of raping her 19 years ago. 'Neither I am denying this nor do I would agree with it. It (rape) must have happened, but someone else would have done it,' Nath told an Indian news channel.<doc-sep>
In an effort to show the impact of the #MeToo movement, Google has mapped the search results for the term, which led to the spread of the hashtag on social media and made the movement viral from October 2017. “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open,” American poet and activist Muriel Rukeyser had penned in 1968. Five decades later, the #MeToo movement has given women the world over a platform to share their experiences with sexual harassment and come out in solidarity with survivors. Google has traced this campaign and the online trend around it in the form of an interactive timeline represented by a globe. In an effort to showcase the impact of the #MeToo movement — coined by activist Tarana Burke in 2006 — Google, in April 2018, mapped the search results for the term, which led to the spread of the hashtag on social media and made the movement viral from October 2017. Google created Me Too Rising, the 3D visualisation of search trends surrounding the movement, in recognition of the Sexual Assault Awareness Month. In light of #MeTooIndia gaining ground, India can be seen lit up on the map, brighter than any other country on the globe, albeit for the wrong reasons. The #MeToo movement picked up in India following actor Tanushree Dutta's allegations against co-star Nana Patekar. Dutta speaking up about her experience with Patekar on the sets of Horn OK Pleasss led to a social awakening in India and subsequent exposure of a number of powerful names in the Indian media and entertainment industries as sexual predators and abusers. On navigating the spinning globe in Google's map, data points light up to represent the locations where most people are searching for 'Me Too' at any given time. Google then throws up the link to the most read stories on #MeToo providing context for the reason of the term trending on that particular day, in that particular city. For instance, Rewari city in the Indian state of Haryana is on the top trends map for August 2018, as it was then in the news for the gangrape of a student and the outrage that followed. Similarly, in October 2017, when The New York Times and The New Yorker published their Pulitzer Prize-winning investigations into Harvey Weinstein's misconduct and sexual harassment of several Hollywood actresses over a decade, North America can be seen glowing on the globe. The Weinstein revelations were also a defining moment for the #MeToo movement, and as can be seen on the virtual globe, the discussions and trends had risen significantly then across the world. However, the scope of the virtual visualisation is not limited to this specific movement; it has included points of discussions on other women-centric issues, as well. Moreover, there is also a separate link for sexual assault resources that women can access and use to reach out for help, in case they want to report any instance of harassment or abuse, and to deal with the mental trauma surrounding it. Google had announced that "to make it easier for survivors to find support, Google.org will provide $5,00,000 in grants to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network and Girls for Gender Equity", and the same can be accessed online by women in the US and abroad for reporting sexual misconduct". "The #MeToo movement has inspired growing, worldwide awareness of sexual violence and sexual assault. This is not only a significant moment in history; it’s a significant moment in internet history: #MeToo marks a time when sexual assault survivors everywhere turned the internet into a platform for their voices and perspectives to be heard and respected," Google's public policy and government relations senior counsel, Malika Saada Saar, while launching the site in April, had said on the product blog. Saar had concluded her post, saying, "Me Too Rising shows what it looks like when we all become a little more aware of sexual assault and violence. When enough survivors speak up, the world not only listens; it searches for answers." Social media users have reacted positively to the feature, with many lauding the tech giant for highlighting such a crucial gender movement, which also aims to change the power dynamics between males and females by exposing the abuse of power and position by influential men for sexually harassing the women around them, thus giving significance to each such voice that matters.