The Indian Institute of Technology-Tirupati (IIT-T) has developed an interactive web portal that can gauge the prevailing mood of any region in the country based on real-time analysis of Twitter data.
The portal — https://moodofindia.herokuapp.com — has been built by the Research and Intelligent Software and Human Analytics (RISHA) Lab of IIT-T. Users can log on to the portal and select a location and particular date and see the prevailing mood in that region, based on tweets made using a set of hashtags.
Based on the tweets, results are classified into seven categories — six basic emotions and one ‘neutral’ category.
“Across India, 4,64,933 tweets were posted during March 14 to May 9 under the hashtags #Indiafightscorona, #Covid19, #coronavirus and #lockdown, of which 29% sounded positive, 20% were sad, 11% expressed surprise, 5% anger, 2% fear and 1% disgust, while 35% remained neutral,” said C. Sridhar, an assistant professor of Computer Science and Engineering, who developed the portal along with V. Dheeraj and Venigalla Akhila Sri Manasa.
A list of ‘trigger events’ such as the announcement of the Janata Curfew in March, extension of the lockdown, Prime Minister’s call for lighting lamps, and lifting of the ban on the export on hydroxychloroquine, among others, has been specified, which allows users to view the country’s reaction to specific events during the COVID-19 situation.
“By following api.covid19india.org, updated information is regularly provided on the number of confirmed, recovered and deceased cases in every State, which acts as a ready reckoner for policy-makers as well as field staff,” said Dr. Sridhar. The portal will continue to gauge the public mood as long as the fight against COVID-19 is on, he added.