You may have noticed a new section like this popping up to the right of your LinkedIn desktop feed:

As you can see in the screenshot (provided by Anna Slingo), the new option showcases trending content as it happens, highlighting the key conversation points on LinkedIn at any given moment (curated by LinkedIn's editorial team). The tool could help focus your LinkedIn updates, and boost engagement - LinkedIn has been slowly rolling it out to more users, both on desktop and mobile (on mobile, it's available via the search bar). And interestingly, the platform has recently made a big push to provide the option to more users in India.

According to Hindustan Times, LinkedIn has said that the option is currently only available to around 25% of users, but as of recently, it was made available to some 90% of desktop users in India.

Why the focus on India, specifically? Because of this:

As you can see here, India is LinkedIn's second largest member base, trailing the US, and followed by China and Brazil - which, at 36 million members, is significantly higher than the fourth-placed Canada (15m). Given this, it makes sense for LinkedIn to make India more of a focus, and tools like voice clips within LinkedIn messaging, which it launched last year, are clearly focused on boosting Indian usage and engagement. 

India is a key battleground for the tech giants. With China blocking out most social apps, India, the world's second most populous nation (at 1.3 billion people), can provide significant opportunities for growth. The problem, however, is that large parts of India remain unconnected - according to research, only around 25% of Indian adults are connected to the web. Conversly, India is also the second-biggest smartphone market in the world (again following China), so the potential reach is huge, and more Indian users are coming online each year. It may take some time, but you can see why the focus of many of the larger players is on rising opportunities within the Indian market. 

In terms of trending content, LinkedIn is planning to bring the feature to more users over time, providing another way to keep a finger on the pulse of what's happening, and tap into LinkedIn's rising on-platform engagement. How useful you find the listing will be relative to your content focus and approach, but there could be significant value to staying in touch with trending topics, and posting your professional perspective on relevant shifts.