Almost all the social media use and coordination was on mobile devices. When the Delhi Police turned its high-power water cannons on to young protesters near India Gate late December, instantly destroying their Smartphones, it was, to its delighted discovery, killing two birds with a stone.

And so, the most significant tech trend India will remember 2012 for is the mobile and social media phenomenon:

Mobile internet access (by number of users) overtook PC-based access. It was led by explosive growth in social media use, including Facebook for Mobile on low-end phones. Of the 102 million handsets sold in the first half of 2012, only 6 million were Smartphones, according to research agency CMR India. The iPhone made some waves, but what sold were Samsung's Galaxy handsets, giving the Korean player 42 percent of the market, followed by Nokia and Research in Motion of Blackberry fame.

India touched 904 million mobile subscriptions on October 31, says the telecom regulator, of which 704 million were active subscriptions. How many users is that? About 600 million people, with a conservative estimate of just 15 percent dual-SIM use (two-thirds of the mobile handsets sold in India are dual-SIM phones). This means one in two Indians carry a mobile phone.

Read also: India's Top 12 Tech Stories Of 2012