After ban on 59 Chinese apps, India’s govt blocks 47 more

A vendor poses in front of his stall with a T-shirt bearing the logo of the video-sharing application TikTok in New Delhi on Tuesday. [Photo/Agencies]. Sketched by the Pan Pacific Agency.

NEW DELHI, JUl 27, 2020, ToI. The government has banned 47 more Chinese apps which are apparently clones of the 59 applications which were banned earlier, Times Now reported on Monday, The Times of India reported.

Last month, the Centre had banned as many as 59 Chinese apps, including popular ones like TikTok, ShareIt and UC Browser amid border tensions with China.

The ministry of electronics and information technology said the apps have been banned because they are prejudicial to the sovereignty, integrity and defence of India.

Chinese Internet companies have about 300 million unique users in India, indicating that nearly two-thirds of smartphone users in the country have downloaded a Chinese app, according to industry estimates.

With uncertainty around Chinese companies — given recent government moves over scanning investments or import consignments from across the border — buyers may opt for “safer bets”, mobile company executives said.

Meanwhile, Chinese short video platform TikTok has offered to set up an engineering centre to design and develop products in India while reiterating its plan to establish a local data centre in a letter to the Indian government, top officials said.

Kevin Mayer, TikTok’s US-based CEO, who wrote to electronics and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad soon after the app — along with 58 other Chinese apps — was banned by the Centre, on Monday over concerns of national security, has also sought a personal meeting to explain the data-sharing practices of the ByteDance-owned platform.

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