Amid growing tensions with China over the situation at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the Narendra Modi government has now banned 118 more Chinese mobile applications, which includes the highly popular gaming App PubG.
The decision to this effect has been taken by the Information and Technology Ministry, sources said on Wednesday (September 2, 2020).
“The apps have been banned as they are engaged in activities prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order,” a statement from the Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology said.
“This move will safeguard the interests of crores of Indian mobile and internet users. This decision is a targeted move to ensure safety, security and sovereignty of Indian cyberspace,” the statement added.
In response to the Galwan Valley clashes in June during which at least 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese troops were killed, the Narendra Modi government had banned at least 59 mobile applications, mostly Chinese, citing threat to the national security.
The Centre has once again imposed a ban on 118 more Chinese mobile applications – a move which is being seen as Narendra Modi government’s big surgical strike on the Chinese companies operating in India.
The government had reportedly prepared a list of 250 Apps, many of which are alleged to be sharing data with the Chinese agencies, which the Centre sees as a big threat to national security.
Sources close to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY) said that these are clones/variants of the already banned 59 apps like Tiktok Lite, Helo Lite, SHAREit Lite, BIGO LIVE Lite and VFY Lite.
Popular mobile apps such as PUBG mobile, Resso and some other top gaming Chinese apps have been under the government’s scrutiny for a long time.
Though not confirmed yet, sources said that Apps like Zili by Xiaomi, AliExpress by e-commerce giant Alibaba, and Resso and ULike from TikTok-owner ByteDance are also on the list of Apps that may have been banned in India.
The government has sent a set of questions to the 59 Chinese apps to disclose their operations and how they had been collecting the data of Indian users.
Notably, Google and Apple have removed these 59 apps from their respective app stores and telecom operators have halted data transfers for these apps.