Govt Imposes 5th Major Ban on Chinese Apps In India: What Happened So Far

The Union government has banned a new set of China-origin apps in India as they pose threat to the country’s “national security." It is the fifth major ban on a group of apps by the government amid border tensions with China. The full list of 54 banned apps includes a popular game called Garena Free Fire. Other apps include Sweet Selfie HD, Beauty Camera – Selfie Camera, Equalizer & Bass Booster, CamCard for SalesForce Ent, Isoland 2: Ashes of Time Lite, Viva Video Editor, Tencent Xriver, Onmyoji Chess, Onmyoji Arena, AppLock, and Dual Space Lite.

Since 2020, there have been four major instances where the government introduced a blanket ban on 270 China-origin apps. As mentioned, the latest ban on 54 Chinese apps is the fifth major instance.

In June 2020, the government blocked 59 apps including the most popular app TikTok. It also included a list of highly popular utility-focused apps such as TikTok, Shareit, UC Browser, and WeChat. Readers can check out the full list here.

Following that, the government executed another ban of 47 apps in July 2020 that included clone apps such as TikTok Lite, Helo Lite, ShareIt Lite, Bigo Lite and VFY. Perhaps the next ban on Chinese apps (September 2020) was the most noticeable one that included applications such as PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite – that also led to the rise of Garena Free Fire in India. The government, specifically the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had come down on 118 Chinese apps. The last major ban took place in November 2020 when we saw the removal of 43 apps from Google Play and the Apple App Store. These mainly included shady dating apps like Chinese Social – Free Online Dating Video App and Chat, Date in Asia, WeDate-Dating App, Free dating app-Singol, start your date and more.

The government had previously banned Chinese apps under provisions of Section 69A of the IT Act that deals with the powers to block information by public access through any computer resources. Official details on the new 59 blocked apps from China are awaited.

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