OdishaPlus Bureau
The Union government on Monday announced a ban on 47 Chinese apps. The move comes weeks after Indian government banned 59 Chinese apps citing internal security concerns.
Even though there is yet to be an official statement on the ban, it is believed that Tencent-backed PubG, Alibaba-owned Ali Express, phone maker Xiaomi, music streaming app Reso, owned by ByteDance among others are a part of the list of apps that could be banned by the government.
After the govt banned 59 apps last June, many of their clones rose to the top of the Google Play rankings. While Indian apps have also gained from the ban, only one ranks amongst the top 3 TikTok alternatives — InMobi-owned Roposo. Indian Roposo has the most lifetime downloads with 71 million installs, followed by Zili at 51 million and Dubsmash at 30.4 million.
The development came against the rising tensions between India and China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), where 20 Indian troops were killed in a violent face-off with Chinese troops in the Galwan area of Ladakh earlier this month. It came ahead of military and diplomatic talks between India and China scheduled for later this week.