One Year On, Assessing the Ban on Chinese Apps

In June last year, the Indian government’s decision to block 59 Chinese apps was greeted with much fanfare in the media.The official rationale behind this, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had explained then, was that these products were “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order.”Following this, there were three more rounds of such bans targeting Chinese apps, taking the total number of apps banned to 267. Earlier this year, reports indicated that the government had asked companies like ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba to respond to a list of queries. Not satisfied with their response, it has persisted with the ban.Read the full article in the Quint.