The ban on Chinese apps is a great opportunity to build and promote “Made in India” apps, in line with the government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative, said Union Minister for Electronics and IT, and Law & Justice, Ravi Shankar Prasad, on Wednesday.
The dependence on “foreign apps with their own agenda for a variety of reasons” must stop, he said, adding that it was remarkable how the indigenous app economy has risen in the last few days following the ban.
“I think it’s a great opportunity; Can we come up with good apps made by Indians (to create) Atmanirbhar Bharat?… I think there is a tremendous intellectual capability and technological imaginative faculty in India to do so,” Prasad said at an event to commemorate five years of the government’s Digital India initiative.
India on Monday banned 59 Chinese apps, including short videos platform TikTok, Helo and WeChat, ShareIT, UC Browser and shopping app Club Factory, to counter the privacy and security threats posed by these applications. These apps have millions of users in India.
“Emergency power has been exercised and the legal process has been followed,” Prasad said, elaborating on the reasons for the ban. The government said that these apps were engaged in activities prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India, defence, security of state and public order.
Meanwhile, Indian social apps such as ShareChat, Roposo and Chingari, among others, have been reporting a huge increase in the number of new users and downloads.
ShareChat, which operates in 15 regional languages, said the platform had recorded 500,000 downloads hourly, and over 15 million since the ban was announced.
Podcast app Khabri’s downloads surged by 80% on Wednesday to 18,000-24,000 downloads in a day, said Sandeep Singh, its co-founder and president.
Roposo, a short video app owned by InMobi, also reported a spurt in users. While nearly 7,00,000 app installations used to happen daily before Monday, it increased to 6,00,000 installations per hour over the last two days, the company said. Chingari has also reportedly been getting 90,000 downloads per hour.
Prasad said India would emerge as a big centre of Make in India apps. He requested Infosys cofounder Nandan Nilekani and Nasscom president Debjani Ghosh, who were present on the panel, to encourage startups and youngsters to develop such apps.
“There is a big scope for public-private partnership, which will lead to finalisation of our way,” Prasad said. He also said Cabinet approval will be sought soon for a policy to provide broadband through landlines.
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