Heena Sharma Blog

The 59 Chinese apps banned by the government have been taken down from Google Play Store and Apple App Store in India, blocking their access to mobile phone users in the country. The government had on Monday banned 59 Chinese applications saying they were prejudicial to sovereignty, integrity, and security of the country. A day later popular short video app TikTok was taken down from Google Play Store and Apple App Store. The other 58 Chinese apps have now been removed. Google said that it has temporarily blocked access to the banned apps on its India Play Store. "While we continue to review the interim orders from the Government of India, we have notified the affected developers and have temporarily blocked access to the apps that remained available on the Play Store in India," a Google spokesperson said. Read More

India has banned 59 apps of China origin, including some popular names such as TikTok, CamScanner, Shareit, Mobile Legends, UC Browser, Mi Community, Mi Video Call and Weibo. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Monday invoked its power under section 69A of the Information Technology Act to put a ban on these apps and termed their usage ‘prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order’. Currently, some of the apps listed under the ban are available on Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store for download. Moreover, these apps are still functional and do not seem to have been taken down from any other app distribution platforms. It is about time and the apps would be taken down from distribution platforms to curtail new downloads. However, there are ways to side load the applications on smartphones, at least on Google Android platform. Read More