Hyderabad: The Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology on September 2 banned 118 Chinese mobile apps, including the popular game PUBG. The apps have been banned as "they are engaged in activities prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order". "This move will safeguard the interests of crores of Indian mobile and internet users. This decision is a targeted move to ensure safety, security, and sovereignty of Indian cyberspace," said a statement from the MeitY.
Sikinder Reddy Thandra, Co-Founder of Bharat Self Meter Reading App said, “Good opportunity for Tech Entrepreneurs of India especially who are in the space of app development. In their respective areas, they can take advantage of the Ban of the Apps, and a few more potential apps can be added into their product range.”
The MeiTY statement said it has received many complaints from various sources, including reports about the misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms, for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users data in an unauthorized manner to servers located outside India.
“Users have been introduced to online gaming applications like PUBG, which has created a demand in the Indian population. Taking access of using these applications will encourage the youth or the engineering students of India to fill the gap by innovation and creating games of similar nature, not Chinese but Indians,” said Ayush Verma, Director, CMAI Association of India.
"The compilation of these data, it’s mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defence of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India, is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures," the MeiTY statement said.
The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre under the Ministry of Home Affairs has also sent an exhaustive recommendation for blocking these malicious apps, said the statement. "Likewise, there have been similar bipartisan concerns, flagged by various public representatives, both outside and inside the Parliament of India. There has been a strong chorus in the public space to take strict action against Apps that harm India’s sovereignty as well as the privacy of our citizens," it added.
Prof. N K Goyal, of TEMA said, “TEMA welcomes and compliments honourable prime minister on banning of PUBG and 117 Chinese apps. We are thrilled to see this step not only because of border disturbances but also because these apps were destroying social culture and Indian wisdom.”
"Based on these and upon receiving of recent credible inputs that information posted, permissions sought, functionality embedded as well as data harvesting practices of above-stated Apps raise serious concerns that these apps collect and surreptitiously share data and compromise personal data and information of users that can have a severe threat to the security of the state," MeiTY said.
Animesh Mishra, PUBG player said, “Zindagi Barbaad Ho Gaya (Life is wasted now) what I will do for time pass and what will happen to the player like Naman Mathur aka Mortal of PUBG. How we will spend our time, this is not the apt government should inform at least for a month or there must be an alternative for this game.”
“Since I am not a PUBG player, but yes this game was very popular in India. So in the future, any game which is launched via play store or any platform must be checked before for all security aspects. As it will impact the people who were playing these games both mentally and emotionally, says Pritam Kashyap friend of Mishra.
He further said PUBG is an extremely popular game with over 600 million downloads and 50 million active players globally, excluding the China mainland. So people who have achieved The Conqueror tier bracket from Bronze tier will defiantly feel sad.”
Also Read: Banned Chinese Apps: Why and What Next?, explained by Col. Inderjeet Singh, DG, CSAI
