On Monday the Indian government announced that it is banning 47 new Chinese apps. This news has come after India banned 59 apps in June over concerns about privacy policy last month. According to the Indian government, the new 47 apps that have got hit by a ban are just copies of the old banned apps.
An insider source from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology told the Indian express the true reason behind the ban. The unidentified source said that the ban came as these apps did not meet the operational ethics guidelines set by the Indian government.
The source said, “This is an ongoing process. If apps qualify under the same grounds of operational ethics, then they will also come under the scanner."
The move also has political motives behind it as Indian army forces clashed with the PLA (People's Liberation Front) in June at the Line of control near Ladakh. In June an official statement read, "The Ministry of Information Technology has received many complaints from various sources, including several reports about the misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India."
The statement added saying, "The compilation of these data, its 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."
