NEW DELHI, Sept 2: Amidst fresh tension over China’s provocation in Ladakh. India on Wednesday banned 118 more Chinese apps including the mobile game PUBG in consistent with the policy of the Ministry of Electronics and Knowledge Technology (MeitY). “The ban is in the interest of India’s sovereignty and integrity, defence and security”, a government statement said.
The statement issued by MeitY said the PUBG mobile game and other apps had been banned under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act because “they are engaged in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order”.
The ban includes Players Unknown Battle Ground – PUBG, a popular online game in India. The game has been downloaded more than 100 million times and has 33 million active users in India of which around 13 million users play it daily.
“This decision is a targeted move to make sure safety, security and sovereignty of Indian cyberspace and would safeguard the interests of crores of Indian mobile and internet users.”
“The compilation of those 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 needs emergency measures,” said the statement.
The statement further added the ministry had received many complaints about the misuse of some mobile apps on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting user data to servers outside India.
The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, Ministry of Home Affairs has also sent an exhaustive recommendation for blocking these malicious apps. Likewise, there are similar bipartisan concerns, flagged by various public representatives, both outside and inside Parliament of India.
Following is the list of Apps banned (in alphabetical order):
AFK Arena
Alipay
AlipayHK
Amour .
AppLock
AppLock Lite
APUS Flashlight
APUS Launcher Pro
APUS Launcher
APUS Message Center
APUS Security
APUS Turbo Cleaner 2020
Arena of Valor
Art of Conquest: Dark Horizon
Baidu
Baidu Express Edition
Beauty Camera Plus
Bike Racing
Buy Cars
CamCard
CamCard Business
CamCard for Salesforce
CamOCR
Carrom Friends
Chess Rush
Chief Almighty
Cleaner
Creative Destruction
Crusaders of Light
Cut Cut
Cyber Hunter
Cyber Hunter Lite
Dank Tanks
Dawn of Isles
Dual Space
FaceU
Fighting Landlords
Gallery HD
Gallery Vault
Game of Sultans
GO SMS Pro
Government WeChat
HD Camera
HD Camera Pro & Selfie Camera
HD Camera Selfie Beauty Camera
Hi Meitu
Hide App
HUYA LIVE
InNote
iPick
Kitty Live
Knives Out
Lamour Love All Over The World
Learn Chinese AI
Legend
LifeAfter
Little Q Album
LivU Meet
Ludo All Star
Ludo World
Mafia City Yotta Games
Malay Social Dating App
MARVEL Super War
Message Lock (SMS Lock)
MICO Chat
Mobile Legends
Mobile Taobao
Murderous Pursuits
Music – Mp3 Player
Music player – Audio Player
Music Player – Audio Player & 10 Bands Equalizer
Music Player – Bass Booster – Free Download
Music Player – MP3 Player & 10 Bands Equalizer
MV Master – Best Video Maker & Photo Video Editor
MV Master – Make Your Status Video & Community
Netease News
Onmyo
Parallel Space Lite
Penguin E-sports Live assistant
Penguin FM
Photo Gallery & Album
Photo Gallery HD & Editor
Pitu
PUBG MOBILE LITE
PUBG MOBILE Nordic Map
Rangers of Oblivion
Ride Out Heroes
Rise of Kingdoms
Road of Kings
Rules of Survival
ShareSave by Xiaomi
Sina News
Small Q brush
Smart AppLock
Soul Hunters
Super Clean
Super Mecha Champions
Tantan
Tencent Watchlist
Tencent Weiyun
U-Dictionary
Ulike
Video Player – All Format HD Video Player
Video Player All Format for Android
VooV Meeting
VPN for TikTok
VPN for TikTok
Warpath
Web Browser
Web Browser
Web Browser & Fast Explorer
WeChat reading
WeChat Work
Yimeng Jianghu
Youku
Z Camera
ZAKZAK LIVE
(Venkatesh Iyer)
