Several Chinese mobile applications, which were banned by India amid tensions over the Ladakh stand-off, continue to operate in the country albeit in new avatars, according to a report by The Economic Times.
Earlier this week, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) recommended banning the use of 54 Chinese apps, including the Sweet Selfie HD, Beauty Camera, Music Player, Music Plus, Volume Booster, Video Players Media all formats, Viva Video Editor, Nice Video Baidu, AppLock and Astracraft. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is expected to issue a formal notification soon banning the use of the apps in India.
According to the report, many of these 54 apps were thought to be rebranded avatars of nearly 224 apps, including popular ones like TikTok, Shareit, WeChat, UC Browser, that were taken down earlier in 2020.
"(Many) of these apps have relaunched themselves with similar sounding names or have re-branded with same functionality and have managed to circumvent scrutiny, so far," a source told the publication.
Eevn though these apps are not available for download on the popular Google PlayStore, users can access it through APK files that provides an alternative platform to download apps on smartphones. Some of these apps have also cloned their identities (for example Likee which is now available on Play Store as Tiki) and are accessible to users.
"The typical modus operandi of these Chinese Apps is to show that they operate from different countries like US, India or Singapore," Venus Dhuria, cofounder of mobile internet technology company AppyHigh told the publication.
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