A year since the TikTok ban, India set to stay the course on Chinese apps

On June 29, 2020, just over a year ago, Union minister for electronics and information technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, launched what he termed “India’s digital strike” against China, as the government banned 59 mobile applications, mostly of Chinese origin, in the wake of the Galwan border clash.

The decision sent ripples through the community of online users as TikTok, a fast-growing short-video streaming application, was on the list. TikTok, according to Bloomberg data, had nearly 200 million users in India last year.

India would go on to ban over 200 mobile applications, including the hugely popular videogame PUBG, over concerns of national security and data privacy.