Ravi Shankar Prasad: 200 new Indian apps created after ban on Chinese apps

Maintaining that India’s app economy is “growing phenomenally”, Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday said that the country aims to surpass China and become the number one mobile phone manufacturing hub in the world.

He also said that data privacy is a fundamental right, and one needs to be “pragmatic” and do a “robust balancing” act.

Addressing the Late Thakur Prasad Centenary Memorial Lecture, a webinar organised by the NGO Atmabodh, Prasad said the government recently banned 59 apps for reasons of national security and data privacy. The Prime Minister, he said, asked for new Indian apps, “and 200 new applications have come”.