(image) People attend the PUBG Global Invitational 2018, the first official e-sports tournament for the computer game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds in Berlin, on July 26, 2018. (Representative image/REUTERS) The invitation had been given by a marketing Co for China developers in Berlin Germany.
The Government of India banned 118 Chinese mobile apps, including the popular game PUBG. This ban is in addition to 59 apps (including Tik Tok and WeChat, the China based apps.)
PUBG is a simulated war games and also sports betting app with unknown players (!). What puzzles me is why do people fall for such frivolous e-games disclosing their full identity, credit card and bank accounts. Young people all around the world seem to be falling into all sorts of traps lately to make money!
PUBG and other apps developed in China have been banned by the Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology as “they are engaged in activities prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order”.
The Indian Ministry statement said it has received many complaints from various sources, including reports about misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms, for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorised manner to servers located outside India.
“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,” it said.
The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre under the Ministry of Home Affairs has also sent an exhaustive recommendation for blocking these malicious apps, said the statement.
“Likewise, there have been similar bipartisan concerns, flagged by various public representatives, both outside and inside the Parliament of India. There has been a strong chorus in the public space to take strict action against Apps that harm India’s sovereignty as well as the privacy of our citizens,” it added.
“On the basis of these and upon receiving of recent credible inputs that information posted, permissions sought, functionality embedded as well as data harvesting practices of above stated Apps raise serious concerns that these apps collect and share data in surreptitious manner and compromise personal data and information of users that can have a severe threat to security of the state,” it said.

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Pressure tactics are necessary, but I don’t know if there are alternative Apps that can rise to fill the gap? Surprisingly, though India is said to be a leader in IT solutions, we don’t find many attractive Indian Apps in the market. I don’t know why? And now when this issue is gaining concern the world over, the whole world is finding that there’s none that immediately take over. If these are such big money churners as to even cause their national leaders to squirm, how is that Indian biggies never thought of cashing in on this business.