By IT Correspondent
New Delhi/Mumbai:
As a sequel to Indian Government’s ban on 59 Chinese apps, including “Tik Tok”, a Chinese video-sharing social networking service, “Bytedance” the parent company of the “TikTok” and “Helo apps”, could lose up to Rs.45,000 crore.
Headquartered at Beijing, “Bytedance”, has nearly 126 offices world over including India. The Bytedance (India) Technology Private Limited, an unlisted private company, incorporated on 17 October, 2017 and is located at Bandra Kurla CompleX in North West Mumbai (Maharashtra).
“ByteDance”, founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming, used to create short dance, lip-sync, comedy and talent videos. It first launched “Douyin” for the China market in September 2016. According to a report published by China’s state-run media “The Global Times”, “ByteDance”, could lose up to $6 billion, after the Indian government’s decision to ban the apps, citing concerns about privacy and national security of the country.
The report further said that according to data from “Sensor Tower”, a mobile app analysis company, “TikTok” was downloaded 112 million times in May and people who downloaded the app in India constituted a very high number and even double of that downloaded in USA.
“Global Times” said that “What the Indian government and people have done has dealt a severe blow to the confidence of Chinese investors and traders and the Indian economy could remain subdued for a protracted time under the devastating shocks from the coronavirus outbreak”.
The violent face-offs on the LAC particularly in Ladakh’s Galwan valley on 15 June-16 June,2020 after an attempt by the Chinese troops to unilaterally change the status quo during the de-escalation has triggered an anti-China sentiment in India. Twenty soldiers were killed in the face-off and Indian intercepts revealed that the Chinese side suffered 43 casualties including dead and seriously injured.
Union Law, Electronics and Information Technology Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad said that government has banned apps for safety, security, defence, sovereignty and integrity of India. “For safety, security, defence, sovereignty & integrity of India and to protect data & privacy of people of India the Government has banned 59 mobile apps. Jai Hind!,” he said in a tweet.
On 29 June, Union government, banned 59 apps with China links including TikTok, SHAREit, UC Browser, Baidu map, Helo, Mi Community, Club Factory, WeChat and UC News in view of the information that they were engaged in activities, prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order. Subsequently Prime Minister Narendra Modi also shut China’s Weibo app account.
