The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has decided to ban several mobile applications, mostly of Chinese origin, officials familiar with the matter said. The applications — Helo Lite, ShareIt Lite, Bigo Lite and VFY Lite — have been removed from the Google playstore and Apple app store, the officials said. The government had, in a similar move last month, banned 59 applications, including popular video app TikTok, in the backdrop of a India-China standoff in Galwan Valley, in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed.
Banning the apps, the government had said that they were ‘prejudicial to sovereignty, integrity and security of the country’. “The apps were found to be operating despite the ban via these versions,” a MEITY official said. “They have been taken down from application stores.”
