India has blocked two more notable Chinese apps, Baidu and Weibo. While the former is a browsing app, the latter is the Chinese counterpart of Twitter. Amidst the unending nature of India-China border disputes, the ban wielded by the central government against Chinese apps seems not coming to an end. Earlier, the central government had banned 59 Chinese apps, including hugely popular apps like TikTok, UC Browser, Hello and ShareIt.
Weibo boasts over 500 million customers worldwide, and Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi had an account, which stayed there for a brief period, starting 2015. However, as the India – China issues escalated, he deleted his Weibo account recently. Modi’s Weibo account had more than two lakh followers and more than 100 posts.
In an attempt to penetrate the Indian market, Baidu CEO Robin Lee visited IIT Madras, earlier this January. While Weibo and Baidu are two of China’s strategic products, the subsequent ban on both by the Indian government, has send an unwelcome note to the Chinese government. With the government orders, both of these are to be removed from the Play Store and App Store. While commenting on the same, the officials maintained that both these apps were on the list of 47 apps banned by the Center on the 27th July. Top sources also suggested that the government is in the process of banning more apps.