New Delhi (NVI): With India deciding to ban 59 Chinese mobile apps, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s account on the Twitter-like ‘Weibo’ app also went blank today, as his photos, posts and comments were found removed.
The Prime Minister had joined the social media app a few years ago. The microblogging website, like Twitter, follows a complex procedure to remove VIP accounts. There was a delay in granting access to remove the PM’s account as well, for reasons best known to Weibo.
The PM had 115 posts on the app before deletion and as the concerned officials delayed the process to grant permission to quit the platform, it was decided to manually delete all posts. However, after much effort, 113 posts were removed and two posts left were where the Prime Minister has photos with the Chinese President.
Since it is difficult to remove posts with the photo of their President (Xi-Jinping), that is why two posts still remained. Apart from that, all of the PM’s posts have been removed.
This comes two days after the Ministry of Information Technology in a statement said that a decision regarding the banning of 59 Chinese mobile apps has been taken while citing the “emergent nature of threats” from mobile applications. It said that the apps were banned based on the information that they were engaged in activities “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity, defence, security and public order” in India.
Union Minister of Communications, Electronics and Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad said Monday that the move was taken to ensure the country’s integrity and protect data and privacy of Indians.
“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!” Prasad said in a tweet after his Ministry took the decision to ban several apps including TikTok, Shareit, WeChat, etc.
India and China are currently locked in a bitter standoff at multiple locations in Eastern Ladakh, especially after the June 15 violent clash between the Indian and Chinese troops in Galwan Valley in which 20 Indian soldiers lost their lives.
-ARK
