Days after banning several apps such as TikTok, Shareit, and CamScanner, the Modi government on Saturday launched an innovation challenge for 'Bharat Apps' in several of the categories where the Chinese apps were popular.

The Ministry for Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), in partnership with Atal Innovation Mission – Niti Aayog has launched the Digital India AatmaNirbhar Bharat Innovate Challenge.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself promoted the challenge in a tweet, in which he said - "Today there is immense enthusiasm among the tech & start-up community to create world class Made in India Apps. To facilitate their ideas and products @GoI_MeitY and @AIMtoInnovate are launching the Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge. "

As per the announcement, the aim of the challenge is to identify the "best Indian apps that are already being used by citizens and have the potential to scale and become world class apps in their respective categories."

The challenge will focus on eight broad categories- office productivity and Work from Home, social networking, e-learning, entertainment, health and wellness, agritech and fintech, news, and games.

The government has also put out an indicative list of sub-categories and problem statements.

Some of these include video calling, facial and body mapping technology, real-time speech-to-speech translation, business-to-business lead generation, image scanners, cross-platform file transfer, as well as an online gaming platform.

Several of these categories coincide with the ones in which several Chinese apps had gained massive users in India, such as TikTok in social networking, CamScanner for image scanning and Shareit for file transfers.

The government had earlier this week announced an interim ban on 59 apps, all of which have a Chinese origin, citing that they were engaged in activities “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India.

Several of these apps have already been taken down from Google Play Store and Apple's App Store, including shopping apps ClubFactory and Shein, and web browser UC Browser.

First Published:Jul 4, 2020 7:59 PM IST