With 59 Chinese apps banned last week by MHA, users have been scrambling to search for best substitutes for popular apps like ShareIt, ClubFactory, CamScanner and Tik Tok. PM Narendra Modi has launched ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge‘ to kickstart the startup and tech community for creating Made-In-India Apps and Solutions.
Crux of the Matter
Search For Desi, Local Alternatives An endeavour of Ministry of Electronics and IT and Atal Innovation Mission, the Aatmanirbhar challenge would run in two tracks – promotion of existing apps and development of new apps.
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. https://t.co/h0xqjEwPko — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 4, 2020
The announcement stated how Track-01 will work for a month in mission mode for identifying good quality Apps for the leader-board. Track-02 on the other hand will help create new champions in India by providing support in new idea creation, incubation, prototyping, and roll out along with market access.
TikTok Burns As Chingari Lights Up Bangalore based startup, Chingari enjoyed instant popularity in India as 2.5 million downloads happened for the video-sharing app in just 2 days. In fact, their servers crashed due to this massive spike in downloads and usage, with 500K+ users becoming active in a span of half hour.
It looks like we have some popularity in some other countries as well! pic.twitter.com/vfq3HyjOiC — Sumit Ghosh (@sumitgh85) June 29, 2020
Roposo is another content sharing and video creation app that has 65 million users and is available in more than 10 Indian languages.
Kaagaz Overwrites CamScanner An overnight success, the Kaagaz app saw 100K downloads in 24 hours after the ban of famous document scanning app, Camscanner.
It is being considered more convenient than CamScanner as it requires no sign-in and contains no advertisements despite being free. Moreover, it generates watermark-free scans.
Shopaholics Redirected From Club Factory To Myntra With the ban of Fashion e-commerce platforms, ClubFactory and Shein, sufficiently famous shopping platforms – Myntra and Flipkart have observed a fresh surge of Indian customers.
Delhi HC issued notice to Central Govt & @snapdeal @amazon @Flipkart etc to display product's country name & 'Made in India' items separately. Packaged Commodities Rules, 2011, makes it compulsory to conspicuously display country name Hearing on Jul 22.https://t.co/RJkwLZYXre — Raghunath।रघुनाथ।రఘునాథ్।રઘુનાથ।ரகுநாத்। (@asraghunath) July 1, 2020
Flipkart, acquired by Walmart guides users through 80 crore utilitarian products ranging from gadgets to furniture. While Myntra, aquired by Flipkart itself, hawks an apparel and beauty collection of 2500+ brands and 5 lakh products. Both were ironically formed in 2007.
Move Aside UC, Jio Browser’s Here Developed by Reliance Jio, this Indian Browser is a lightweight alternative to UC Browser that came pre-installed in all Chinese phones. It contains user-friendly features like dark theme, incognito mode, offline pages, QR code scanner, regional language support and desktop mode.
Another one called Epic browser has an inbuilt virus protection, promising fast and secure web-surfing experience.
Goodbye Zoom, Say Namaste Video conferencing and meeting platform, Zoom was already facing privacy breach issues worldwide, before being banned in India. For a local substitute, Mumbai-based Say Namaste App is secure for multi-party voice and video solution as users’ data is protected by A256 bit encryption.
Although initially a clone of the UI and logo of Zoom, Reliance’s JioMeet offers interoperability and thus can be used in old devices as well. Plus it allows 100 members to be on a group video call for 24 hours with no restrictions, while Zoom allowed only 40 minutes before charging the call for the same ratio.
The JioMeet app with the same UI as Zoom has got everyone talking. It’s an announcement that it offers everything Zoom does & that they’re here to replace it. Jio has chosen to not reinvent something that everyone’s clearly adopted. Imitation in bad taste or marketing genius? pic.twitter.com/eNAl2uiXX5 — Mad Over Marketing (@MadOMarketing) July 3, 2020
India’s Official Social Media Super App – Elyments India’s Vice President Venkaiah Naidu launched Elyments yesterday, planned to compete with the likes of Facebook and WhatsApp in the nation.
India’s Vice President inaugurating Elyments
It claims to give importance to privacy and all the servers are hosted in the country itself. Available in 8 different languages, the app built by volunteers of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living, has witnessed 100K+ downloads already. Squeaksmedia is another Made-In-India app that would be released on Independence Day.
Other Made-In-India Alternatives
Short Video Apps – Bolo Indya and Mitron
Editing music video app – Photo Video Maker with Music
Discussion platform – HumTog
File Transfer App – ShareAll
Online Strategy game – Ludo King
Virus Cleaner – K7 Total Security
Music app – JioSaavn and Gaana
Manage two accounts simultaneously – Shelter
Virtual Dating App – Quack Quack and Happn
PM @narendramodi reiterates his appeal to citizens for buying 'Made in India' productshttps://t.co/rjRl4OGbv4 via NaMo App pic.twitter.com/q3cpJ1O2LT — narendramodi_in (@narendramodi_in) June 29, 2020
Curiopedia
Instagram Reels, similar to TikTok, is a new feature on the app which allows its users to create and share 15-second videos with camera effects, basic editing tools and music. Reels is already active in Germany, Brazil and France.
Mukesh Bansal is an Indian businessman who founded Indian fashion e-commerce company Myntra. Mukesh has been listed in the Best 40 Under 40 Entrepreneurs by Fortune magazine.
Global Village Tech Park is a software technology park in Bangalore, India. The park is spread over 120 acres with a total built-up area of 3.3 million sq ft. It was constructed and owned until 2019 by Café Coffee Day under the brand name Tanglin.
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