Garena Free Fire and 53 other ‘Chinese’ apps banned: Full list of banned apps

The Ministry of Home Affairs has recommended a ban on 54 Chinese mobile applications, including the popular game Garena Free Fire. Here are the details.

Garena Free Fire banned in India. (Image credit: screenshot from Garena website)

The Ministry of Home Affairs has recommended a ban on 54 Chinese mobile applications, including the popular game Garena Free Fire. Interestingly Garena Free Fire is Singapore-based and the developer is not from China. It game was one of the most downloaded games in India last year, and had taken up the space created by PUBG Mobile after it was banned in September 2020. The app was already removed from the Google Play Store and App Store in India, as indianexpress.com had reported Sunday.

In 2020, the government had also banned TikTok and other popular short video apps from China. According to PTI, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) will formally issue a notification banning the operations of these apps in India.

When TikTok was banned on June 29, 2020, the list included around 59 apps in total. Other popular apps on the list were Shareit, Shein (the fashion website and app), Xiaomi Mi Community, Clash of Kings, Weibo, Likee, etc.

Read more |Garena Free Fire, TikTok, Likee, PUBG Mobile, AliExpress: Full list of apps banned in India since 2020

MeitY banned these apps under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, which states that the government has the “Power to issue directions for interception or monitoring or decryption of any information through any computer resource.” This is usually when the government is “satisfied that it is necessary or expedient to do in the interest of the sovereignty or integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence relating to above or for investigation of any offence.”

For TikTok and PUBG, the government had said that these were being banned “in view of the emergent nature of threats” as “they are engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the state and public order.” PUBG was banned in September 2020, along with 117 other apps. A third list of banned apps came out in November 2020, which included a total of 43 apps. AliExpress was the most prominent name in that particular list.

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