Beautiful Virgin Islands

Saturday, Sep 06, 2025

India is trying to build its own internet

India is trying to build its own internet

While Twitter finds itself in a prolonged standoff with the Indian government over the company's refusal to take down certain accounts, a senior executive of a very similar Indian social network says the sudden attention on his app has been "overwhelming."

"It feels like ... you've just been put in the finals of the World Cup suddenly and everyone's watching you and the team," Mayank Bidawatka, co-founder of Koo, told CNN Business.

Koo, touted by India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and used enthusiastically by several officials and ministries in his government, has been downloaded 3.3 million times so far this year, per app analytics firm Sensor Tower. It's a promising start for a company founded less than a year ago, but less than Twitter's 4.2 million Indian downloads during the same period.

However, the Indian social network, which sports a bird logo familiar to any Twitter user, was downloaded more times than Twitter in the month of February — when the Indian government called out the US company for not doing enough to block accounts sharing what it called "incendiary and baseless" hashtags around a protest by farmers against new agricultural laws.

"We're building as fast as we can," Bidawatka said.

Over the past couple of years, the Modi government has ratcheted up its pressure on global tech companies. It recently imposed stringent restrictions on the likes of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and reportedly threatened their employees with jail time, less than a year after banning dozens of Chinese apps, including TikTok and WeChat.

Against that backdrop, homegrown alternatives to many of those services have cropped up to try to take advantage of a burgeoning techno-nationalism — and some, like Koo, are quickly gaining traction. The two most downloaded apps in India so far in 2021 are TikTok-esque short video platforms MX Taka Tak and Moj, ahead of Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, according to app analytics firm Sensor Tower.

Bidawatka praised Twitter's service and said the government backlash against it and other tech platforms is "unfortunate." But he doesn't deny that the government's clash with Twitter has given Koo and other Indian apps a boost, adding that local apps have a better understanding of the market and can step in where big global tech firms fall short.

"A lot of the global tech giants have India as a part of their roadmap as far as growth is concerned, but they're also a little worried about making big changes to a very stable global product to cater to a market like that," he said. "We have the talent, we have the resources, some of us have the experience, there's funding available for fulfilling dreams like these. And these are pretty large dreams, we're talking about creating products that are very relevant to the second largest internet population in the world."

Sending a message


Several governments are now reckoning with, and seeking to rein in, the power of large global tech companies. Australia, Europe and the United States have floated regulations in recent months that aim to blunt some of that power.

India is no different in targeting big tech firms, but much of its focus in recent months has been around protecting its national security and sovereignty — and it has a lot of leverage. The country's 750 million internet users, with hundreds of millions more yet to come online for the first time, are crucial to Big Tech's global growth prospects. Facebook (FB), Google (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX) and several others have already poured billions of dollars into growing their Indian operations.

The Modi government's regulations have created a chilling effect on those companies and emboldened Indian apps to position themselves as a better fit for the country's users. The big question now is whether the government simply promotes and encourages made-in-India apps or creates a regulatory environment where they're the only ones left standing.

In banning Chinese apps, in particular, India used China's own tech playbook against it. The world's most populous nation has largely sealed off its billion-plus people from foreign tech companies for decades, using a massive censorship apparatus known as The Great Firewall. Google and Facebook have both made overtures to China in an effort to be let into the world's biggest market, but to no avail. Instead, China's internet ecosystem is made up of homegrown companies such as Tencent (TCEHY), Weibo (WB) and Alibaba (BABA), some of which have become large global players.

India's move to shut down Chinese tech firms definitely gave Indian competitors a boost — particularly those seeking to replace TikTok, which had more than 200 million users in the country before it was banned. Meanwhile, the government has actively sought to boost homegrown apps: Koo and Chingari were both among the winners of an "app innovation challenge" that received prize money from the government.

These shifting dynamics in India's digital marketplace are yet another warning sign of what's been dubbed the splinternet, foreshadowing a possible world where each country sticks to its own apps and abandons the open and global nature of the internet. For now, however, these homegrown apps may find it difficult to compete at the same level unless the government decides to ban Facebook and Twitter, too.

"If the party is on Twitter, a few people on Koo won't matter," Mishi Choudhary, legal director at the New York-based Software Freedom Law Center, told CNN Business. "The ability to follow global news and forge connections across borders is a crucial feature for the success of these platforms and must not be overlooked."

But unseating Big Tech may not strictly be the point, says Anupam Srivastava, a nonresident fellow at the Stimson Center, a Washington DC-based think tank and a former head of the Indian government's investment agency, Invest India. It's also about sending a message to companies like Facebook and Twitter: Access to India's massive internet shouldn't be taken for granted.

"The effort is to tell them you're not indispensable," he said.

The China conundrum


Soon after Modi called on the country to become "self-reliant" in May last year, short-form video app Chingari began marketing itself as a homegrown alternative to TikTok. It was downloaded 2.5 million times in six days.

A few weeks later, when India banned TikTok and dozens of other Chinese-owned apps after a military conflict with China escalated, Chingari really exploded, with 8 million downloads the day of the ban, then 7 million downloads the day after, according to cofounder Sumit Ghosh.

"It was crazy, crazy stuff," Ghosh told CNN Business in an interview last year soon after the ban. "Banning TikTok was never the business plan for us," he added. "We were growing organically."

But he fully endorses the Indian government's rationale for the ban, arguing that China and its companies can't be trusted, and Indian user data needs to be in Indian hands to avoid a "security risk."

While India was willing to ban Chinese apps, there may be limits to how far its government can go with services from other countries. As a democratically elected government, and one that has far closer ties to the United States than to China, it's unlikely India can completely close off its internet and kick out
America's biggest tech companies in the near future.

"Undergirding all of US-India engagement ... is a very strong and growing government-to-government defense, security and high technology cooperation," Srivastava said. In contrast, India sees itself "in an existential sort of struggle with China" and the app ban was "aimed as a direct message."

Chingari plans to focus on its home country until it hits at least 100 million users. The app does eventually have global ambitions, but Ghosh said it is committed to "data sovereignty," with plans to store users' data within their respective countries.

That may make it more difficult to train the app's recommendation algorithm, considering the data will be more fragmented than if it were all processed in the same place. But it's a price Chingari is willing to pay.

Additionally, hedging against geopolitical risks could help Chingari avoid being banned in other markets the way TikTok and others were banned in India.
"India is generally friendly with every country," Ghosh said, "but you never know."

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Threatens Retaliatory Tariffs After EU Imposes €2.95 Billion Fine on Google
Tesla Board Proposes Unprecedented One-Trillion-Dollar Performance Package for Elon Musk
US Justice Department Launches Criminal Mortgage-Fraud Probe into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook
Escalating Drug Trafficking and Violence in Latin America: A Growing Crisis
US and Taiwanese Defence Officials Held Secret Talks in Alaska
Report: Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission in North Korea Ordered by Trump in 2019 Ended in Failure
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Florida Murder Case: The Adelson Family, the Killing of Dan Markel, and the Trial of Donna Adelson
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Big Tech Executives Laud Trump at White House Dinner, Unveil Massive U.S. Investments
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
‘Looks Like a Wig’: Online Users Express Concern Over Kate Middleton
Brand-New $1 Million Yacht Sinks Just Fifteen Minutes After Maiden Launch in Turkey
Here’s What the FBI Seized in John Bolton Raid — and the Legal Risks He Faces
Florida’s Vaccine Revolution: DeSantis Declares War on Mandates
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
"The Situation Has Never Been This Bad": The Fall of PepsiCo
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
The Fashion Designer Who Became an Italian Symbol: Giorgio Armani Has Died at 91
Putin Celebrates ‘Unprecedentedly High’ Ties with China as Gazprom Seals Power of Siberia-2 Deal
China Unveils New Weapons in Grand Military Parade as Xi Hosts Putin and Kim
Queen Camilla’s Teenage Courage: Fended Off Attempted Assault on London Train, New Biography Reveals
Scottish Brothers Set Record in Historic Pacific Row
Rapper Cardi B Cleared of Liability in Los Angeles Civil Assault Trial
Google Avoids Break-Up in U.S. Antitrust Case as Stocks Rise
Couple celebrates 80th wedding anniversary at assisted living facility in Lancaster
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
The White House on LinkedIn Has Changed Their Profile Picture to Donald Trump
"Insulted the Prophet Muhammad": Woman Burned Alive by Angry Mob in Niger State, Nigeria
Trump Responds to Death Rumors – Announces 'Missile City'
Court of Appeal Allows Asylum Seekers to Remain at Essex Hotel Amid Local Tax Boycott Threats
Germany in Turmoil: Ukrainian Teenage Girl Pushed to Death by Illegal Iraqi Migrant
United Krack down on human rights: Graham Linehan Arrested at Heathrow Over Three X Posts, Hospitalised, Released on Bail with Posting Ban
Asian and Middle Eastern Investors Avoid US Markets
Ray Dalio Warns of US Shift to Autocracy
Eurozone Inflation Rises to 2.1% in August
Russia and China Sign New Gas Pipeline Deal
China's Robotics Industry Fuels Export Surge
Suntory Chairman Resigns After Police Probe
Gold Price Hits New All-Time Record
Von der Leyen's Plane Hit by Suspected Russian GPS Interference in an Incident Believed to Be Caused by Russia or by Pro-Peace or by Anti-Corruption European Activists
UK Fintechs Explore Buying US Banks
Greece Suspends 5% of Schools as Birth Rate Drops
Apollo to Launch $5 Billion Sports Investment Vehicle
Bolsonaro Trial Nears Close Amid US-Brazil Tension
European Banks Push for Lower Cross-Border Barriers
Poland's Offshore Wind Sector Attracts Investors
Nvidia Reveals: Two Mystery Customers Account for About 40% of Revenue
Woody Allen: "I Would Be Happy to Direct Trump Again in a Film"
×