It was a significant milestone for Koo, which had launched with a deal with Indian languages and a government-friendly stance whilst its greater rival Twitter more and more locked horns with authorities over its content material moderation insurance policies.
It was additionally a vindication for the Indian authorities, the place many officers are on Koo, and which final month hailed one other domestically made expertise: a cell working system, BharOS, to problem Google whose Android working system dominates the nation’s smartphone market.
“We have a long way to go, but if this happens, monopoly by anybody will go away,” Dharmendra Pradhan, India’s talent improvement and entrepreneurship minister, mentioned of the potential for domestically made applied sciences like BharOS to be broadly adopted.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been pushing for self-reliance in every thing from manufacture to vaccine improvement, and particularly expertise, whereas additionally making an attempt to rein in world tech companies with legal guidelines to restrict knowledge transfers, banning Chinese apps, and policing on-line content material extra vigorously.
But India’s push for digital sovereignty may have monumental penalties for the nation’s 1.4 billion inhabitants, tech specialists and rights teams warn, with a possible improve in state surveillance and tightening of freedoms in on-line areas.
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“Digital sovereignty has roots in the intent to control, and is tied to nationalism. There are economic elements too, as data is valuable,” mentioned Prateek Waghre, coverage director at digital rights organisation Internet Freedom Foundation. “The government has more leverage with local companies, which may not have the option of not complying – and that raises the concern that they won’t stand up to surveillance requests,” he mentioned, pointing to current instances of native media companies being hit with lawsuits when standing as much as the federal government.
The ministry of knowledge expertise didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Tech colonisation
India is the world’s second largest marketplace for smartphones, and has among the many most customers on social media platforms.
But large tech companies have been more and more caught within the authorities’s crosshairs – from a Facebook plan at no cost web entry being blocked, to content material takedown requests, to ordering Google to alter the way it markets its Android working system.
Last month, the Indian authorities ordered Twitter to take away over 50 tweets linking to the video of a BBC documentary questioning Modi’s management in the course of the 2002 riots in Gujarat state, and instructed YouTube to dam any uploads of the video.
India is more and more pushing again towards applied sciences that it believes “will give control over its society and economy to foreign powers,” mentioned Abishur Prakash, a geopolitical analyst.
“One reason for countries to make their own technologies is concerns about tech colonisation,” mentioned Prakash, co-founder of the Center for Innovating the Future, a assume tank.
“There is also growing mistrust of technology from certain countries – like how the West views China’s TikTok or Huawei,” he instructed the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
While launching Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan – self-reliant India marketing campaign – in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Modi mentioned that utilizing domestically made apps can be safer.
But having indigenous tech and storing knowledge domestically will not be safer with out correct safeguards and a strong knowledge safety regulation to stop unauthorised entry and use, digital specialists say, notably with an working system the place there’s a danger that knowledge may be accessed by the federal government.
BharOS – constructed by a startup funded by the Indian authorities – is presently supplied to organisations with “stringent privacy and security requirements,” the developer mentioned in an announcement.
Twitter clone
Indian authorities have emphasised that international locations have a “sovereign right” to make use of knowledge for the nation’s welfare and improvement.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine final yr, which spurred many tech companies to sever ties with the previous, was a wake-up name for a lot of international locations together with India, mentioned Waghre.
“It raised the question: can this happen to us tomorrow – and how do we protect ourselves?”
“China is looked on rather enviously for standing up to big tech and creating its own ecosystem, and many countries have been trying to create something similar for years. Russia’s invasion only precipitated the process,” he added.
The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) – which shows services and products from member e-commerce platforms, and is touted as a substitute for Amazon and Walmart – was launched final yr, and is backed by the federal government.
Indian authorities are additionally courting worldwide offers for domestically made applied sciences reminiscent of DigiLocker – a cloud-based platform for storing and sharing paperwork – in addition to the Aadhaar digital ID scheme, and real-time funds system UPI.
And whereas Koo’s consumer base is basically in India, the corporate says it’s current in additional than 100 international locations, and its buyers embrace companies based mostly within the United States, Japan and Switzerland.
With its yellow fowl brand, Koo is seen by some tech specialists because the closest to a Twitter clone.
Koo had about 17 million downloads in India over the previous yr and almost 3 million in Brazil the place it launched in November, in keeping with Apptopia, which displays apps.
Aprameya Radhakrishna, Koo’s co-founder and chief govt, dismissed surveillance considerations, saying they’ve “never faced a situation related to control from any government,” and that the platform has “transparent and strict disclosure processes”.
Indian applied sciences are going world, he mentioned, as a result of “India is known for its excellent engineering talent and … a lot of these products are sophisticated and relevant to global markets.”
At residence, whereas competitors is crucial, native companies are “fully compliant” with authorities pointers whereas overseas firms is probably not, mentioned Rohan Verma, chief govt of MapmyIndia, a digital maps maker, citing situations the place Google Maps has proven worldwide borders as disputed.
So with maps “indigenously created maps should be the default, and foreign ones the second or third option,” he mentioned.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com