In what has been speeded up by India’s pushback against Chinese technology, the Vice President of India, Venkaiah Naidu, launched Elyments, a new social media app for the nation.
The world is growing increasingly skeptical of China in recent times, and India has been the loudest critic, especially after a border dispute with the Chinese military showing force in the Himalayan territory of Ladakh.
India wants its own apps made in India and with all of the data stored in India. Some are speculating whether others countries with get similar ideas.
“India is an IT powerhouse, and we have some of the world’s best-known names in this field. With such a huge pool of talented professionals, I feel there should be many more such innovations coming out in the future,” said Naidu during the launch of Elyments.
Elyments is “Social Media Simplified” in that it combines the features of different social platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. According to the description on Google’s Play Store, the social media “super app” helps people “connect and converse with friends, share updates, network with like-minded people, discover interests, make seamless voice and video calls, and much more.”
The app is the work of more than a thousand IT experts who work with Art of Living, a humanitarian foundation created by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. The launch of the app definitely impressed Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been calling for a self-reliant India, after banning Chinese apps in the country in the last month.
India has since banned almost 60 Chinese-based apps, including TikTok. And, there has been an increase in the downloads of Indian-based apps.
Elyments, which is currently available in eight languages, had more than half a million downloads at press time.
If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net.
