Date: 14th January, 2023
To,
Shri Narendra Modi Ji,
Honourable Prime Minister,
Government of India
New Delhi
Subject: Request to Ban People’s Republic of China State-owned propaganda News outlets operating freely in India
Dear Shri Narendra Modi Ji,
We write to you today as members of Red Lantern Analytica, an international observers group, and, most importantly, as Indian citizens, to express our grave concern over People’s Republic of China (PRC) State-owned propaganda outlets operating freely in India via smartphone applications listed in the Google playstore and Apple app store.
These smartphone applications that routinely disseminate biased and degrading views on India disguised as news, pose a significant threat to India’s national security. Due to its free availability, an estimated 60 crore Indians are directly exposed to propaganda funded by the PRC. This is a very large number that represents almost half of India’s population.
As you know, India is engaged in combat with an aggressive PRC along the Indo-Tibetan border in the Himalayas, and 20 of Indian Army personnel were martyred while defending India’s frontiers against the PLA in Galwan valley in 2020. Prior to this, you have emphasised that no one can seize an inch of India’s land. Referring to the recent India-PRC standoff in the Tawang district of Arunachal Pradesh in December 2022, the Union Home Minister Shri Amit Shah ji stated that the government is committed to ensuring that not a single inch of India’s soil is compromised. Our request to ban PRC funded apps should be viewed as an extension to your government’s vision to protect India from external threats.
Since we have been closely observing the actions of the Chinese government for quite some time, we would like to emphasise that there is an urgent need to ban such Chinese propaganda programmes that threaten the morale of India and the security of Indian user data. The PRC uses these propaganda channels to wage “Psychological Warfare” against the Indian populace. In addition to propagandistic aims, these applications mines and transmits sensitive user data which can be further misused by PRC backed hackers. PRC ties on “Data Espionage” have been evident in numerous cases, such as the latest Ransomware cyber-attack on the AIIMS, Delhi servers in November 2022 and the attack on seven power grid hubs in North India in April 2022.
We have compiled a brief list of such Applications, but the full list could be extensive, and we will be happy to work with the ministry pro bono to identify additional PRC-owned apps functioning in India.
In February and August 2022, the government banned Chinese applications from smartphone appstores that constituted a threat to India’s privacy and security. However, Media propaganda applications controlled by the PRC were omitted from the list. Therefore, we propose that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) use its authority under Section 69a of the Information Technology Act of 2000 to immediately ban the following applications:
Additionally, we would like to emphasise that instances or clones of the aforementioned applications, which may be available on Amazon Fire Stick Appstore and other Smart TV appstores, must also be investigated and banned.
We await your response and urge you to take the necessary and prompt actions on these matters of national importance.
Yours Sincerely,
Abhishek Ranjan
Founder and Director
Red lantern Analytica
Copy to:
- Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw Ji, Minister for Electronics & Information Technology, GOI
- Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar Ji, Minister of State, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, GOI
