India Reportedly Wants To Build Its Own WhatsApp For Government Communications

India may have plans to follow France's footsteps in building a chat app and requiring government employees to use it for official communications. From a report: The New Delhi government is said to be pondering about the need to have homegrown email and chat apps, local news outlet Economic Times reported on Thursday. The rationale behind the move is to cut reliance on foreign entities, the report said, a concern that has somehow manifested amid U.S.'s ongoing tussle with Huawei and China. 'We need to make our communication insular,' an unnamed top government official was quoted as saying by the paper. The person suggested that by putting Chinese giant Huawei on the entity list, the U.S. has 'set alarm bells ringing in New Delhi.' India has its own ongoing trade tension with the U.S. Donald Trump earlier this month removed the South Asian nation from a special trade program after India did not assure him that it 'unfortunate,' and weeks later, increased tariffs on some U.S. exports.

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