India Upholds TikTok Ban, Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw Clarifies

India's IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has put an end to all the buzz about TikTok making a comeback in the country.

He said there's no plan whatsoever to bring back the popular Chinese video app. "Absolutely no proposal has come from anywhere," Vaishnaw stated, shutting down rumors that popped up last month when TikTok's website suddenly worked on some networks like Airtel and Vodafone.

TikTok, run by the Chinese company ByteDance, got banned in India back in June 2020, along with dozens of other Chinese apps. The government was worried about national security and how the apps handled user data.

By January 2021, the ban was locked in for good, cutting off more than 200 million Indian users who loved scrolling through short videos. India was one of TikTok's biggest markets then.That short glitch with the website got people excited, especially with talks of better ties between India and China, but the minister made it clear nothing's changing.

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Vaishnaw also touched on Chinese money flowing into India's tech world. He promised full openness from the government.“We will see as it happens. Policies will be clearly shared with everybody. We are a very transparent country,” he added. Before 2020, big Chinese players like Tencent and Alibaba poured cash into Indian startups in online shopping and digital payments. But new rules from April 2020, called Press Note 3, made it tougher – any investment from neighbors sharing a border, like China, needs the government's okay first. This has slowed things down a bit.

Still, Vaishnaw sees room for teamwork between India and China in making electronics and computer chips. He pointed out how global supply chains connect everyone. “Wherever the value is added, the benefits should come to our people and industry,” he said, as news swirls about possible partnerships to use Chinese tech for India's booming needs.

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For the moment, TikTok stays blocked in India, with zero signs of it returning. The focus remains on keeping data safe and the country secure.