The Union government has launched an instant messaging platform called 'Sandes', the Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar informed the Lok Sabha on Thursday (July 29).
Taking a step towards Atmanirbhar Bharat, the Union government has launched an instant messaging platform called 'Sandes', fully developed by India.
"Sandes is an Open source based, Secure, Cloud enabled platform hosted on Government Infrastructure so that the strategic control remains with Government of India. It has features like one-to-one and group messaging, file and media sharing, audio-video call and e-gov application integration, etc. The solution is being used by the government and is available at Google Play Store and App Store," Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar informed.
The National Informatics Centre, the Information Technology wing of the Union government, has developed and launched the platform, which works on the lines of popular instant messaging app WhatsApp, owned by US-based social media giant Facebook. The platform can be used for all kinds of communications with a mobile number or an email id. It is currently not available for people at large. ‘Sandes’ is currently being used internally among government employees and those agencies linked to the government.
The Union government is pushing for indigenous solutions to India’s tech problems. Facebook-owned WhatsApp and the government has been at loggerheads for some time. The government is pushing for the localisation of data and new compliance rules.
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