By September or October of this year, Ashwini Vaishnaw, the minister of information technology, anticipates that the first “made-in-India” chip will be released from a commercial factory. The minister made the remarks during a media appearance in Bengaluru on February 15, according to various media reports. Notably, Tata Electronics is constructing a semiconductor facility in Dholera, Gujarat, in partnership with Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (PSMC).
Nearly 60% of the building has already been finished at Micron’s semiconductor assembly and testing facility in Sanand, the state. According to Vaishnaw, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, has received grants of INR 334 Cr from the Centre “for new research and development (R&D) in gallium nitride, a technology in semiconductors, which is used in telecom and power.” Students at 234 institutions are receiving the “latest” semiconductor design tools, he added. Without going into detail, the minister also stated that the union government intends to launch a production-linked incentive (PLI) program for “components” shortly.
India’s Manufacturing Sector Attracting Investors
The nation has seen investments in the electronics manufacturing sector totalling INR 13,162 Cr in the “recent past,” according to the IT minister, and many more are on the horizon. In response to a query from the media, Vaishnaw stated that the IT ministry is collaborating with industry participants to finish the initial version of the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM 1.0). The Centre intends to finish modernising the semiconductor lab in Mohali under the first edition.
Upon this, he stated that the ministry will start the process of sanctioning ISM 2.0 and that funding for the second iteration of the mission would be determined upon Cabinet approval. This occurs when the union government is making every effort to turn India into a semiconductor hub by providing incentives and sops to international companies looking to establish operations there.
Semicom India Programme
To encourage silicon semiconductor fabs, display fabs, compound semiconductors, and other industries, the Centre started the Semicon India program in 2021 with an investment of INR 76,000 Cr. Establishing greenfield semiconductor and display factories, enhancing R&D and design skills, and being able to compete with other Asian bases to lessen India’s reliance on imports are some of the program’s main goals. The objective of the program is to entice major international chip manufacturers to establish India as their production base.
India aspires to become a technology leader in these strategically important fields, which are also essential for safeguarding the nation’s vital information infrastructure. The objectives also support the government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat vision. ISM was also launched in 2022 as part of the Semicon India program. Investors are also following suit; domestic semiconductor firms raised $28 million in 2024 from just $5 million in 2023. The domestic semiconductor market is at the centre of all of this, and according to various published reports, it is expected to expand into a $150 billion potential by 2030.
Insights shared by Mr. Nitin Pamnani, Co-Founder, iTokri
iTokri as a brand believes in taking away the burden of sale from artisans and encouraging them to focus on their craft, ensuring that the artisans get due credit for their art by selling products under the artisan’s name on our platform. We should not forget that the artisans are the real creators and they must always have the freedom to create and grow themselves as an artist. Companies should aim to conserve and upgrade their traditional lifestyles. Artisans are an integral part of our social structure. Today, this is the responsibility of every entrepreneur and other business in India. Nowadays many brands use the technique of using the Stock & Sell Model where the goods/products physically remain with the brand when they are sold to make the best of the opportunity by connecting many artisans with their consumers where every product is quality checked.
iTokri Team
Working with the artisans through conducting consulting sessions where the brand’s purchase team explains the demand type from the international customers and buyers provides better analytical insights to them. Regulating the market performance and sharing them with the artisans give them an idea of various types of product categories, prices, etc. At the same time, putting in a lot of effort to understand the business demand and try to balance the consumer expectations and artisans’ work helps a lot. Focusing on art coming from across the country and not limiting it to only one or two geographical regions of India increases the worth of the collection and maintains the diversity that brands always look for which also remains a huge challenge in today’s time and age. Developing a propriety tool that helps with data modulation and building a machine learning module works well for many small businesses catering to international markets which in return helps improve purchase forecasting. This approach not only helps in forecasting demand and managing inventories but as a part of the value chain, helps the artisans to produce and understand the market demand better. It optimizes the purchased quantity leading to enhancing the production process.
The ultimate goal is to create artisan-led crafts that support traditional artworks through restructuring and create better job opportunities for the rising generation paving the way to the international markets. An entrepreneurial approach should be taken for sustainable growth where groups, individual initiatives, and decisions do not get limited, making the collectives flexible enough to respond to market realities. To grow internationally, brands should focus on developing their e-commerce strategy to become multichannel brands, and to continue to create and introduce new products which are sustainable, modern yet comfort-driven. Also, women-led businesses are an added incentive to our economy. The increasing demand for Indian handicrafts resulting in an increase in women’s participation in a variety of roles, primarily from underprivileged strata of our society making significant contributions to the industry, has led them to become socially and financially self-independent. They get all the recognition and a fair amount compared to the market rate which helps the sellers sell their products efficaciously that builds their brand in a unique light in the process.
The D2C route has greatly helped current brands get a toehold across the markets where well-established brands have ruled. Long-established players, who have marked their presence over the time in offline retail and have intimidating distribution clout, are now starting to take the expeditiously growing online channels seriously to defend their overall market share. Moreover, the Aatmanirbhar Bharat movement has exhilarated Indian entrepreneurs to put made-in-India products on the global map, and this is where Indian brands are engraving a niche for themselves in the international market. The mission is to enable artwork communities to sustain their culture with systematic indoctrination and ecosystem building to create modern designs with traditional techniques for sustainable livelihoods through their craft.
The article is contributed by Shivaani Jain – Co-Founder, TAGGD
In this age of ‘new kind of fashionable’, it’s no longer uncool to sport homegrown labels. Back in 1991, the Indian economy opened doors and flooded the market with foreign goods. These were mostly lifestyle brands that Indians had long heard about, but never got to sample. Liberalisation also created the conditions for—maybe even inspired—indigenous creators to later prosper at home and also abroad.
More than 30 years later, from those watershed weeks and months, Indian fashion designers – to name just one creative niche – are now making waves, among local as well as international clients. Once restricted to those with money to spend, fashion has become democratised as it has penetrated non-metropolitan India. And because it is online, it is widely available, accessible and affordable. No wonder it is being endorsed and embraced by millions who reside off the beaten metro track, who crave the same apparel and attire – casual, formal and informal – as their megalopolis-living counterparts, and also the same comforts and indulgences.
Indeed, the bigger transformation is happening outside of Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore. Today, it is small-town India – small in size but certainly not in aspiration – that is shaping the India of the future, in terms of what it buys and even the lifestyle trends to come. So, what a Moradabad, a Coimbatore, a Nasik and a Cuttack thinks today, India will likely think the same tomorrow.
The changing face of lifestyle
This is not entirely unexpected, but it has been hastened by COVID-19, a process quickened by families being confined indoors and thus relying on e-commerce to take care of their desires as much as their needs. The pandemic brought home to us that life indeed is short, and we might as well make the most of it while we’re at it. So, if wearing that funky outfit, or that sexy one-piece (designed by one of us) allows us to feel good, why not indulge?
Unsurprisingly, it’s the digital revolution that has made e-commerce accessible to Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets, thanks to the government’s Digital India initiative. This has enabled fashion and other brands alike to target the country’s non-metro towns and cities as future growth areas while giving the clientele here options besides the tried-and-tested names, and the opportunity to stay in touch with the latest trends in the fashion domain.
Because, when it comes to fashion, brands and collections are the same almost everywhere, and online shoppers are not guaranteed any exclusivity when they go looking to add to their wardrobes. Hence, now, they are more than willing to try out – and accept – labels that don’t come with the big-city tag, and to experiment with brands that are new to the market, and of which little is known.
In fact, the very thought of helping homegrown brands from locations off the fashion radar, in towns and cities away from the major urban centers, has empowered patrons in these places to own and wear such labels with pride. And while the brands may lack the staying power and cachet of the top-of-the-line labels, they do understand the power and magic of digital. So, assisted by on-off lockdowns and a population habituated to virtual shopping, they are evolving by adapting to the digital savviness of the consumer as well as the changing face of the industry.
The success of homegrown brands has been further driven by the ubiquity and high impact of influencers. Alongside, the rise of influencer marketing has given small-city youth a platform to leverage their presence on social media and earn a decent living. Fashion offers rewards as much as it lifts spirits and boosts confidence.
The well-heeled and well-travelled may still opt for high-street chains such as Zara, Marks & Spencer or H&M (among many others) but a growing number of Indians are much less hung up about the ‘name’ than their predecessors once were. And the reason behind this change is the fact that there are many more indigenous designers and labels out there, a majority of them boasting creations of great standards, and more than capable of giving British, European and American brands a good run for their money.
Moreover, these made-in-India brands are nowhere near as overpriced as some of their international counterparts are. In fact, they are very reasonable on the average middle-class pocket, offering fashion and lifestyle that is affordable for you and me.
The metros may be where all the action is, but hidden from the eyes of many metro denizens is what’s happening in India’s Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Already, girls and boys from these urban spaces form a sizeable chunk of service economy across the country. This is a demographic that is growing, and it is one that will constitute a greater part of the workforce of tomorrow’s India. And, as their profiles grow, so do their ambitions. These confident Indians seek nothing but the best—in clothes and accessories, in gadgets and cars, in holidays and experiences.
There are e-commerce marketplaces and e-retailers successfully catering to and answering this swelling demand. Yet, while women’s wear and menswear might make up the bulk of the sales, Mrs and Mr are just as interested in jewellery, cosmetics and home décor—and when it comes to clothes, their junior or teen daughters and sons don’t want to be left behind.
It really is a whole new ecosystem – of hip and homegrown fashion and lifestyle brands, and their customers who are looking to keep themselves up-to-date with the latest trends. And in this ecosystem, the fashion influencers are key facilitators, playing an important role by sharing styling ideas and tips—to bring out the best in you, to make you look good.
Thankfully, gone are the days when fashion in India was a preserve of the elite and the wealthy, and that is surely for the better. Because its increasing inclusivity has exposed the majority of Indians to lifestyle choices they never had. It’s of little surprise, then, that homegrown brands are making a beeline for Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, for it is here that cash registers are ringing at their loudest. When it comes to fashion, there’s no more happening place in the country than the small-town India of big dreams.
India-based social media apps have seen a rise in the country and worldwide, after the prohibition of the usage of TikTok and some other Chinese apps in India. The Prime Minister of the country has been asking the citizens to shift their usage to “Made in India” apps to work towards what we envision as an “Atma Nirbhar Bharat”, which is the vision of the PM to make India a self-reliant nation.
So, here’s a look at some of the best Social media apps made in India that you can use:
Here are the 9 best Indian social media apps people can use.
Sharechat
ShareChat – Indian social media app
ShareChat is an Indian Social Media app. It is a social networking service that is growing to become one of the best social media apps for chatting with its headquarters in Bangalore, India. Mohalla Tech Pvt. Ltd is the parent company and they were the ones who developed the app. Its initial release was during the month of January 2015. ShareChat is available in GooglePlay and also for iOS users. You can use Share Chat in over 15 different languages.
The company was started by Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh, and Farid Ahsan, who were graduates of IIT Kanpur. This Mobile Application has 250+ Million monthly active users.
ShareChat offers features that include private messaging. You can even tag people in videos using this platform. This platform also allows you to share social content with other unknown users such as videos, jokes, songs, and other language-based content.
ShareChat’s parent company Mohalla tech has acquired some companies lately including Transversal, a tech-owned short video platform; Elanic, which is a Bengaluru-based online fashion marketplace; Member, which is a meme discovery and sharing platform, and Circle Internet, which is a hyperlocal information platform. All the above platforms were acquired for undisclosed amounts.
Koo
Koo – Indian social media app
The app was earlier known as Ku Koo Ku. It was founded by Aprameya Radhakrishna who is the current CEO of the application, and Mayank Bidawatka. In August 2020, the app won the Government of India’s Atmanirbhar App Innovation Challenge.
The app won the Aatmanirbhar App Challenge, which was organized by the Indian government to foster local innovation. While Koo has many of the same capabilities as Twitter, it also lets users publish in Indian languages other than Hindi.
One of Koo’s selling advantages is that it is available in numerous Indian languages. “To connect with Indians in Indian languages,” it says on its website. Koo can be used on a computer (website) or on a mobile device (app). It’s available in the Google Play and Apple App Stores, and users may sign up with their phone number. Currently, English, Kannada, Tamil, Marathi, and Telegu are supported by Koo. Support for Bengali, Gujarati, Oriya, Malayalam, Punjabi, and Assamese is also in the pipeline, according to their website. A user can write up to 400 characters of text, which is higher than Twitter’s limit of 280 characters. All multimedia functions, including audio and video recording, are likewise supported by Koo.
Chingari
Chingari – Indian social media app
Chingari is an Indian-based short-video platform. It was launched in the year 2018 in the month of November. It is a video-sharing and social networking service where the users can create short videos.
Chingari lets its users create videos that provide features to lip-sync, dance, voice-over movie dialogues, etc. The ban of TikTok has led this social media video app to gain a lot of popularity in India.
Josh
Josh – Indian social media app
Josh is an Indian-based short video platform It was launched in the year 2020 in September by Dailyhunt. Dailyhunt is an Indian content and daily news application which is located in Bangalore, India. It provides content in 14 Indian languages. It was founded by Umesh Kulkarni and Chandrashekar Sohoni who were ex-Nokia employees. It was released initially in the year 2010.
The short video platform, Josh has short videos which are trending and viral that you can share with your followers. The app lets you create your unique videos. The App has videos on dance, music, comedy, jokes, and pranks. It also has videos on various challenges, pets, cooking.
The Mobile application has an easy-to-use Josh beauty camera with real-time filters, face stickers, special effects, makeup camera, emojis. Etc. You can even create Duet videos on Josh. You can share the videos on WhatsApp or Facebook and you can set it as your status.
Josh is India’s number 1 Short videos app. The launch of this platform is considered to be the next step by Dailyhunt to release more apps in the future.
Flik is a social media app that is trying to change the experience of chatting by making it much more enjoyable and is gearing to stand one of the top social media platforms made in India. The app provides a feature that is a mixture of a social media app and a dating app. It was founded by Bahadursinh Jadeja and launched on the year 10th of September 2019. The parent company of this mobile application is Loopytime Pvt. Ltd.
You can connect with new people using Flik. Flik helps you in finding friends and increasing your contact. It has an additional feature which is for dating and you can match with a like-minded person on the app. Flik can be considered a dating app as well.
Flik is one of the few mobile applications that provide features such as social media and dating in a single platform. The app can be used in Hindi. It provides features such as personal messaging, video calls and voice calls, audio messages, etc. If you would like to add live stories of the content Flik allows you to do that, flik is one of the social media sites that help you to share it with your friends.
Flik allows you to share files in any format such as pdf, ppt, word, mp3, excel, Apk, zip, and much more. Flik is rated for 18+. It has 10K+ downloads on the Play store. The app is available in the Play store and the size is around 12 MB.
Moj
Moj – Indian social media app
Moj app is a social media platform for video sharing and its parent company is ShareChat, and is owned by Mohalla Tech Private Ltd. Moj was founded by Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh, and Farid Ahsan. It was founded immediately after TikTok along with other Chinese apps was banned in India after the India-China situation in 2020.
The social networking platform began its journey on 29 June 2020 and in just two days 50 thousand downloads were made from the Google Play Store. The main features that it offers are special effects, emoticons to use on your videos, and others. Different genres of videos can be made like comedy, education, dancing, and acting. The duration of the videos can be of 15 seconds to 1 minute.
The app is growing to be one of the most popular social media with a support of over 15 languages and in January 2021, it has crossed 100 million downloads. In 2021, it generated $102 Million in revenue.
Mitron
Mitron – Indian social media app
Mitron is launched by Shivank Agarwal and Anish Khandelwal on April 11, 2020. It is a video sharing app that provides you with the feature of creating, editing, and sharing your videos. With just a size of 26 Mb, it can easily get fit into your phone space without any problem.
The features that the offers include a cool range of transitions, special effects. Apart from that, the users can edit their videos as per their requirement and there are various types of audio to choose from and can be used in your video. The app is free. Mitron offers more than 15 different categories for content. This app is very popular in the Indian Short video content ecosystem.
Leher
Leher – Indian social media app
Leher is an India Social networking platform that provides room for audio and video discussion. It was founded in the year 2018 on the month of August by Atul Jaju and Vikas Malpani. It is a live discussing platform and any topic can be discussed here with your community and friends. You can also join the discussion of your favorite topic here.
It is easier to interact with the audience and one can do live Q&A, polls comments, and one can also send a direct message to the person they want to. The person who is hosting a discussion, and invite other people of their choice in the discussion and can ask them to participate in it. Stickers and Emoji reactions are also offered to the users to make the discussion more fun
Leher made revenues close to Rs 11 lakhs in FY20, which was a laudable rise from Rs 4 lakhs, which is managed in FY19. It is a competitor of the Clubhouse app.
Kutumb was founded in the year 2020 by Abhishek Kejriwal and Mohit Sharma and is a social networking platform. Through this app, one can get connected with people through their communication and can share images, videos, news, and other things. All of these can be done in your choice of regional languages.
During the time of Covid’s second wave, it is through the help of Kutumb app that numerous NGOs managed to collect donations to help the victims of the Covid-19 disease and prevent or overcome its dreadful effects.
Conclusion
There are a lot of other famous Indian-based Social Media Apps and we would definitely be able to find a lot more different social media platforms coming up in the future. Some apps like Houseparty, a messaging platform; Trell, which is similar to Pinterest, Helo, and Vero social media platforms, and many more.
4.7 billion social media app downloads were recorded at the end of the first half of 2021 with Asia leading the charts. India is the leader of social media downloads, as per the same report App Annie. Therefore, every second, someone or the other is registering on one of the popular social media sites including the made in Bharat apps. If you haven’t visited these websites/platforms yet, now is the time to do so!
FAQ
What is the first Indian social media app?
Bharatam is India’s first own Social Networking platform. It is a platform of the Indians, by the Indians, and for the Indians.
How many Indian apps are there in India?
There are more than 161,022 apps from Indian publishers on Google Play.
Telecom giant Reliance Jio announced the launch of a new web browser, called JioPages that has been conceptualised and designed entirely in India, giving a major boost to the company’s digital presence. The company claims that privacy is at the core of the browser.
“Built on a powerful Chromium Blink engine, JioPages provides enhanced browsing experience through faster engine migration, webpage rendering, faster page loads, efficient media streaming, Emoji domain support and encrypted connection,” Jio said in a statement.
JioPages has been designed with India centric features such as:
Support for eight Indian languages
JioPages support eight Indian languages such as: Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Bengali. It also provides the users the option of customising the content feed according to their preferred state. Upon selecting a state, the popular sites of the state start appearing on the screen.
Localised news content curation
The content feed of the browser is specially cutomised to suit the user’s preference in terms of language, topic and region. In addition to this, the browser sends notifications only on topics that are either important or of interest to the user.
The file types such as images, video, document or pages are automatically categorised in the JioPages browser which makes the file management easier for the user.
Incognito browsing
JioPages also enables private browsing through Incognito mode by preventing browsing history from being stored in the system. The user has the option of setting a four-digit security PIN or fingerprint as an access code to the Incognito mode in the JioPages browser.
Ad Blocker
The browser provides the user seamless browsing experience by blocking unsolicited advertisements and popups. It will also allow users to whitelist domains to show advertisements.
Personalised home screen
JioPages allows the users to have the option of setting any of the leading search engines in the market such as Google, Bing, MSN, Yahoo or Duck Duck Go, as their default search engine. Users can also pin the links of their favourite websites on the home screen for easy and haste access.
Users can choose from diferent categories of colourful background themes to enhance browsing experience. They could also switch to ‘Dark mode’ for an eye-friendly viewing experience at night.
Informative cards
Another feature of the JioPages browser is that is provides informative cards. An Informative Card captures key numbers, trends, symbols or headlines of a given topic, for e.g. stock market trends, commodity prices or cricket score, and displays them as compact clickable banners on the screen.
The JioPages browser also supports eight Indian languages including Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Bengali and is available for download on the Google Play Store. Also, the company has not announced the launch of iOS variant of JioPages browser as of now.
Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Opera Software, Adobe Systems, Intel, IBM, Samsung and others have contributed in the development of the Chromium Blink engine.
How to download JioPages browser:
JioPages browser can be downloaded from the Google PlayStore and is currently available only on Android smartphones.
Recently, Reliance Jio also announced that is working with Qualcomm Inc. to develop 5G solutions and accelerate efforts to bring the high-speed network to the world’s No. 2 mobile market by users.
Jio Platforms have also raised ₹1.52 trillion from investors such as Google, Inc. and Facebook in just four months this year to achieve its digital goals. Qualcomm Ventures, the investment arm of Qualcomm Incorporated, has also invested ₹730 crore in Jio Platforms for a 0.15 % stake.
Jio was launched in India four years ago, offering free calls and cheap data. Now, it is India biggest carrier with about 400 million users.
The company is planning to introduce an inexpensive 5G smartphone that would eventually cost less than $40, Press Trust of India reported, citing an official statement.
Nitin Konde
