New Delhi, Sep 2 (TIWN) In yet another surgical strike on malicious Chinese apps, the Indian government on Wednesday banned 118 apps over national security concerns, including the immensely popular PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) Mobile, Baidu and couple of virtual private networks (VPNs) that allowed access to TikTok that was earlier banned.

The action came after the fresh Chinese incursion attempts in Indian territory at Pangong Tso in eastern Ladakh.  The PUBG game now has more than 600 million downloads and 50 million active players globally, not including the Chinese mainland where a rebranded version of the game is called 'Game for Peace'.  PUBG has millions of users, especially young, in India.  The ban on PUBG came as it announced the arrival of a new gaming era with its 1.0 version, along with global mobile esports tournament PUBG Mobile Global Championship (PMGC) with a grand prize pool of $2 million (about Rs 15 crore).