India's Telegram ban until June 22 over exam paper leak concerns is a terrible look for the country, sets a precedent, and could happen again if unchallenged
A few additional thoughts on the Telegram ban in India: 1. Is this a permanent ban? It's unusual for the Indian government to issue a press release about the telegram ban: the precedence that I remember is when Chinese apps were banned in India in June 2020 including tiktok. A
@nixxinNikhil Pahwa
Context & Ripple Effects
India’s temporary Telegram block follows a much broader Indian precedent: the 2020 removal of Chinese apps, including TikTok, which later grew to more than 200 blocked apps. Related coverage framed that earlier action as a possible model for other governments seeking greater control over foreign apps and resident data.
The Telegram action also lands in an ongoing Indian dispute over platform obligations. WhatsApp has said it could leave the country rather than comply with a message-traceability requirement, while the Telegram block immediately drove a reported 49% rise in daily downloads of major VPN apps.
First-order effects
Telegram’s service is disrupted for Indian users through June 22, directly constraining a major messaging channel around the national medical entrance exam.
VPN providers receive an immediate demand bump as users seek to bypass the block; Appfigures reported a 49% increase in daily downloads of major VPN apps after the announcement.
Second-order effects
The block raises the operating risk for other encrypted messaging platforms in India, especially where government requests could conflict with privacy or traceability positions.
A temporary platform block can shift usage rather than eliminate it, pushing users toward VPNs and making enforcement and attribution harder for authorities.
Third-order effects
If temporary, event-driven blocks become a recurring tool, India’s app-policy regime could move from targeted compliance disputes toward faster service-access interventions during politically sensitive or high-risk events.
The episode strengthens the global pattern in which governments use app restrictions as a digital-sovereignty and public-order instrument, with encrypted communications services facing the sharpest trade-off between local access and privacy architecture.
The trend: India’s Telegram block is one data point in the broader normalization of government controls over cross-border apps, especially platforms whose encryption limits direct state visibility.
India's IT ministry banned Telegram for one week because some users shared leaked exam questions. This punishes 150M+ ordinary Telegram users in India — not the insiders who leaked the exam materials. And the ban hasn't stopped anything. The leaks just moved to other apps.
Statement : Shutting down Telegram is a band aid solution and is a disproportionate answer to exam fraud The Internet Freedom Foundation objects to the directions announced today in the National Testing Agency's press release on action against the Telegram platform. On the NTA's …
Indian telecom Reliance is sabotaging access to Telegram for millions of users OUTSIDE India (including the UAE) via a rogue method called BGP hijacking. The sabotage seems intentional, as Reliance has ignored multiple reports. This may be part of a competitive war, as Reliance…
same dude gave a solution for traceability on whatsapp without breaking end to end encryption... which isn't possible because end to end encryption as per the signal protocol has plausible deniability baked in. but then he's IIT madras director and all. completely unrelated:
Telegram is now stuck on “Connecting...” on Airtel and other major ISPs, DNS-level blocks rolling out fast. Google Play Store, Apple App Store has also pulled the app it seems. Looks like ISPs are testing & perfecting efficient nationwide blocking techniques for future use 😂 [ima…
verified: reliance (AS18101) is BGP hijacking telegram's IP block 91.108.56.0/22. checked RIPE routing-status API directly, AS18101 appears as an origin with zero route objects and zero RIPE authorization. AS62041 (telegram) is the only legitimate origin. upstream transit [image]
By blocking Telegram instead of fixing their own exam security, the authorities are effectively admitting they cannot stop leaks at the source! #NEET_Paper_Leak #BANNEET #NTA
Imagine explaining to international investors and protocol engineers that your startup progress is stalled because your government decided restricting Telegram groups was the answer to exam leaks. My startup @GammaHedgeX being incubated by a Vietnam-based VC and was in active [im…
Jasveer, I'm on a telegram group with 3533 small/medium/large business owners. Before the ban different people: 1. posted about a business his 13 year old son has started, asking others to encourage him by buying something from it 2. posted about other group members visiting his
Now what is this new stupidity? 1. Telegram is the easiest platform to deploy agents and use them. 2. Entire business communities run on telegram, with actual purchase demands on groups. Now for exams you're blocking a messaging platform nationwide. The same activity can
India is emulating China's stringent playbook ahead of the national medical exam retest as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government seeks to rebuild trust after a paper leak imperiled the future of more than two million students https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Over the past few weeks, we removed hundreds of channels sharing leaked exam materials and related scams in India. We're also making the “edited” label more visible to prevent backdating scams. Telegram is a force for good. Banning it — even temporarily — is a mistake.
The Telegram ban appears to have already been implemented on the DNS layer by the following ISPs. It is worth noting that MTNL was already blocking Telegram as of last year. [image]
One has to make several sacrifices for the common good to cover-up for the incompetence of the authorities who can't even run an exam w/o putting Q papers on a military plane. This is what Make in India means. Not products, goods or services. But Mt. everest incompetence.
my brother's NEET PG notes, videos and paid study groups were all on telegram telegram got banned. so now he's stuck messaging pirated-content scammers just to access what he already paid for to stop one leaked NEET UG paper, you broke access for thousands of honest aspirants [im…
@nixxin As someone running a business that uses Telegram for communications, automation, monitoring, and AI workflows, this is what worries me. India tells the world: come build here, invest here, innovate here. Then a platform used by millions of businesses and individuals can