In light of Prime Minister Shri. Narendra Modi’s clarion call for an Aatma Nirbhar Bharat, there has been a surge in recognition of indigenous products, including mobile applications. One such promising mobile phone applications under communications category that has come up in this milieu is the Chirrups App.
Launched in March this year, Chirrups App is envisioned as a chat and a social media microblog combined, by the end of September 2020. Chirrups App is characterized by an easy to use interface, quick administrative response time and a user-centric focus.
Under the visionary leadership of Mrs Aarti, the application has ushered into new eras of innovation and development while promoting unity and tenacity to push through the uncertain Covid-19 situation. Mrs Aarti agreed to join us for her first public interview to any media/news aggregator via the twitter handle of Chirrups App @chirrupsapp. Aarti told us that the idea for such an app germinated sometime in 2019 when over dinner,
her husband, a serving army officer, remarked that all major social media apps being used in India were foreign-owned.
This triggered the journey that ultimately led to the creation of Chirrups App, a product of indigenous mindset with all its stakeholders based in India. Now a days, chatting and microblog applications are not only a communications necessity but also an important part of our daily lives. Though we have many options, a very few are purely
developed in India. Chirrups has been carefully designed keeping user privacy and ease of use as the prime motive.
The app has many exciting features like channel creation and username search. The app will also be a good option for small traders, businessman, small scale industries and farmers who can create a channel and promote their products in their own regional language and share the link with other users over multiple platforms. The username
feature tops the privacy features list of the app which enables the users to communicate with each other without sharing their phone number. One can also create a group with family and friends just by using their usernames. Users can also create their profiles and update status. Another exciting feature of the app is “Aaj ki Taaza Khabar” where users can share daily updates with an active #hashtag search and report local news and updates with other users. The most important aspect of the application is that the user database of the app is stored within India. The
microblogging feature of the app is under development and people will soon be seen ‘Chirping’ over their own social media microblog.
In the course of this journey, to add to her vision she called upon another co-creator Mr Bhatt, to join the effort. Mr Bhatt is a research scholar at IIM Calcutta, backed by several years of design and development experience with a keen eye for users’ security and privacy. With the Prime Minister’s call for Aatma Nirbhar Bharat, users’
privacy and convenience in mind, Mrs Aarti and Mr Bhatt designed Chirrups as a oneChirrups mascot “Andy” stop alternative to existing foreign platforms. It will give two mutually exclusive modules for chat/call and microblogging once it is fully grown.
They chose to keep the details of microblog as a secret, since it is still under development. However, she did say that it is going to be modelled on any typical microblog service but with advanced user friendly features that are not typically seen in other such platforms. Now, what exactly might they be, needs to be seen. However, one thing remains clear and that is that an Indian alternative to major, foreign-owned social media giants, is the need of the day.
The sheer volume of data and personal details of Indian citizens that are potentially accessible to foreign players should be a cause of huge concern from a security point of view. But more than that, it is also just as important from another major perspective – that of the immense potential for social engineering within the country that it
potentially offers to outsiders. A small glimpse of this was seen in the controversy which erupted after the last US election and the Brexit issue.
Amongst the many players that have thrown their hat in the ring, Chirrups App seems to be quite promising. With the right kind of endorsement and backing, it promises to supplant established foreign players and make India truly Aatma Nirbhar when it comes to data security. The app is available on google playstore and for downloads.
The Apple version too is expected by 06 Sep 2020.