All You Need To Know About Arattai: The Indian-Made WhatsApp Alternative Endorsed By Union Ministers

India's bid to promote homegrown technology is in focus following Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's public backing of the messaging app, Arattai.

An app built by Chennai-based Zoho Corporation, this development comes as part of Indian government's larger Swadeshi push to encourage citizens to adopt Indian-made digital platforms.

While Education Minister Pradhan promoted this app on X, calling it “free, easy-to-use, secure and safe", IT Minister Vaishnaw showcased its parent company's Zoho's capabilities during a Union Cabinet briefing, revealing that the government's presentation on the day was created using Zoho Show instead of Microsoft PowerPoint.

Shifting focus to Arattai, it is a messaging app built by Zoho Corporation, as an alternative to WhatsApp.

The word "Arattai" means "casual chat" in Tamil. And as such, the app lets users send texts, share images and videos, make voice and video calls, post stories, send documents and even create broadcast channels for businesses, similar to WhatsApp.

Aratti offers end-to-end encryption for both voice and video, which protects conversations from any kind of interception. However, text messages are not secured in the same fashion.

This leaves a major security gap when compared to WhatsApp, which offers end-to-end encryption for texts.

Full message encryption has become the standard for app security. It is, in fact, the biggest selling point for the app, which is built by Meta.

Zoho has positioned itself as a strong Indian brand, with over 55 business applications and reach of 130 million users worldwide.

However, the messaging app Arattai faces a long road ahead if it truly wants to take on WhatsApp, which has nearly 3 billion active users.

The key for Arattai, therefore, will be to add more features, including encryption for texts as well as innovation.