Say Namaste, the latest video-conferencing platform now seems to be perceived as the emerging alternative to Zoom in India to fill the gap in such platforms which has witnessed a huge surge in demand following the country-wide Covid-19 lockdown.
Following the worldwide backlash received by Zoom for its unresolved and continued security issues, the government of India had banned its usage in government offices and announced an Innovative Challenge inviting startups to build an indigenous video-conferencing application.
Say Namaste video conferencing platform instantly came to the forefront when it was assumed by some as a Government of India initiative. However, that wasn’t the case. In fact, it is developed by Inscripts, a Mumbai-based web application and software development firm.
Within a few days, it was widely circulated on social media that the government had launched its video conferencing platform called Say Namaste which witnessed a record number of users. Say Namaste took to Twitter to reveal that it “crossed 100,000 users and 25,000 meetings in less than 48 hours.”
Claim: Firstpost, a web news portal, has reported that Government has launched a beta version of a soon to be launched video conferencing app #PIBFactCheck: Government has neither launched nor endorsed any video conferencing app pic.twitter.com/3Hr3bP2DcPApril 21, 2020
You can use it on a smartphone or PC. Open a browser such as Chrome or Internet Explorer and visit saynamaste.in. There are two options available for users, namely ‘Create New Meeting’ and ‘Join Existing Meeting’. When you click the create new meeting option, you can create a meeting ID and send it to people whom you wish to have the meeting with. To join a meeting, just enter your name, the meeting ID and the meeting code sent by the host of the meeting in the given space. The service can be used without an app and doesn’t need you to be logged in either, which is a big gain in terms of privacy.
It is a simple interface and easy to use but with some niggles and glitches as expected from a beta project. On the safety and privacy front, Anuj Garg, co-founder and CEO of Inscripts, said in an exclusive interview to News18 Tech, “Beyond choosing the best possible encryption standard, access point control is something that we are exploring. We are also close to adding two-factor authentication to the app in the next few days, which would help verify participants of a video call.”
