The National Informatics Centre (IMC) has launched the ‘Sandes’ app, an instant messaging platform dubbed to be the alternative for WhatsApp. At present, the state and centre officials are using ‘Government Instant Messaging System’ (GIMS) for communicating in a safe environment. But now they can upgrade to the ‘Sandes’ app which is also available for other individuals in India to download. To sign-up, users have to provide their ‘phone number’ or ‘email ID’. ‘Sandes’ will allow users to send individuals private messages as well as create groups and send messages to several people on the go.
How to Download Sandes?
The good thing is, ‘Sandes’ is available for both iOS and Android users. For the Android devices, the Android version should be 5.0 or above, and for iOS devices, it should be iOS 12 or above. Users can download it in an APK file through the official GIMS portal of the government. The app is not available in the Google Play Store or Apple App Store right now.
Once downloaded, users just need to sign-up with their mobile number or email ID upon which they will get a six-digit OTP to authenticate the process. There are several features similar to that of WhatsApp in the ‘Sandes’ app.
But one feature that many users would appreciate is getting the option of signing-up with ‘email ID’ and not mandatorily through their ‘mobile numbers’ as in the case of WhatsApp. The ‘Sandes’ app will also allow users to backup their chat in their ‘preferred’ external location including email ID, unlike WhatsApp which either lets you backup in Google Drive (Android) or iCloud (Apple).
However, once signed-up with a particular phone number or email ID, the user won’t be able to change it. This is where WhatsApp is slightly ahead of ‘Sandes’ since it allows users to change their mobile numbers without deleting their account.
