Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauds Kabaddi players for requesting citizens to download Aarogya Setu app

At a time when India is observing a complete lockdown in order to combat the threat of the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has thanked the country's Kabaddi players for asking citizens to download the goverment's Arogya Setu mobile application which could help in the fight against the COVID-19.

On Wednesday, Pro Kabbadi League (PKL) franchise U Mumba posted a video in which their four players namely Ajinkya Kapre, Athul MS, Surinder Singh and Abhishek Singh could be seen urging their countrymen to stay home and download the app in order to stay informed regarding the coronavirus.

"Our players have an important appeal to make to our fans. Download the Aargoya Setu app and stay informed about #Covid19. #StayHome मैं सुरक्षित। हम सुरक्षित। भारत सुरक्षित | (I am safe, We are safe, India is safe)," U Mumba tweeted along with the video.

Reacting to the same, Prime Minister Modi too took to his official Twitter handle and praised the Kabaddi players for their appeal to citizens to follow the basic guidelines to fight the novel pandemic.

"Trust our Kabaddi players to know a thing or two about giving a good fight.And here, they are telling you what will help in the fight against COVID-19," he wrote.

Trust our Kabaddi players to know a thing or two about giving a good fight.

And here, they are telling you what will help in the fight against COVID-19. https://t.co/2oR0OVrHlX — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 16, 2020

The application, which is available on both Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store, uses location data to point out people that have come in close proximity with anyone who has tested positive for coronavirus COVID-19.

Aarogya Setu requests for access to location at all times and also seeks Bluetooth access after download. Once these permissions are granted by the user, the app requests for some basic information which helps it in building data about the users. The information includes age, gender, name, health status and also asks for the countries that the user has been to in the past few weeks. 

On April 14--the last day of the 21-day lockdown,the Prime Minister further extended the lockdown till May 3 in a bid to combat the COVID-19 that has affected more than 12,400 persons in India and claimed the lives of 423 persons so far.