China, noted for its cheap electronics knock-offs of international brands, will face a ban of sale of their products in India.

India and China have forever been at loggerheads with each other, this despite the mutual international participation in recent regional platforms such as BRIC (Brazil, India, Russia and China) and to a lesser extent SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation). Even the recent joint military exercises and the Naval Fleet review have done little to defrost the icy relations between the two.

Getting back to topic, India has upped the cold-war by banning “cheap copy-cat Chinese mobile phones and accessories.” This move is apparently part of India’s efforts to tackle terrorism (as Chinese phones do not have IMEI numbers and are difficult to track) but it may have also spawned from the lobbying by Nokia and other handset makers who are tired of losing out to cheap copies of their phones being made and sold by China. An institutional hatred against China could also be part of the motivation behind this extreme step.

The Indian Cellular Association purports that some of the phones coming in from China make use of faulty batteries that can blow up on users which is a major safety hazard.

The number of knockoff phones being imported from China is over a million every month. This ban could severely affect even local vendors here.

So this is your last chance to buy a BlockBerry or a Mokia or a uPhone before stocks run out.