India tests local mobile operating system BharOS

NEW DELHI: India's government tested locally developed mobile operating system BharOS, a move seen as an improvement on the dominance of Google's Android just days after the US giant suffered a major antitrust setback in the country.

The government endorsement of the operating system comes after Google lost its fight in India's Supreme Court to block an antitrust order that will force the company to change how it markets its Android operating system.

We have a long way to go, but if this happens, monopoly by anybody will go away, said Dharmendra Pradhan, India's skill development and entrepreneurship minister, at the BharOS testing event in New Delhi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been pushing for self-reliance to boost and promote everything from local manufacturing to domestic startups.

The operating system was developed by a startup in the Indian Institute of Technology in southern India.

India is the world's second biggest smartphone market, where 97 per cent of 600 million smartphones are run on Android, according to Counterpoint Research estimates.

The Competition Commission of India has said that Google has exploited its dominant position in Android, an allegation that the company denies, and has sought a series of changes in the way it operates.

Google has been asked to remove restrictions on device makers, including those related to pre-installation of apps.

The directives could slow the growth of the Android ecosystem in India and force the company to change arrangements with more than 1,100 device manufacturers, it warned.

Google did not respond to a request for comment.