'BharOS': IIT Madras Incubated Firm Develops India's Indigenous Mobile Operating System

An Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras)-incubated firm has developed an Indigenous Mobile Operating System, called BharOS, that can be installed on commercial off-the-shelf handsets.

The BharOS was successfully tested on Tuesday (24 January) by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Union Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.

"There will be difficulties in this journey and there are many people around the world who will bring difficulties and will not want any such system to be successful," Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on the indigenous mobile operating system, reports India TV.

The BharOS was developed by JandK Operations Private Limited (JandKops), which has been incubated by IIT Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation, a Section 8 (Not for Profit) Company established by IIT Madras.

The Foundation is funded by the Central government's Department of Science and Technology (DST) under its National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NMICPS).

BharOS comes with No Default Apps (NDA), which means that users are not forced to use apps that they may not be familiar with or that they may not trust.

Additionally, this approach allows users to have more control over the permissions that apps have on their device, as they can choose to only allow apps that they trust to access certain features or data on their device.

BharOS Services are currently being provided to organisations that have stringent privacy and security requirements whose users handle sensitive information that requires confidential communications on restricted apps on mobiles. Such users require access to private cloud services through private 5G networks.