‘BharOS’ Made-In-India Operating System For Mobile Phones

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India took another giant leap towards digitalisation. The country’s first indigenous mobile operating system BharOS was tested for the first time by the Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Minister of Communications, Electronics & IT Ashwini Vaishnaw. The Department of Science and Technology financially supported the J and K Operations Pvt. Lmt, a firm of IIT- Madras, for this mission. stem.

BharOS, Made In India Operating System

Bharat Operating System is a new open-source operating system developed by IIT Madras. It is designed to replace the use of foreign-made operating systems in government-owned devices and networks, with the goal of increasing the country’s digital sovereignty and reducing dependence on foreign technology.

“One of the key features of BharOS is its ability to work seamlessly with a wide range of Indian languages. This allows government employees and citizens to use the operating system in their native language, making it more accessible and user-friendly.”

Product	BharOS
Based on	Android Open Source Project (AOSP)
Category	Mobile Operating System
Firm	J and K Operations Private Limited (JandKops)
Set	Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT)
Funded by	Department of Science and Technology, Government of India
Announcement	19th January 2023
Testing	24th January 2023
Launch	TBA

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Features of the BharOS

These are a few characteristics of this operating system which are quite striking to the audience:

• BharOS is more secure and provides privacy to the user.
• It does not have Pre-installed apps, following the NDA (No Default App) protocol.
  • This feature will let the users be the sole decision-maker regarding the apps they wish to keep on their devices.
  • Various default apps, like google maps and Gmail, as long as the user doesn’t want them.
• Private App Store Services or PASS will ensure only safe/privacy-oriented apps are available for the user.
• NOTA or Natively Over the Air feature is provided for direct download and installation of the applications in the devices.
• Other characteristics include encrypted file storage, sandboxing and kernel patch protection.
• For Privacy advancements, developers of BharOS have provided a secure boot loader, secure boot process and secured update techniques.

Different between BharOS and Android

Google’s Andriod is being compared to the recently developed BharOS by most. The currently dominating Operating system- Andriod, is based on Android Open Source Project (AOSP), just like BharOS.

The difference between the two is that BharOs does not have any pre-installed applications like Google Maps, Gmail and Google Meet etc., While Android doesn’t reply to the NDA policy of the new Operating System. The user gets all these applications previously installed when they buy the device Operated by the Andriod.

Current Status of BharOS

Those who have already used this AOSP claim that BharOS is not only different but also better than the other Operating Systems. Once the project is up and operating, it might compete with the current OS in the market. Union Ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and Dharmendra Pradhan tested BharOS on Tuesday. The event turned out to be a great success.

The BharOS is currently working with DuckDuckGo as a default search engine and Signal as a messaging application. Developers have not yet announced the availability of downloading the indigenous operating system. For now, the customers of BharOs are limited to companies having confidentiality and security necessities. BharOS is presently inaccessible to ordinary individuals.

Frequently Asked Questions