Google restores Indian apps

FE Team
| Published: March 03, 2024 23:49:47

NEW DELHI, Mar 03 (Hidustan Times): Google has reinstated all Indian applications that were previously removed, according to sources.
This development reportedly follows a meeting between Union Minister of Electronics, Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, and Google officials.
Google had previously removed several Indian mobile applications from the Play Store due to a dispute over service fees.
On Friday, apps from 10 Indian companies, including Bharatmatrimony and Naukri, were removed, causing controversy in one of Google’s rapidly expanding markets.
India has expressed a clear stance on the protection of its startups. The country’s policy is firm, intending to provide the necessary protection to its entrepreneurial ventures.
In light of recent events, Minister Vaishnaw has reached out to Google and the app developers who have been delisted. A meeting is scheduled for next week to address this issue. Vaishnaw emphasised that such delisting is unacceptable.
Google on Saturday restored all Indian apps it had removed, following intervention by the Narendra Modi government, ANI reported. Union minister of electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw has called a meeting with the search engine giant on Monday.
The action comes after Vaishnaw in a strong stance said that the delisting of apps from Google Play Store is not permitted. “India is very clear, our policy is very clear…our startups will get the protection that they need,” the minister had said.
“I have already called Google…I have already called the app developers who have been delisted, we will be meeting them next week. This cannot be permitted…This kind of delisting cannot be permitted,” Vaishnaw added.
On Saturday, Google had informed the bourses that five apps from Info Edge i.e Naukri.com, Naukri Recruiter, Naukrigulf, 99acres and Shiksha had been delisted from the Play Store. The search engine giant had cracked down on apps from 10 Indian developers for not complying with the payments policy.
Searches on Google Play Store had revealed that apps like Shaadi, Matrimony.com, Bharat Matrimony, Altt Balaji, Kuku FM were among the apps removed by the tech giant.
Bharat Matrimony founder Murugavel Janakiraman had described the move as “dark day” for the Internet in India, Kuku FM Co-founder Vinod Kumar Meena in a statement had said that Google was behaving like a ‘monopoly’.
“I have raised concerns on the dominance of Google in the past, it controls more than 90 per cent of the app ecosystem in India, the fact that they are a vertically integrated large company, we are concerned that their dominance does stifle competitions and startups, and it can be misused against startups, and there are some legitimate concerns that the government has,” Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar had said.