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India has scrapped an order making it mandatory for smartphone makers to preload a state-run cyber safety app on new phones after a public furore.

The order gave smartphone makers 90 days to pre-load new phones with its new Sanchar Saathi app which could not be “disabled or restricted”, sparking privacy and surveillance concerns.

The government argued the move was necessary to verify the authenticity of handsets, but cybersecurity experts said it impinged on citizens’ right to privacy.

Withdrawing the order on Wednesday, the government cited the app’s “increasing acceptance”. It came after Apple and Samsung had reportedly resisted the directive to pre-install it on their devices.

So far 14 million users have downloaded the app, reporting 2,000 frauds daily, and on Tuesday alone 600,000 new users registered – a tenfold spike, according to India’s telecom ministry.

But the order – passed last week but made public on Monday – to make the registration mandatory had led to a major backlash from several cybersecurity experts.

Smartphone giants like Apple and Samsung also resisted the directive to pre-install the app on their phones.

Sources told the BBC the companies were concerned the directive was issued without prior consultation and challenged user privacy norms.

While the order has now been withdrawn, India’s Minister of Communications Jyotiraditya Scindia dismissed concerns that the app could be used to increase surveillance.

“Snooping is neither possible nor will it happen with the Sanchar Saathi safety app,” Scindia said.

The government’s decision to reverse the order was welcomed by digital advocacy groups.

“This is a welcome development, but we are still awaiting the full text of the legal order that should accompany this announcement, including any revised directions under the Cyber Security Rules, 2024,” the Internet Freedom Foundation said on X.

“For now, we should treat this as cautious optimism, not closure, until the formal legal direction is published and independently confirmed.”

Astronomers in India say their discovery of a massive galaxy from when the Universe was only 1.5 billion years old challenges our understanding of how galaxies were formed in the early period after the Big Bang.

Simply put, if the Universe is 13.8 billion years old, it means we’re seeing a galaxy from 12 billion years ago when the cosmos was only one-tenth of its current age.

Scientists say galaxies that formed so early were found to be mostly irregular in shape and chaotic.

But when researchers Rashi Jain and Yogesh Wadadekar used James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to peer into the Universe’s early past, they spied a “fully-formed spiral galaxy – a massive, beautifully structured cosmic pinwheel”.

Their research was published in Astronomy and Astrophysics, a leading European journal, in November.

“The galaxy looks remarkably similar to our own Milky Way, despite being present when the universe was only 10% of its current age,” said Prof Wadadekar, adding that they’ve named it Alaknanda after a Himalayan river.

The galaxy was spotted by Ms Jain, a PhD researcher at the Pune-based National Centre for Radio Astrophysics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (NCRA-TIFR) earlier this year.

Ms Jain says she was “really excited” when she spotted the galaxy while poring over the data and images from James Webb, the $10bn telescope launched jointly by the US, European and Canadian space agencies in 2021.

“I had been looking at details of 70,000 objects and there was only one there that was a grand design spiral galaxy, spanning approximately 30,000 light-years in diameter,” she says.

In simple words, it means that the galaxy had two symmetrical arms emanating from a disc at the centre, wrapping around a bright central bulge, she explains.

“We could see the typical ‘beads-on a-string’ pattern which is like clusters of stars along the spiral arms, similar to what we see in nearby spiral galaxies today.”

When she told her supervisor Prof Wadadekar, his initial reaction was of disbelief. “It’s astonishing how such a large galaxy with spiral arms could have existed just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang,” he told the BBC.

“This galaxy had to assemble 10 billion solar masses of stars and simultaneously form a large disc with spiral arms in just a few hundred million years. That’s incredibly rapid by cosmic standards,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is starting a two-day visit to India, where he will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and attend an annual summit held by both countries.

Delhi and Moscow are expected to sign a number of deals during the visit, which comes months after the US increased pressure on India to stop buying Russian oil.

It also comes as US President Donald Trump’s administration holds a series of talks with Russia and Ukraine in an attempt to end the war.

India and Russia have been close allies for decades and Putin and Modi share a warm relationship. Here’s a look at why they both need each other – and what to watch for as they meet.

By Steve Rosenberg

Why are relations with India key for the Kremlin?

Well, for a start, look at the numbers:

• a population of nearly a billion and a half.

• economic growth exceeding 8%. India is the world’s fastest growing major economy.

That makes it a hugely attractive market for Russian goods and resources – especially oil.

India is the world’s third largest consumer of crude oil and has been buying large volumes from Russia. That wasn’t always the case. Before the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, only 2.5% of India’s oil imports were Russian.

That figure jumped to 35% as India took advantage of Russian price discounts prompted by sanctions against Moscow and Russia’s restricted access to the European market.

India was happy. Washington less so.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration slapped an additional 25% tariff on Indian goods, arguing that by purchasing oil from Russia, India was helping to fund the Kremlin’s war chest. Orders from India for Russian oil have since dropped. President Putin will be keen for India to keep buying.

For Moscow, weapons sales to India are another priority and have been since Soviet times. Ahead of Putin’s visit, there were reports that India plans to purchase state-of-the-art Russian fighter jets and air defence systems.

Russia, hit by a labour shortage, also sees India as a valuable source of skilled workers.

But there’s geopolitics at play, too.

The Kremlin enjoys demonstrating that Western efforts to isolate it over the war in Ukraine have failed.

Flying to India and meeting Prime Minister Modi is one way of doing that.

So is travelling to China and holding talks with Xi Jinping, as Putin did three months ago. He met Modi on the same trip. The image of the three leaders smiling and chatting together sent a clear message that, despite the war in Ukraine, Moscow has powerful allies who support the concept of a “multi-polar world”.

Russia lauds its “no limits partnership” with China.

It is just as vocal about its “special and privileged strategic partnership” with India.

That is a stark contrast to Moscow’s strained relationship with the European Union.

“I think the Kremlin is sure that the West, including Europe, totally failed,” believes Novaya Gazeta columnist Andrei Kolesnikov.

“We are not isolated, because we have connections to Asia and the Global South. Economically, this is the future. In that sense Russia returned as the main actor in these parts of the globe, like the Soviet Union. But even the Soviet Union had special channels and connections to the US, West Germany and France. It had a multi-vector policy.