The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) announced the winners of the Indian Web Browser Development Challenge, where a solution designed by homegrown IT services company Zoho won the first prize. Solutions developed by Team PING,, and Team Ajna came in second and third, respectively. Speaking on the occasion, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw emphasised Government of India’s broader vision of transforming India into a "product nation" from a service nation, that is self-reliant in technology, hardware and software solutions. The minister also urged the need to accelerate the journey from innovation to large-scale productisation, enabling the widespread adoption of homegrown digital solutions and encouraging startups and industry to develop competitive, secure, and scalable technologies that contribute to India’s self-reliance. The challenge contained three progressive stages—ideation, prototype, and productisation—and required designing the browser with a spectrum of critical features, including a dedicated trust store with CCA India Root certificate, digital signing within the browser, child-friendly browsing, parental controls, seamless compatibility with all official Indian languages, Web3 support, and cutting-edge browser capabilities. 434 teams registered for the challenge, with eight teams making it to the final stage, where their innovations were evaluated by a jury, per an official statement.
