Preinstall Mandates Backfire in India

India issued a secret directive requiring phone makers to ship iPhones and others with a government app preinstalled and non‑removable, then rescinded it within a week after privacy uproar and vendor resistance. The episode produced a spike in user registrations from the controversy and left civil‑society groups demanding formal legal clarifications before trusting future moves. — This episode is an early, concrete sample of how states try to convert devices into governance instruments and how public backlash, privacy concerns, and platform leverage can force reversals — a pattern that will shape digital sovereignty debates worldwide.