Taiwanese manufacturer HTC will launch India’s first smartphone on Tuesday that will run on Google’s Android operating system. The device would be priced at Rs 25,000. Bharti Airtel will be the exclusive carrier. 

The device is likely to provide a tough competition to the present smartphone offerings like Apple’s iPhone and Nokia’s N97. A source from Google has said that Android is an open-source system available freely and anybody could use without Google’s involvement.

Android is a software platform for mobile devices, netbooks inclusive. It is based on Linux OS. Google is the original creator, though it is officially administered by consortium of companies known as Open Handset Alliance. The code for the platform can be written using a flavour of java programming language. Some people have criticised Android for not being 100% open source and accusing Google of keeping some constituents of the code under exclusive rights in order to have a control on it.

The phone will not be branded a Google Phone like HTC Dream was, during its launch late last year in US as T-Mobile G1. HTC has also launched ‘Magic’ identical to the Dream except for a touch-screen keyboard in lieu of sliding one.

The phone was not as popular as Apple iPhone in the US, but is expected to be Apple’s toughest competition. G1’s main feature is the wireless syncing ability with Google applications like Gmail, GTalk, and calendar.