The joy of Android developers in India has been very short-lived: Google has removed India from the list of countries where app-makers are allowed to publish paid apps to the Google Play store. A couple of days ago, as we had reported, the company had included India in the list. Programmers here are now again limited to publishing free apps. If they do want to publish apps and get paid, they will have to resort to well-known but tedious methods.

One way is to circumvent the restriction by creating a US bank account in the name of a relative. Another is to go to the extent of floating a company in the US. This is not possible for most developers, though, and Google's backtracking will be met with much disappointment.

I believe that by turning its back on the vast community of Indian developers, Google has let go of a potent way to increase the number of apps in Google Play. Apple continues to dominate with the largest number of apps, in its iTunes Store, while Microsoft has started taking initiatives to catch up with its Windows Phone Marketplace — currently at a distant third spot.

TAGS: Apps, Internet, E-Commerce, Android, Google, Jayesh