Supposed to be active from the beginning of the year
NavIC is India’s own GPS system but it needs a compatible phone and so far all the NavIC phones beebom can find are Chinese and run on Android 
Unless our govt follows up regularly, phone companies won’t move. Recently there was news that an Indian company made a NaviC-based chip, so hopefully, costs too should come down a bit.
Military implications
The Garmin handsets issued to soldiers during Kargil were not accurate because the Americans switched off the GPS signals in some areas. Leading to us having to source Russian GPS equipment
Lots of indigenous tech has gone into NavIC 
16:00 Giri says phones made after 2018-19 are already compatible with NavIC. hmm, they don’t advertise that feature though. We will know soon enough.
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Govt did give an order to that effect reg compatibility of phones. But the chips are missing, someone has to make them right? No word on that till date, you only hear GPS GLONASS mostly