India, BlackBerry to meet April 21 on security fears

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The Indian government will hold its next meeting with BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion next week, a government official said on Tuesday, as the two sides look for a way to meet India's security concerns.

India's Ministry of Telecommunications has written to RIM (RIM.TO)(RIMM.O) asking for servers to be installed in India, which it says would help agencies monitor BlackBerry services.

"The next meeting is on April 21. BlackBerry experts are working to reach at a solution which is acceptable to the security agencies," the telecoms ministry spokeswoman told Reuters. "The status quo continues."

The government has held a series of meetings with RIM and mobile operators after it emerged security officials were worried that emails sent through BlackBerry devices could not be traced or intercepted.

Satchit Gayakwad, RIM's spokesman for India, restated the Canadian company's position that it would not comment on confidential regulatory matters.

BlackBerry services are offered in India by four providers, Vodafone (VOD.L), Bharti Airtel (BRTI.BO), Reliance Communications (RLCM.BO) and BPL Mobile.

Gayakwad said BlackBerry's worldwide user base had reached 14 million at the end of March, from 12 million in December.

Research In Motion would not give India-specific subscriber figures, but an analyst has said there are more than half a million BlackBerry users in India.

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy, Editing by Mark Williams)