WebView textarea doesn't pop up the keyboard

The full solution is a bit more than what Sana had. It is documented as a bug over at the Android site ( http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=7189 ):

webView.requestFocus(View.FOCUS_DOWN);
webView.setOnTouchListener(new View.OnTouchListener()
{
    @Override
    public boolean onTouch(View v, MotionEvent event)
    {
        switch (event.getAction())
        {
            case MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN:
            case MotionEvent.ACTION_UP:
                if (!v.hasFocus())
                {
                    v.requestFocus();
                }
                break;
        }
        return false;
    }
});

The problem was that webview wasn't getting focus when it was loaded hence using

webView.requestFocus(View.FOCUS_DOWN);

solved the problem.