Indian official Kapil Sibal unveils the $35 tablet for students in New Delhi. (AFP/Getty Images)
India has unveiled a $35 computer prototype as part of its program to provide connectivity to its students and teachers at affordable prices.
Kapil Sibal, the country’s human resources development minister, displayed what he called a low-cost computing and access device in New Delhi on Thursday. The ministry said the price would gradually fall to $10 a piece.
India said connectivity to all its colleges and universities is key to achieving its education goals.
Home to a billion-plus population, the country’s literacy rate stands at 65 percent, according to the 2001 census figures.
Nevertheless, the South Asian nation has made giant strides in various areas since it opened up its economy in the early 1990s.
The country ushered in a telecom revolution that delivered mobile telephony to nearly 600 million people in just a little more than a decade with highly competitive call tariffs.
Now, India is preparing for another leap into the digital world.
Recently, it auctioned off its airwaves for third-generation services to enable super-fast multimedia streaming of wireless.
The move is aimed at bringing India’s online market on a par with its booming cell-phone business through Internet penetration with technology allowing quick access, data transfer and entertainment on mobile handsets.
The country has announced plans to link up all its 250,000 village councils by 2012 in a bid to plug massive broadband divides between rural and urban communities as it emerges as one of the world’s few growth markets.
Authorities say technical institutions involved in designing the new device are now setting up research to address price and quality issues in developing budget gadgets for students.
“The aim is to reach such devices to the students of colleges and universities, and to provide these institutions a host of choices of low-cost access devices around Rs 1,500 ($35) or less in near future,” the human resources ministry said at the launch of the computer.
Ministry spokeswoman Mamata Varma said the government aimed to introduce the new touch-screen computing tool at higher educational institutions in 2011.
The ministry, she said, is expected to tender out contracts to private companies for mass production of its prototype.
The Linux-based computer is equipped with an Internet browser, a PDF reader and several other facilities, she said.
In other news, China will rip off the technology and then sell the device here as an authentic Steve Jobs creation.
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SPAM!
how do I get one, I’ll give even more $40,
things alreday started going around at the full blow, is it because of outsourcing?
Yea and when does the US get to have a computer that is this cheap
This is awesome! How much money is Apple ripping us off with ? LOL I just found a pretty funny website, peopleofthemta.com .. Has anyone ever been on it ? HysTerical !!! Just fanned them on facebook
I’m sure this exact same tablet PC would be sold in America for $450 because we’re sheeple who will buy ANYTHING if it looks cooler than what our friends/neighbors own. We’re a nation of idiot consumers who pay high prices because we’re told to.
And why does the Ipod cost 10 times as much?
… becuase if it wasn’t that expensive the Apple faithful wouldn’t stand in line to buy it. The price would be to low and the unclean non Apple faithful would own one and the Apple look at me cool factor would be diminished.
It appears that the government of India has a keener interest in the education of their population that the US. What about inexpensive computers for our students?
Deborah: Because they would then learn something and not vote for the next Blago.
On the other hand, if the inexpensive computers are used to reply to newspaper comment boards in the same manner as is done by illiterates now (with lacking knowledge of the difference between there, their and they’re and the use of apostrophes being the tip of the iceberg) it would expose how ineffective our schools really are. However, then poor students could lol and omg us.
deborah, are you a brain dead moron? the liberal fascists don’t want the kids who attend their politically controlled public schools to learn anything worthwhile. yet they (teacher unions, left wing politicians, etc) keep saying the problem is the schools don’t get enough of the taxpayers money to run their schools properly. Now if you believe that you are a brain dead moron!!
OH MY GOD *THEY* ARE OUT TO GET US. IF IT WASN’T FOR THE LIBRALS, WE WOULD ALL HAVE $10 COMPUTERS AND A MOVIE WOULD STILL COST A NICKEL! SOMEONE NEEDS TO STOP THE LIBRALS!
Hysterical, maybe you should get a browser with a spell checker, and a computer with a shift key. I think you illustrate what others say about public education.
A liberal who spells it librals. She needs an IndiaPad.
Consider me skeptical– until it’s actually being sold for $35. (in India or anywhere else, and NOT including any government subsidies), why would anyone believe this story?
sowhatandmetoo, please look up satire. It’s pretty obvious that I was ridiculing tea-party types who blame every problem in their life (including, apparently, “problems” such as the fact that India might have something better than us) on libErals. Those people are stupid, hence, can’t spell. See: your typical tea party protest sign.
To paraphrase an esteemed poster above, NOW IF YOU CAN’T UNDERSTAND THAT THEN YOU ARE A BRAIN DEAD MORON!!
Ugh, someone — can’t remember who — once said that a joke is like a frog; you can dissect it, but the thing is destroyed in the process.
There we go fighting again. I wonder why everything ends up a political issue here. Even Science or Technology. Inventions don’t need politics or marketing. Just smart brains…..
The modern day equivalent of India Ink.
please let me know how to received one