India to make headway in education with low priced laptops
By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 27 July 2010, 00:28 IST   |    6 Comments
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India to make headway in education with low priced laptops
Bangalore: With an aim of every Indian student with a laptop, Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry's effort to bring out $30 laptops has invited lot of criticisms. Even though some of the Indian media bring an excitement to the whole scenario by calling it as India's yet another cheapest invention after designing the world's cheapest passenger car Tata Nano. Whereas some of the western media hesitant to call it as a laptop, "it doesn't appear to be a laptop at all, instead, it seems to be a small (10 inches by 5 inches) "storage device" with a bunch of wires emerging from it," reports Gizmodo. Whether it is $10, $20 or $30 all of them are doubtful about the success. Until now the China-based electronic equipment manufacturer MenQ hold the credit of world's cheapest laptop EasyPC E790. India is trying to break the credits by bringing out $30 laptop with key features like touch screen display, Built in keyboard, 2GB RAM, Wi-Fi connectivity, USB support, runs on solar power besides conventional power sources, supports multimedia, web conferencing and Linux OS. In 2009, MenQ launched $80 laptop successfully. But it took one year for India to unveil a prototype of $30 laptop. The availability and distribution is the major concern of the hour. In 2008, the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras worked on the the development of the low-cost laptop. There was certainly a distinct lack of enthusiasm on part of the government agencies in India towards the idea of OLPC project. $30 laptop should not be a repetition like OLPC.

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