Laptop at Rs.1,500: It's secure and intelligent future for India

Updated on: Wednesday, August 04, 2010

There are no doubts that India has been known world over for its good standard of education. And all of this is much evident from a large number of overseas students who come flocking down to India to pursue higher education. IIMs and IITs already have carved themselves into globally known brands known for their impeccable curriculums, structure of studies and the quality of education.

It seems that India is all set to become a nation which provides educational solutions for the world in the coming future. The Human Resource Department of the Indian Government has always been appreciated for its innovations. Earlier, in an effort to compete with efforts of Nicholas Negroponte of MIT who came out with a laptop costing $100; HRD announced the launch of $10 laptop which was a huge disappointment.

It was more of an external storage device than being a laptop. However, this time, HRD is out with something that is hoped to revolutionize the education system in India and later, hopefully the world. Kapil Sibbal, HRD Minister has launched a $35 laptop which is expected to fulfil the needs of the students right from the Primary section to the University level who are unable to afford notebooks available at exorbitant prices in the market.

An interesting thing to note here is that the government hopes to bring down the price to $10 for which it is in talks with the Global manufacturers. And if that happens, it would be the worldâ€™s cheapest laptop. After knocking many doors and being turned down, finally it was the brains and experts from none other than IITs all over the country who showed interest to manufacture a low cost motherboard.

Eventually, it was a student of VIT who came up with a motherboard design which was later fabricated at IIT Kanpur. It is believed that this step will act as a catalyst in the countryâ€™s economic growth. The Manipur Government has been enthusiastic enough by announcing a buyout of 75,000 such laptops for the stateâ€™s students. We hope that other states will follow the suit. This Linux based computing device which is targeted to hit the markets next year, will aid in giving students the required technical skills and a better education.

Interestingly, this device would be a 5/7/9 inch Touchscreen device looking like a hybrid of apple iPad and iPhone. It would come with internet browsers, PDF reader, video conferencing facilities, open office, sci-lab, media player, remote device management capability, multimedia input-output interface option and multimedia content viewer.

It will have a 2 GB RAM memory, wi-fi connectivity and the most interesting part! a solar panel to charge the device. The HRD will largely focus on the 11 Crore students who are covered under the Sarvya siksha Abhiyan and probably that is the reason that the department has tried to keep the costs low. This laptop which has been nick named â€œSakshatâ€ might not be one laptop youâ€™d like to boast about having, but it sure is something which would be helpful in the sense that it would provide internet accessibility which has become so important these days.

After all, people donâ€™t depend on bookish knowledge only these days. Itâ€™s rightly said that â€œFormal education helps you earn a living but self education helps you earn a fortuneâ€. And internet happens to be a source where one finds knowledge abound. It seems like the golden times are going to visit us soon.

Laptop at Rs.1,500: It's secure and intelligent future for India

More Education news