Jul 30 2008
India targets cheapest laptop at $10
After giving the cheapest car to the world, India is on its way to provide cheapest laptop at a mere cost of $10. Yes! It is unbelievable but Minister of State for Human Resource Development D. Purandeswari said on Tuesday that research was being conducted to develop the laptop, especially for use by students, which will cost all of $10.
She said that the development of cheap laptop will combat problems like the low computer literacy and e-learning not only in India, but also the world over.
“Research in this direction is being already carried out at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras,” she told the e-India annual summit on information and communication technologies.
At present, the cheapest laptop range not less than $100. It is at least 10 times costlier. The “Xo” sold by the Massachusetts-based non-government organization ‘One Laptop Per Child Foundation’ sells for $188.
However, India did not sign up for the ‘One Laptop Per Child program’ after officials in the education ministry decided that giving a computer to every child is “pedagogically suspect”, and may actually be detrimental to the growth of the creative and analytical abilities of the child.
But Reliance Communications has been doing pilots of the OLPC in India since last year.
Earlier this year, Tata group has developed Rs 1 lakh car, the Nano which get famous not only in India but all over the world.
