Yesterday HRD Minister Mr. Kapil Sibal launched a $35 laptop means Rs.1500/- laptop designed by experts of IIT, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Mr. Sibal also announced that at the current price point of $35, there would be 50% subsidy to educational institutions, which will effectively bring down the cost to only Rs750. Govt. is planning to give the above laptop under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan which is covering crores of students. This laptop will be charged by an sleeker solar panel and Rs.1500 cost does not include solar panel cost. This laptop do not have a hard drive and support only video-web conferencing facility. It also have several latest features like multimedia content viewer (pdf, docx, ods, adp, xls, jpeg, gif,png, bmp, odt, zip, AVCHD, AVI, AC3), searchable Pdf reader, unzip for unzipping files, computing capabilities such as Open Office, SciLab for printing support, media player capable of playing streamed along with stored media files, USB port etc. Initially it will be manufactured in Taiwan and later on in India.
It seems that in coming years laptop will be sold on every street corner by street hawkers because it is available at very nominal price and every child will become a technocrat using this laptop.
This invention will bring a major change not only in technical market but in education sector and reduce the pollution because we are able to save thousand of trees and in turn our forests and animals leaving in these forests.
GOOD INITIATIVES AND BEST OF LUCK TO MR. SIBAL AND IIT, IISC EXPERTS.