Aakash Tablet

Aakash Tablet Gets Rs 765 Crore – Budget 2012

Moderator — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 12:52:07 +0000

Popularly known as the world’s cheapest tablet, Aakash tablet project has been provided about Rs 765 crore in Union Budget 2012-2013, which is expected to start the second phase of the Aakash project to start in April 2012, though the first phase is still stuck in a gridlock.

The assignment for Aakash has been made through ICT of Ministry of Human Resource and Development, under the National Mission for Education. The low-cost tablet had been launched by the mission, last year.

As per the official sources, the funds allocated for the project are sufficient for the second phase. Aakash-2 is expected to cost about Rs 569 crore to the government, for about 50 lakh Aakash tablets.

A senior government official associated with the project said, “Maximum part of the funds is expected to be used for the Aakash project. And some of the money will be used for the development of e-content.”

The government aims to acquire about 50 lakh Aakash tablets at Rs 2,276 each, in a phased manner. 50 per cent of the cost (about Rs 1,138 per tablet) will get subsidised by the central government of India. The remaining will be taken care by state governments, who wish to issue the tablets in state institutions and colleges.

The billion dollar 5-year fund allotted to NME-ICT mission expires by 31st March, 2012, which resulted in a fresh allotment by Pranab Mukherjee, Finance Minister in the Budget 2012-13. The new fund allotment comes even though IIT Rajasthan failed to use about Rs 25 crore allotted for Aakash project’s phase 1, because of its disagreement with the vendor.

According to one of the government official who is leading the Aakash project, only around 500 Aakash-1 tablets have been acquired so far. On the other hand, according to officials of Datawind, they have delivered around 10k tablets to IIT Rajasthan, and for the same they are yet to receive cash.

Disagreement over tablet specifications has added to the gridlock. President of One Laptop Per Child Foundation (another competing product in the industry), Satish Jha said, “Allotting more funds to a project that is not steady is not a reputable practice in government.”

In the meantime, the government has wiped its hands off the gridlock, stating it as a trade dispute between the two parties. However, the HRD minister, Kapil Sibal said earlier this month in Lok Sabha, that Datawind-the manufacturer of the tablet will deliver about 1 lakh enhanced tablets.

Kapil Sibal also plans to release a tender for Aakash-2 in April 2012, which is likely to be released with capacitive touchscreen and a better processor, but at the same cost.

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Aakash-II To Be Launched In April: Kapil Sibal

Moderator — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 11:58:25 +0000

A faster and enhanced version of the low-cost tablet PC, Aakash would be launched next month without increase in cost, Human Resources Development (HRD) Minister, Kapil Sibal announced today.

During Lok Sabha’s Question Hour, he said that the manufacturer of Aakash, Datawind will be supplying 100,000 high-speed tablet PCs with a better screen and a longer battery life.

“The new tablet’s better specifications that include 3200mAH battery with 3 hour battery backup, 700 MHz Cortex A8 processor and a capacitive touch screen have been required to get over the earlier issues observed in the tablets,” Sibal said.

“The first stage of 100,000 tablets was aimed for higher technical educational institutions’ students hence to add more technical feedback on usability and operation of the tablet,” he said.

In response to the demands from members for expanding the supply of the tablet PCs to school students, Sibal said that the same would be available once the anticipated National Mission of Education through ICT for Schools acquires required funds.

The minister said, once the tablets production capacities are developed, standards for supply with a plan to prioritise students’ empowerment, particularly from marginalised and disadvantaged parts of the society, via this low-cost tablet would be developed.

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Sibal Proposes To Use Aakash, Aadhaar Together To Fight Corruption

Moderator — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 13:42:51 +0000

In order to scrap corruption and prevent middlemen, HRD Minister, Communications and IT, Kapil Sibal, stated that Aadhaar from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the Aakash tablet could be used jointly.

Mr. Sibal in a speech at the India Semiconductor Association’s Vision Summit, said, “Aadhaar and Aakash can be tried together to solve many issues. Besides a law, we also need an ecosystem to decrease the corruption possibilities.”

He said that the Central Government is asking State Governments to point out the possible services that can be provided to public and said that the deadline was 5 years, which implies that the entire range of services would be offered around the country within this deadline.

He astonished whether a country could wait for 10 or 20 years for business operation to be developed and begin services like education and healthcare.

As the Aakash tablet is priced approximately Rs 2,276 for manufacturing now, he said that the price would go down to approximately Rs 1,500 in coming days as the volume increases. Of this cost, the government would subsidize 50% and the educational institution would subsidize the rest of the amount, thus guaranteeing that the tablet is offered to above 220 million students around the country.

Speaking on ESDM (Electronic Systems Design and Manufacturing), Mr. Kapil Sibal said that our nation needs a powerful policy as if it does not get one, it will be forced to trade in around $300 billion value of electronics by 2020, which is larger than the crude oil importing.

He said, “ESDM is a meta source as well, which is widely used in aviation, defense, auto and other industries, and reports for 30% of the bill of the electronic goods materials.”

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IIT Bombay Snatched The Aakash Tablet Deal From IIT Jodhpur

Moderator — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 07:22:45 +0000

IIT Bombay has been handed over with the government’s prestigious Aakash tablet deal. Disappointed with the continuous unpleasant struggle between Datawind and IIT Jodhpur over variety of features of the low-cost tablet, a dynamic committee met few days ago and decided to divest IIT Jodhpur, and Professor Prem Kalra, Director of the committee, extremely set sources confirmed.

Now, the HRD ministry will be monitoring the project further closely.

The matter is found to have placed a swirl in the IIT Jodhpur’s Board of Governors, which had a meeting a few days ago to discuss on the same. Concerned with the information on the IIT’s role in the storm on Aakash tablet, the board had requested Prem Kalra to have a presentation and clarify the circumstances. The board had come to a conclusion that it was good to hand over the project back to the Ministry.

Now, the contract for procuring 1,00,000 Aakash tablets is going to be handed over to IIT Bombay.

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ATab, 7 Inch Tablet For Educational Institutions In India For Rs. 5000

Moderator — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 06:16:29 +0000

AcrossWorld Education, the world-class Saas Company that built the first cloud-based platform in the world to change the learning methodology by facilitating universities, colleges and K-12 schools the global doorway to open educational sources, is going to launch a latest touch screen tablet in India, known as ATab, for just Rs 5000/- in collaboration with Go-Tech, a Delhi-based company. The ATab will be launched in India the month of March.

This low-cost yet stylish android tablet PC will include a 7 inch TFT touch screen, processor of 1.1 GHz, RAM of 512 MB, and an inbuilt memory of 2GB that is expandable up to 16 GB, a Wi-Fi and an external 3G USB Dongle. Apart from the hardware, at this reasonable cost, the tablet also includes a 3 year unlimited free access to innovative education technology platform of AcrossWorld Education’s EducationBridgeTM, which lets the academic institutions, students and teachers to access a wide range of content basics such as legacy content, open educational resources, open content and proprietary content resources, innovate and collaborate. It also consists of expert services for colleges and schools on ‘how to use EducationBridgeTM’ to control premium world-class educational content. The tablet PC will be launched in various color choices that will attract the youth.

CEO and President of AcrossWorld Education, Dr. Stephan Thieringer said, “With the launch of this tablet PC, Indian schools and colleges will be discovering and leveraging global educational content standards at their fingertips in the K-12 school level itself as the educational institutes in a similar way explore modern technology that offers instant access to the best educational sources in the world, specifically just within a reasonable budget.”

CEO of Go Tech said, “While comprehensive development must guarantee that access to the latest technology is pretty much available for the masses, yet offering simply the hardware is not sufficient. It must also offer access to quality learning content. By combining free and unlimited access for 3 years to AcrossWorld’s first class educational content, this tablet is not simply a book shelf, but a complete library jam-packed with the world’s top open source learning content for schools, colleges and universities. While I was studying Electrical Engineering at the University of Virginia Tech, our University Motto was, UT Proism, which means, ‘That I may serve’. Now, I am happy to have this opportunity to serve my home country with this inexpensive innovation which will pass on knowledge to the masses.”

Around a dozen colleges and schools from different parts of India such as Gujarala, Rourkela, Allahabad, Delhi and others have already showed keen interest on this to-be-launched tablet, ATab. The offices are in Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi, Bangalore and Boston. The schools that already have engaged with AcrossWorld Education include Gandhinagar Public School from Morabad, Shikhar Shishu Sadan Convent School from Dhampur, Dr. Ambedkar Memorial Institute of Technology from Rourkela, and Carmel Public School from Gaujrala.

Dr Thieringer also said, “At AcrossWorld, our aim is to make learning more accessible, affordable, and connect to educators and learners. We try to change the educational methodology by offering students knowledge of ownership over their learning.” Other than offering access to open educational sources and open content, the company’s EducationBridge also lets educational institutions to share their proprietary and legacy content by uploading it, with the students across the tablets, ATabs. Users can rate, bookmark, recommend and give feedback on open education content, hence helping the users the most helpful content, while sorting out which is not much relevant.

As of now, AcrossWorld Education already has above 5,000 users from India. In the stage of initial launch in India, the company will introduce around 10,000 tablets, which will be balanced rapidly.

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HRD Ministry Seeks Cabinet Nod For 50 Lakh Aakash-2 Tablets

Moderator — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 11:13:39 +0000

The Ministry of Human Resource Development will soon propose a Cabinet note to obtain a permit for obtaining 50 lakh Aakash tablets, which will be dispersed among college students by the end of this year, a project that may cost above Rs 110 crore.

Kapil Sibal, HRD Minister displayed the tablet, Aakash-2 last week in front of the media. Aakash-2 tablet is includes a capacitive touchscreen and a faster processor. The acquisition price of these tablets would be capped at Rs 2,276, at the same cost at which government acquired the version 1.0 of Aakash.

“We are planning to propose a tender for Aakash-2 in the next 2 months. The tender will be for around 50 lakh Aakash tablets. C-Dot and ITI will be handling the tender,” said Kapil Sibal. “The current vendor of Aakash, Datawind will have to deliver the remaining 1 lakh tablets in its current contract. It can also bid for the upcoming tender,” Minister added.

Sources reveal that a Cabinet note is getting prepared to have the money sanctioned from the Ministry of Finance, as the Rs 4,000 crore 5 year fund of National Mission for Education (NME) is going to expire by this financial year end.

“We will sanction the contract to more vendors now, as the capability of meeting 50,00,000 tablets is not possible by a single vendor. However, price will be capped at Rs 2,276 per tablet. Finally we want to handout about 220 crore tablets to students,” N.K.Sinha, Additional Secretary at HRD Ministry said.

Just around 500 tablets have been dispersed so far, he added. “There were isssues with its battery life. Hence, we have enhanced upon the features in the new version,” he added.

The government is planning to distribute 50 lakh aakash tablets by the end of this year. “Because of the limited supply, we are pushing colleges to issue them similarly as books are distributed through libraries,” he added.

Sinha also revealed that the HRD ministry’s grand project of Virtual Laboratories, which aims to offer virtual study material and lectures from IIT’s on technical subjets through online. The website vlabs.co.in will also offer online model of difficulat lab experiments. All the students can book a slot on the website online, to perform virtual experiments which need high computing control.

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Datawind Is Eligible To Bid For Aakash-2

Moderator — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 10:26:34 +0000

The progress of today’s most popular tablet PC, Aakash tablet has been puzzled with storms since its beginning, with the latest being the rumor that Datawind, the manufacturer of Aakash tablet will no more be the supplier for its orders. The company has come forward to compress such speculations and left a statement, not only emphasizing their position as the only supplier, but also confirmed that they would be supplying the upcoming tender of 50,00,000 tablets.

Putting all the rumors to break about Datawind’s position in the present order and upcoming tenders of the Ministry of HRD, the HRD minister Kapil Sibal has stated that Datawind would continue supplying the Aakash tablet and upcoming enhancements as per the present order.

The HRD minstry will engage C-DoT and ITI to secure for the future needs. Clarifying this N.K.Sinha, Additional Secretary of the Ministry said, “as the Government do not have enough capabilities, they will need to engage other players”.

Datawind is eligible to bid for Aakash-2: Kapil Sibal

Union Minister for HRD, Kapil Sibal recently announced that the manufacturer of Aakash tablet, Datawind is pretty much here and is eligible to bid for Aakash-2 tender for acquiring 50 lakh tablets, to be put in 2 months.

“The current vendor, Datawind will need to supply the remaining 1 lakh tablets in the current contract. However, it can also bid for the upcoming tender,” he added, keeping rest of the speculations that Datawind was evicted.

Future tender will be for 50,00,000 tablets

“This justifies our position that Datawind carries out to be a serious player in the Aakash tablet supply both for the current orders of the HRD Ministry and also for future tenders”, said CEO of Datawind, Suneet Singh Tuli.

“We did not have any doubts on our status in the first place. With the recent announcement from the Ministry, things have been cleared to those who were wondering”, he said.

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BSNL’s Tablet At Rs 3,250 To Compete with Aakash

Moderator — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 12:25:52 +0000

BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigham Limited) has launched 3 tablet PCs including 2 seven inch resistive screen supported tablets with operating system, Android 2.3, while the other tablet includes eight inch touchscreen.

These tablets, developed by company called Pantel based in Noida , will be available for sale with discounted plans by BSNL. The least cost model is called as Penta Tpad IS 701r and is priced at 3,250. Remarkably, Aakash tablet costs Rs 2500. But, Tpad includes better specifications than the so called low cost tablet, Aakash. The other two BSNL tablets are priced at Rs 10,999 and Rs 13,500 respectively.

Tpad is WiFi only Android 2.3 tablet with processor of 1 GHz (ARM11IMAP210) combined with RAM of 256 MB. It also provides HDMI port through which one can connect it to a Television. Its seven inch resistive screen includes resolution of 800×600 and an aspect ratio 16:9.

The tablet includes a 3000 mAh battery and an internal memory of 2 GB which is expandable with micro SD card. It also includes a VGA camera, front facing for video calling feature. Though Penta Tpad of BSNL has its brand name with it, the other two tablets do not posses the brand image.

The second BSNL tablet named as Penta Tpad_ws704c, includes similar features as its least cost model Tpad 701r, but additionally provides 3G connectivity that supports both GSM and CDMA/EVDO. It also includes Bluetooth, Accelerometer and A-GPS. It has a rear camera of 2 megapixel and also includes RAM of 512 MB for better performance.

The highest priced one among these 3 tablets is called as Tpad WS802C. It includes an eight inch capacitive touchscreen. It also includes a better processor of 1.2 GHz and RAM of 512 MB just like second tablet. Its internal memory as well is larger at 4 GB. Remaining features such as camera, Bluetooth and GPS are similar to that of 740C model.

Upgraded Aakash Tablet To Be Available At Same Price: Kapil Sibal

Moderator — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:48:03 +0000

Familiar known as world’s cheapest tablet, Aakash, will be completely indigenous shortly and the government is planning to launch it’s upgraded version at the same price.

Kapil Sibal, Telecom and HRD minister said Datawind, the manufacturer of Aakash will not be linked with it anymore and ITI and C-DAC have been roped by the government for further development of the tablet.

Sibal said, there had been some issue with Datawind, hence IT ministry had got ITI and C-DAC into the act and he ensured that the new tablet would be completely indigenous and genuinely Indian product.

When asked if the upgraded version would be available within the equal price range of previous tablet, he said, “Yes that is what we hope. Tablet is to be upgraded”.

On the likely timeline for Aakash II launch, he said 2012 should see the launch of the upgraded version. There had been some problems in the way earlier. He added that while doing this kind of projects and if the dream is as large as this, things wouldn’t be very smooth.

Welcoming competition from industry for production of the tablet PC, he said that the final aim is to offer a quality tablet to the students.

“I think it is a good if competition exists. Ultimately my aim is to provide a quality product in children’s hands. I have set the standard, it has altered the mindset of everyone globally, I can say that,” the Minister said.

Everyone today wants to develop a tablet that is of good quality and at the same time reasonably priced, he noted.

He underlined, “so if the entire world wants to offer good quality tablet at an affordable price, I don’t mind whoever develops it, if ultimately it is offered by somebody for children”.

Aakash May Soon Be Free For Students

Moderator — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:13:14 +0000

The $60 Aakash tablet, which had become the talk of the town in India, is indeed the most important topic of discussion amongst the people of India today. This education based tablet has become a dream of every student as it is highly useful as far as education is concerned. Students will be highly benefited with the usage of Aakash tablet. Now, students may be further benefited as the world’s cheapest computing tablet, Aakash, which was distributed exclusively for students across the nation at a discounted price may be available for free very soon.

The HRD minister Kapil Sibal reportedly stated the plan of government on supplying subsidy up to 50 percent to the tablet and the rest of the amount to be covered by the universities in which the students are enrolled. The institutions would take a call on the cost that they would like to recover. As per Kapil Sibal, the Government is keen on providing Aakash tablets to every student as it would be extremely useful for their educational growth and career advancement. The minister also revealed about the manufacturing plans, which would be made indigenous mainly, the components that are required for making Aakash tablets. The minister also said that there was a meeting organized with Bharat Electronics.

The government is all set to make plans in order to manufacture every component of Aakash tablet indigenously or else, it is not feasible to supply it as massively as planned as per the statement made by the HRD minister. The popularity of the Aakash tablet has already risen up to extreme heights it will increase further if at all the tablets become free for students. The HRD minister, in addition to moving the manufacturing process domestically, also wants to provide Aakash tablet to students be for free. This decision of manufacturing the components indigenously may act as a tool to save more money and as a result, the computing device can be offered at a lesser price.

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