154 - Punjab govt to distribute Aakash tablets among students in rural areas - Tech 2

Punjab govt to distribute Aakash tablets among students in rural areas

29 May, 2013 | by tech2 News Staff 

In its attempt to strengthen higher education in the rural areas of Punjab, the state government has said that 1.5 lakh students here would be given Aakash tablets from this session, at a cost of Rs 110 crores.  Chief Parliamentary Secretary (Education) Inderbir Singh Bolaria said in Amritsar, that the education sector was a priority for the SAD-BJP government. By distributing these tablets among students from the rural areas, the government is looking to make them aware about the use of technology in education these days.  To cost Govt Rs 110 crores Just this month, Aakash tablet manufacturer, Datawind announced the completion of delivery of 100,000 units of its low-cost tablet - Aakash 2. The total delivery included 98,000 Aakash 2 devices and 2,000 units of tablets with DataWind’s recommendations for Aakash 3, at a price of Rs 2,263. One of the world’s cheapest tablets, the tablet is spec'd competitively in comparison to other low-cost slates and is said to be half the price of a similarly-outfitted tablet in the market.  The 7-inch WVGA display is manufactured at India’s only touch-screen manufacturing facility in Amritsar. Under the hood of the Aakash 2 is a Cortex-A8 1Ghz processor of the same calibre as the original iPad; in addition, there is 512MB of RAM.  DataWind announced that it had completed deliveries of its pre-paid backlog with less than one percent of pre-paid backlog customers pending, due to lack of courier coverage or contact information.  News Sources