243 - CAG pulls up HRD Ministry on Aakash tablet project - Indian Express

CAG pulls up HRD Ministry on Aakash tablet project

Press Trust Of India : New Delhi, Fri Sep 06 2013, 19:54 hrs

CAG today slammed the HRD Ministry for the shortcomings in the Aakash tablet project, raising questions over "arbitrary" selection of IIT, Rajasthan to launch the scheme without carrying out an assessment of its capacity to undertake the work.

In its report tabled in Parliament, the government auditor observed that IITR had told the Ministry that around 90 per cent of the tablets supplied by Datawind between August and November 2011 were rejected by it due to complaints in the devices such as heating and they being slow.

"The Ministry decided to launch the Aakash through the IITR without ascertaining their capacity to undertake the work. This adversely affected the project delivery. It also placed Rs 47.42 crore at IITR disposal without carrying out a prudent assessment," it said.

"This raises issues of financial propriety. This adversely affected the project delivery along with an avoidable expenditure of Rs 1.05 crore," the report said.

Under the Akash tablet project, the government has plans of distributing the low-cost access-cum-computing device (Akash) at a cost of Rs 1,500 or USD 35 to students and teachers for educational purposes.

CAG said documents suggest that the Ministry did not provide any justification for selecting IITR to execute the order and thus its selection was arbitrary.

"The audit view is further borne out by the fact that IIT Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Bombay and IISC, Bangalore had participated. However, they were overlooked and a relatively new IITR was selected ahead of others," it said.

CAG said IITR was awarded the project when it was operating from a temporary premises but the "important observation of the Finance Division was ignored."

242 - Affordable Technology To Bring Revolution In India - Silicon India

Affordable Technology To Bring Revolution In India

By SiliconIndia  |   Monday, 23 September 2013, 06:35 Hrs

All of this is going to become possible within the next two to three years as the cost of tablet computers and Smartphones drops to the Rs 1,500 level and internet access becomes cheaper and more widely available, according to Vivek Wadhwa of Times Of India.

The Indian government inadvertently triggered this revolution by sanctioning the Aakash tablet. It only ordered 1,00,000 unit, but the project got so much attention that it ended up lowering the expected base price of tablet technologies from the $400-500 that is common in the West to $35-50. This would not have happened on its own.

The manufacturer, Datawind, has become a leading tablet supplier in India and abroad. These have also been tested in American schools by disadvantaged communities and were proved to be viable.

Right now Android Smartphones by the companies like Karbonn, Micromax, Lava and others are offered at a price as low as 5, 000, and in future handsets may cost even less.

This will also trigger an e-commerce revolution that will make the U.S. dotcom boom look lame; the online shopping sites like flipkart.com, GoVasool.com may be huge like Amazon.com in U.S. Apps such as LocalCircles.com will connect neighborhoods and communities all over India, providing them with a way of solving common problems. And poorest of the poor can have new apps to teach skills and children all over India will start connecting and learning from each other. Technology will make it possible for any poor child to gain the same knowledge as the privileged anywhere in India and across the world.

And media and entertainment industry will also see a rapid change as with tablets and Smartphones becoming ubiquitous. Entrainment industries can rent the movies, and other videos online, and media may move from print to online.

241 - Affordable tablets will give the poor a voice By Vivek Wadhwa, TNN

Affordable tablets will give the poor a voice

By Vivek Wadhwa, TNN | 22 Sep, 2013, 11.37AM IST

After watching the news from India, one could easily come to the conclusion that the country has become more corrupt and its men have become more violent. Sadly, corruption and abuse of women aren't new to India. Corruption is a legacy of the British Raj.

Women all over the world are abused. What has changed is the ability of India's normally docile middle-class and its youth to speak up and demand change. That is what technology has made possible.

The technologies that allowed people to shame the government were cell phones, TV and social media. There is much more to come.

As the poor gain access to the internet through smartphones and tablets and the middle-class gets better connectivity, the country will witness nothing less than a revolution in commerce, education and social values.

Imagine villagers recording videos of bribe takers and uploading to sites such as Ipaidabribe. com, documenting the abuses they suffer at the hands of the police. Or students recording the attendance of teachers — who don't show up for work — on public websites. Or direct payments of subsidies and social benefits to the poor via Pay-Pal-style banking accounts, thereby cutting out corrupt government officials.

All of this is going to become possible within the next two to three years as the cost of tablet computers drops to the Rs 1,500 level and internet access becomes cheaper and more widely available.

The Indian government inadvertently triggered this tablet computing revolution by sanctioning the Aakash tablet. It only ordered 1,00,000 units and spent less than it would have on a junket of ministers going abroad. But this project got so much attention that it ended up lowering the expected base price of tablet technologies from the $400-500 that is common in the West to $35-50. This would not have happened on its own. Note the price of the Apple iPhone 5S. The cheapest models cost over $500.

The Aakash tablet has been mired in Indian politics, but is achieving big success in its new incarnations. The manufacturer, Datawind, has become a leading tablet supplier in India and abroad. These have also been tested in American schools by disadvantaged communities and were proved to be viable. Americans can't wait for these tablets to become available to them.

The uses of tablet technology will go far beyond giving the poor a voice. As India gets connected by fiber optic cable and mobile carriers expand data coverage, cheap tablets will find thousands of new uses.

To start with, these will trigger an e-commerce revolution that will make the US dotcom boom look lame. Companies such as GoVasool.com will become India's Amazon.com and there will be many of them. Apps such as LocalCircles.com will connect neighborhoods and communities all over India, providing them with a way of solving common problems.

There will be a revolution in education as courseware from all over the world becomes available to the poorest of the poor, new apps are developed that teach specific skills, and children all over India start connecting and learning from each other. Technology will make it possible for any poor child to gain the same knowledge as the privileged anywhere in India and across the world.

There will also be rapid changes in the media and entertainment industries as tablet devices become ubiquitous. Note how the media industry has changed in the US from print to online. The same will likely happen in India.

Cheap tablets connected to cheap sensors also open up opportunities to revolutionize health care and farming. And there will be apps for practically every task that requires the management of information. Imagine the neighborhood fruitseller emailing his customers photographs of his produce and accepting orders over the internet. Or booking rickshaws via apps like the US's Uber which does taxi rides. I won't be surprised if the poor figure out better uses of the technology than the rich do.

All of this seems like wishful thinking, but note how mobile phone usage grew exponentially in India — going from zero to 900 million devices within a decade. Tablets and internet usage will grow even faster and will have an even greater impact.

240 - Datawind To Offer Educational Content On Tablets With TES India Tie-up - Medianama

Datawind To Offer Educational Content On Tablets With TES India Tie-up

By Apurva Chaudhary on Sep 18th, 2013 

Datawind, widely known as the maker of Aakash tablet, has tied up with TES India, an online teaching community,to preload educational content to its tablets.

The partnership will provide Datawind with library of 5 lakh teaching material to its users. It appears that Datawind tablets will be preloaded with an application which allows teachers to access course materials.

TES India has learning materials for courses such as Bachelor of Arts, B.Com, B. Ed, general awareness, CBSE content, educational presentations, discussion on social topics, among others. It claims that it also provides content for special need children with different cases. Besides this, it also provides features such as employment search for teachers and locate career guide for students.

It’s not surprising that Datawind has tied up with companies that provide educational content. Previously, it worked with the Indian government for government’s ambitious project to provide students with an Android tablet. Besides this, it also has also partnered with a lot of companies for content that it pre-loads on its tablets.

Datawind content partnerships

- In April 2012, Datawind was also offering 50% discount on the annual subscription for The Indian Express and The Financial Express to the new customers of UbiSlate 7+ and 7C tablets, however there is no word if the same discount is being offered for the customers of these newly announced Android tablets as well.

-  Yahoo! Cricket and Yahoo! Mail apps. Datawind also stated it has preloaded Yahoo! India webpage onto these tablets as a portal. However it is not clear if the webpage has been set as the default browser homepage, like in the case of Ubislate 7+ and Ubislate 7C Android tablets, or it has been pre-loaded just as a browser bookmark.

- Reverie Language solutions to support over a dozen Indian languages including Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, and Punjabi/Gurmukhi among others.

- Mango Learning solutions for game based educational modules, interactive smart books and the full CBSE curriculum.

- TestBag, a testing and e-assessment solution from RKS Learning Private Ltd.

- Intelligaia finger tracing apps to teach letter writing for toddlers.

- In April 2012, Datawind had partnered with GetJar, the independent app store, to pre-install the GetJar app store on all Datawind tablets, including Aakash and UbiSlate.

Other Edu-tablets

While the Indian government’s previous attempts at the Aakash tablet looks like a dud now (Government now plans to license Aakash brand), a lot of tablet and firms in educational sector tried to cash on it by launching educational content on tablets or by launching tablets targeted at students with educational content. It’s worth noting that once the Aakash tablet project was seen fiddling, there’s been somewhat of a slowdown in companies launching educational related products on smart devices.

Greycells18 Media, the company set-up by Network18 and Educomp, which owns the Topper Learning brand in India, and runs the subscription based education channel Topper TV, and website, Topperlearning.com, had launched Android mobile apps developed for school children in classes 6th till 10th.

HCL Learning, the education and talent development division of HCL Infosystems, had launched MyEduWorld, an interactive learning app that includes school curriculum in digital format.

Previously, HCL had launched three educational tablets, My Edu Tab U1, My Edu Tab K12 and My Edu Tab HE. Apart from that, HCL had also launched a beta version of its cloud-based learning initiative, called ‘Learn On Cloud‘ which offers various personalized learning courses in the IT segment to students.

Apart from that, Pearson, the media group behind Financial Times, publishing house Penguin, and education brands like Longman, and Prentice Hall, had launched a new tablet-based education solution for schools in India, MX Touch.

EnableM, a mobile learning VAS company, had also launched Magic Pencil, a tablet-based education solution for higher education and distance education institutions.

Online publishing solutions provider Pressmart had also launched a tablet-based learning solution which allows schools and students to store and access books, study modules, assessments, and notices and also offer student, teacher, parent and admin modules to regulate the student’s school activity.

Edutor Technologies also offers its own education solution for Android tablets called ‘Augmented Classroom Solution (ACS)’ through which it offered learning material like digitized textbooks, multimedia material, interactive concept maps and assessments complementing the school syllabus on Android-based Tablets.

Vriti, an e-learning company, had partnered with Tata McGraw-Hill Education to launch free, online ‘Smart Courses’ for Engineering and Management on Android tablet devices. Minglebox also provides Android apps for CAT/MAT/XAT and AIEEE entrance exams.

Category : Education, Tablets | Tags : datawind, TES India

239 - Workshop on Applications Development for Akash Tablet at IIT Mandi - IIT Mandi

Workshop on Applications Development for Akash Tablet at IIT Mandi

Posted by chandan 

238 - IIT-Rajasthan tablet launch draws CAG flak - Deccan Herald

IIT-Rajasthan tablet launch draws CAG flak

New Delhi, Sep 9, 2013, DHNS;

Raising questions of financial impropriety, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has noted that a decision of the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry to engage IIT-Rajasthan to develop and launch low-cost Aakash tablets led to unfruitful expenditures of Rs 1.20 crore on the project from the government exchequer.

Describing the HRD Ministry’s decision to assign the task to the IIT-Rajasthan, as arbitrary, the CAG  that move the has adversely affected the project and led to delay in its delivery.

“The ministry failed to carry out a feasibility study before undertaking a project of this magnitude,” the national auditor observed in its report, tabled in Parliament on Friday.

In July 2010, the ministry announced its plan to develop and launch Aakash, a low cost access-cum-computing device, for students and teachers of higher educational institutions under the national mission on education through information and communication technology.

In the preliminary discussion of the project, other established IITs had taken part, but the ministry overlooked them and decided to assign the work to IIT-Rajasthan, which was relatively a new institution, without ascertaining the institute’s capacity to undertake such project. The ministry also bypassed the observation of the integrated finance division which had conducted an enquiry into the institute’s preparedness.

The ministry awarded the project to IIT-Rajasthan at an estimated cost of Rs 41.50 crore and released the money hastily in instalments, within a period of five months, the panel observed.

237 - Sibal looks to revive Aakash project, targets Govt schools - Hindu Businessline

Sibal looks to revive Aakash project, targets Govt schools

THOMAS K THOMAS

Suggests Rs 5,000-cr scheme to give Tablet to 90 lakh students

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 6:  

Even as the fate of Aakash tablet project hangs in the balance, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal has floated another proposal for giving tablet devices to higher secondary students in government schools across the country at a cost of Rs 5,000 crore.

The scheme will benefit some 90 lakh students who will also get for two years free 500 MB data usage, 75 SMS and 75 minutes of talk-time every month. The project will be implemented by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd in four phases spread over three years.

Justifying the project, the Telecom Department said, “Tablet devices are increasingly becoming powerful and compact tools for computation and accessing multi-media content and services available on the Internet. They can become an asset to students by providing access to education related content.”

“However, the cost of the tablet and data connection may not be affordable to students studying in government schools. Hence, government support would be necessary. The scheme will open up new opportunities for education and knowledge acquisition,” it added in a note to the Telecom Commission. The SIM card will be locked down to the device so that students will not be able to use the tablet on any other operator’s network or sell it. Each tablet is estimated to cost around Rs 4,500. Sixty per cent of the project cost will be financed by the Universal Services Obligation Fund, while the balance will come from the Government.

This comes even as the Aakash project undertaken by the Ministry of Human Resources Development has drawn flak from various agencies, including the Comptroller and Auditor General, for poor implementation and faulty product. 

The current HRD Minister, M.M. Pallam Raju, is not in favour of continuing the Aakash project and therefore Sibal could be trying to revive his brain child through DoT.

thomas.thomas@thehindu.co.in

(This article was published on September 6, 2013)

Keywords: Aakash tablet project, higher secondary students, government schools,

236 - CAG pulls up HRD Ministry on Aakash tablet project - ZEE News

CAG pulls up HRD Ministry on Aakash tablet project

Tag:    Comptroller and Auditor General, CAG, Aakash tablet

Last Updated: Friday, September 06, 2013, 18:16 

New Delhi: CAG on Friday slammed the HRD Ministry for the shortcomings in the Aakash tablet project, raising questions over "arbitrary" selection of IIT, Rajasthan to launch the scheme without carrying out an assessment of its capacity to undertake the work.

In its report tabled in Parliament, the government auditor observed that IITR had told the Ministry that around 90 per cent of the tablets supplied by Datawind between August and November 2011 were rejected by it due to complaints in the devices such as heating and they being slow. 

"The Ministry decided to launch the Aakash through the IITR without ascertaining their capacity to undertake the work. This adversely affected the project delivery. It also placed Rs 47.42 crore at IITR disposal without carrying out a prudent assessment," it said. 

"This raises issues of financial propriety. This adversely affected the project delivery along with an avoidable expenditure of Rs 1.05 crore," the report said. Under the Akash tablet project, the government has plans of distributing the low-cost access-cum-computing device (Akash) at a cost of Rs 1,500 or USD 35 to students and teachers for educational purposes. 

CAG said documents suggest that the Ministry did not provide any justification for selecting IITR to execute the order and thus its selection was arbitrary. 

"The audit view is further borne out by the fact that IIT Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Bombay and IISC, Bangalore had participated. However, they were overlooked and a relatively new IITR was selected ahead of others," it said. 

CAG said IITR was awarded the project when it was operating from a temporary premises but the "important observation of the Finance Division was ignored." 

PTI

First Published: Friday, September 06, 2013, 18:16

235 - PU awaits Union ministry reply on tablets for students - Indian Express

PU awaits Union ministry reply on tablets for students

Ifrah Mufti : Chandigarh, Tue Aug 27 2013, 01:40 hrs

After two years, when Panjab University found the potential student customers for the subsidised Akash tablets worth Rs 1,100 and wrote to the HRD ministry, the varsity authorities claim to have been waiting for a response and around 4,000 students who registered themselves are also waiting for the tablets.

The 7-inch touchscreen computing and internet device was offered to the students at a subsidised price of Rs 1,100. The low price of the tablets was expected to raise the demands, but initially, the tablets failed to attract students from the university. There were no registrations even from the Computer department till last year, due to which PU had extended the deadlines, so that the demands could be raised and more applicants could register themselves.

According to project co-ordinator Tankeshwar Singh, "A few tablets were distributed to the students as part of a pilot project, but some technical errors were observed, and after that we extended the submission deadlines for the tablet registrations. Meanwhile, 4,000 out of around 14,000 students at PU who registered themselves for the subsidised tablets, the applications for the same, were also submitted to the ministry, then. We have not received anything in written from the ministry as to when are they planning to send the tablets across. I have heard that recently HRD has given around 20,000 tablets to the students of IIT, Mumbai for some online project."

"Many departments later came up for the registrations. 50 per cent registrations were made by the students from the University Institute of Engineering and Technology (UIET). Students from Public Administration, Science and Computers department also came up. For few months, students kept coming to confirm if the tablets have reached. It has been a long time now that we haven't received any notification from the ministry," Singh added.

Tankeshwar Singh, who is also the Computer Centre director at PU, told Chandigarh Newsline that the project was a request made by the ministry itself to distribute the tablets to the students and faculty members.

One of the engineering students at PU said, "Carrying laptops everyday is not an easy task and also, making presentations on the tablets is much easier. We are eagerly waiting for such reasonable tablets."