The Aakash

Kapil Sibal unveiled the world’s cheapest tablet computer, Aakash, on Wednesday. As the human resources development minister distributed the Rs 1,750 tablet to 500 students, he made a huge promise to the country’s digital have-nots: sky is no longer the limit when it comes to hitching a ride on the information superhighway. It’s a promising gizmo. It’s features — a resistive touchscreen, an SD card slot fitted with a 2GB card and supporting up to 32GB capacities, two USB ports, Wi-Fi, video conferencing, 3-hour battery life, 600MHz processor, 256MB RAM and Android 2.2 — are enough to dazzle the India on the wrong side of the digital divide. “This is for all of you who are disempowered. This is for all of you who have no access. This is for all those who are marginalized,” Sibal said at the launch as eager applause followed. “Our goal was to break the price barrier for computing and internet access,” he said. “The Aakash is proudly made in India, and is destined to revolutionise computing and internet access for the world.” India has beaten the world in creating the world’s cheapest tablet. If activists are skeptical about Aakash, they have strong reasons to be so. In May 2005, a Rs 10,000 mobile computer, called Mobilis, was launched amid much fanfare. “This marks India’s leap into the future of PC technology...,” Sibal, then minister for Science and Technology, had said at that time. Today, nobody knows about Mobilis. Earlier, in 2002, a handheld computer called Simputer was launched to “give the villagers access to computing power”. Simputer, too, is history now.