Aakash, which is the world’s cheapest tablet was produced by Datawind in collaboration with the Indian Government to provide cheap tablets to Indian Students.
It has been more than six months for the launch of Aakash and till now, the tablet has been managed to reach only 366 students. Initially, it was projected that there would be a gap in supply and demand due to expected huge demand for the tablet. But now, it seems that the Government isn’t doing enough for Aakash.
The students of IIT Rajasthan received the first lot of 366 tablets as a part of first lot of Aakash for testing and feedback purposes. It was received by the students on 5th October 2011. Mr. Kapil Sibal said in the parliament that, IIT Rajasthan had “rejected rest of the lots as the number of defective LCADs (Aakash tablets) in those lots exceeded the stipulated 5% of devices.”
Mr. Kapil Sibal was asked questions about the distribution issues relating to Aakash, to which he replied that the first lot of tablets were meant for testing and feedback issues. He also said that, “The first phase of 1,00,000 tablets were targeted to the students in higher technical education institutions so as to further ascertain technical feedback on its operation and usability. Since these LCADs were for the purpose of testing, no norms for distribution of LCADs to students were laid down. Datawind is still to supply 1,00,000 LCADs of higher specifications at the same price. These higher specifications (which include 700 MHz Cortex A8 processor, 3200 mAh battery and capacitive touch screen) have been necessitated to overcome the initial difficulties observed in the devices. “
Mr. Sibal was also asked about the money recovery policies about the tablet, to which he replied that – “No payment has yet been made by IIT-Rajasthan to the vendor (Datawind), and hence, the question of getting back the money does not arise.” Datawind was also asked by the Government to build a better quality of Aakash tablet within the same price range.
All these incidents are clear indication that politics is everywhere in India. It has not even left fields such as technology and education. With politics entering into the scope of Aakash tablet, nothing can be said with full confidence about the future scope of Aakash.