The price is expected to be about $35 (INR 1500) which would drop [...]]]> The India government today unvieled a prototype of a handheld tablet targeted to students. The central minister for HRD briefed the attendees that this was a low cost computing-cum-network-access device for students and teachers and would be available through educational institutions by 2011.

The price is expected to be about $35 (INR 1500) which would drop down to $20 and ultimately to $10. The minister said “this is real, tangible and we will take it forward”.

Most of the parts to be used in this device are available off-the-shelf and some technology is being patented by the government. The device will have: Touchscreen, Multimedia, Searchable PDF Reader, Video-Conferencing, Storage and File-Compression.

The India government is looking up to corporate entities to participate in the project which is estimated to cost about $2.12 billions (INR 10,000 crores). Because the major portion of the investment is for connectivity and distribution logistics, we expect the telecom majors should be jumping on to the bandwagon.