Height of Stupidity from India’s Tech Ministry, Goes back to OLPC after being Ridiculed for $10 Laptop

After having an exciting news of $10 laptops shaping up in India, last month we had an embarrassing disclosure of a device that was anything but a laptop.  For Rs. 500 you would have got a 2GB of storage memory, WiFi connectivity, Ethernet port(s) and USB connectivity and without a screen. It was a sophisticated pen drive of some sort which no body was interested to buy. Anyway, now it seems Indian Govt. has finally realized that its not possible to make a laptop at that cost and chose to embrace OLPC instead. Though the lack of foresight is quite evident as It was MHRD of India that banished the thoughts of OLPC. Being an Indian I can not but think of being ridiculed by the whole world of a failed project, a complete sense of misjudgment and then going back to the point zero again. The good thing? OLPC, the wonderful effort will get a big financial boost as well as recognition which they need at this time.

India has finally decided to adopt OLPC after all, despite the government’s previous skepticism and plans for building its own technology. PC World, which spoke with OLPC India CEO Satish Jha, reports that the 250,000 laptops will be sent to 1,500 schools. Jha hopes to ship 3 million laptops in India this year.

Intel’s Classmate PC initiative was the other one that caught the eye and proposed to bag and send great deals which didn’t actually fly off from there. So with OLPC, I hope the e-ducation in India will finally come to a reality. At the end of the day, we all feel that computer literacy must go up for any developing nation. Take India as an example and please Ministry officials, get some brains out of your bags only when it makes sense or sure to deliver. What India doesn’t need at this time is to question its own commitments towards technological advancements.