Aakash 2 tablets to be made in India: Kapil Sibal

The low-cost Aakash tablet PC will be made completely indigenous and its production base diversified, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said.

"We are now going to diversify production base and indigenise Aakash tablet. We are planning to create eco-system for end to end development of Aakash in India. This will create enormous opportunities for R&D institutions, developers, electronic production houses," he said at a function here.

He said the IITs and the ITIs are onboard on development of the device which has so far reached out to a handful of students.

The HRD Ministry has already said that it will require an additional 22 crore units of Aakash and for this fresh tenders will be issued enabling other companies along with the present manufacturer Datawind to also get a chance.

At present, the device is available to students at Rs 1,100 after government subsidy.

Asked if the next tender will have 'made in India' clause in it, Sibal said, "Well, we want to make sure that it is 100 per cent done locally ultimately." At present, several components including the processor are procured from outside.

At the event of Indian Semi Conductor Association, he said, "I want all of you present here to think about it and be part of this magnificent journey."

The government in the meantime plans to involve three more IITs for the Aakash project to make it more indigenous and further lower its price.

Apart from IIT Rajasthan, which is spearheading the project, IIT Mumbai, IIT Madras and IIT Kanpur would also be roped in for the project, sources in the HRD Ministry said.

The speed of the improved device will come at 800 MHz instead of 300 MHz at present.

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Aakash tablet goes on sale, costs Rs 2,500

The wait is over. Aakash, the world’s cheapest tablet has been put online for sale. The online booking and pre booking of this Android tablet has been started by DataWind. This Canadian company is the manufacturer of Aakash.

About 30,000 tablets have been put online for sale. Though government has produced only 10,000 tablets.

The student’s version of Aakash will be available for Rs. 2,500 (equal to almost US $50) and will be delivered within seven days. But the buyer have to pay in cash for it only at the time of delivery.

An upgraded version i.e. will be available by the last week of January, 2012. But pre-bookings can be done from today onwards. It will cost 2,999.

Aakash Tablet PC is a challenge for other tablet manufacturers!

Tablet manufacturers beware. India’s indigenously developed tablet Aakash may soon overthrow the burgeoning market provided the government itself does not jeopardize anything.

Pardaphash conducted a poll which reveals that there are many takers of the cheap tablet. We asked our readers: Is 'Aakash' Tablet PC, a challenge for other Tablet manufacturers?

56 percent of the respondents said ‘yes’ to the question. It is clearly visible that the price, the features and the technology all appeal to the Indian masses. Aakash tablet PC runs on Android 2.2 (Froyo) and comes with a 7 inch resistive touch screen with 800x480 resolutions and weighs 350 gm.

The tablet has a 256 MB RAM and an internal storage of 2GB which can be expanded up to 32 GB. Supporting formats like DOC, DOCX, PDF and PPTX etc. and comes with a 12 months replacement warranty.

The tablet will be made available in retail stores in November for approx. INR 2999 ($60) with added features like an inbuilt cellular modem and SIM to access internet.

There are 35 percent of the total number of respondents who responded in the negative indicating that the tablet may not be able to sustain competition from foreign brands which are obviously better equipped and attractive though they cost more.

Some were undecided and they constitute the remaining 9 percent.

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