M A I N   N E W S

University students can now reach out to a faster Aakash 
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 11
President Pranab Mukherjee today launched the advanced version of low-cost tablet “Aakash”, which will be provided to students for Rs 1,130. The new version — Aakash 2 — will be made available to students of engineering colleges and universities initially.

The tablet is now powered by a 1 GHz processor, with 512 MB RAM, a 7-inch capacitive touch screen and battery life of three hours on Wi-Fi. The screen resolution is 800×480 pixels. The previous version had a 7-inch resistive touch screen.

“Akash 2” runs on Android 4.0 Ice-Cream Sandwich and has a front-facing VGA camera along with Wi-Fi support. It has 4GB (internal) flash memory, which is expandable up to 32GB using a micro SD card. The first version of “Aakash” was launched by the government in October 2011. However, it faced testing problems besides specification issues.

Launching the advanced version of “Aakash” on National Education Day, which coincides with the 124th birth anniversary of Independent India’s first Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, President Mukherjee recalled the great visionary and extolled his exemplary contribution to nation-building, particularly his indelible imprints in the field of education and culture.

The President also appreciated the launch of UNESCO’s Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development, which is the first Category-I Institute of India to be set up in Asia.

“Aakash 2” has been developed under the aegis of IIT Bombay with active support of C-DAC. Datawind is rolling out the device. “The government purchases the device from us at Rs 2,263 and subsidises it by 50 per cent. It plans to provide it to students at Rs 1,130,” said Datawind CEO Suneet Tuli.

The government is also trying to encourage the state governments to chip in by subsidising it further so that the device can eventually be made available to students free of cost. The first one lakh devices will be provided to students of engineering colleges and universities and subsequently distributed 
to others.

About 22 crore students will get the device across the country in the next five to six years.