Rs 500 laptop ‘Sakshat’ unveiled

Union Minister for Human Resources Arjun Singh unveiled the so-called Rs 500 ($10) laptop at Tirupathi today.

Frankly, as no news was forthcoming about the secret project to empower students across India, we were beginning to wonder if something had gone wrong. Not so. We doubted early. The laptop – named Sakshat, according to some reports – exists.

Unfortunately, that’s all. There is no real information coming out so far. We expect mroe info about the ultra low cost laptop to slowly start leaking out during the next twelve hours, including some photos.

So far, this is all we know.

Yes, it has 2 GB of memory. It currently costs $ 20 (Rs 1,000) but the government hopes to bring it down to $ 10 in 6 months time due to economies of scale.

There is enough by way of networking options.

No information is available about the processor to be used. Or about the type of LCD screen, or about screen size, or about the operating system – though we can confidently say that it would be a stripped-down Linux based OS.

SK Sinha, joint secretary in the ministry for education said that the laptop needed more fine-tuning, but it would be done. He gave a demo of the laptop. Again, we weren’t there, and the ones who were there were possibly clueless and we can’t find any info about it anywhere as of now.

Gossip and rumors are flying thick and fast across the tech industry about the possibly revolutionary laptop. Possibly, because it is the Indian government, and while the announcement and the ensuiing publicity might serve as good material for the upcoming general elections, we are naturally suspicious of anything the government gets involved in. On the other hand, it is only the government which can possibly develop a cheap laptop and subsidize it to the point where even the poorest schools and students can buy it and use it.

Come back and visit us in a day, and we would have secured a bit more information about the Rs 500 laptop than we have now, and a bunch of photos too. Sorry, that’s it for now.