The Minister of State for Higher Education, D. Purandeswari, along with the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology in Chennai have announced that they will be developing a $10 laptop as a part of their “National Mission in Education through ICT”. The Government is working on making a low cost PC and free bandwidth so India can build a “Knowledge Network”.
Later in the day a spokesperson for D. Purandeswari, corrected the Minister and said the laptop would cost $100, not $10. There are no specifications of the laptop, but research is being conducted to build the machine.
Interesting note: India did not join the OLPC bandwagon. While the telecommunications provider did a pilot test, The Ministry felt that giving a laptop per child “pedagogically suspect”.