Students ready to log in to Aakash

BHUBANESWAR: The Aakash, billed as the world’s most affordable tablet PC, has generated a lot of interest among the education administrators in the State.With the devices already being put to use by students from colleges and universities across the country, the State Government has also made similar plans. Sources in the Higher Education Department said vice-chancellors and deans of many educational institutions have evinced interest in the tablet and want it for their institutions. The tablet, costing Rs 2,276, was launched on October 5 and it will be available at around half this price to students as part of the Union Government’s programme. Accordingly, the Commissioner-cum-Secretary of Higher Education Chandra Sekhar Kumar has written to all the VCs and heads of the educational institutions to know their requirements of these devices in their  institutions.“The department has earlier this week received a correspondence from the Ministry of Human Resource  Development seeking to know the quantum of requirement of Aakash tablets in the State,” he said. The MHRD under the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NME-ICT) is funding Rs 700 crore for providing 50 per cent subsidy to every educational institute for procurement of Aakash tablets. And the device will be made available at around Rs 1,138 to the interested institutions.  Sekhar  said the tablet is very economical and would be a good learning device for students of colleges till block level. “The broadband and telecommunication connectivity in the State is easily available at block and sub-divisional level. So, using this tablet would not be an issue for the students,” he added.The Aakash tablet has a seven-inch display with 800-by-480 pixel resolution, 256 MB RAM, two GB flash storage, and a 366 MHz processor. The tablet runs on the Android 2.2 operating system.