Aakash II tablet ready for release

Packed with more features and enhanced speed, an upgraded version of low cost computing device Aakash is ready for release, HRD minister Kapil Sibal said on Tuesday.

'Unlike other tablet devices, Aakash can also be used to create computer programs, in Python, C, C++ and Scilab,' he said, adding it can be further used for accessing e-governance services.

'The government has approved the specifications,' Datawind CEO Sunit Singh Tuli told.

HRD ministry sources said the launch of the upgraded version could be around the first week of July.

Asked about the production for Aakash 2, Tuli said it will start a few days before the launch of the device in the market.

Tuli added that a good number of devices will be produced before the official launch.

Datawind had hit headlines last October when it unveiled Aakash, to be supplied to the HRD ministry at ₹2,276 a piece. The government, in turn, had to give about one lakh of these tablets to the students at subsidised price ₹1,100-1,200 each.

However, IIT-Rajasthan, the nodal agency for the Aakash project, had rejected the tablet for not meeting performance criteria and the project had to be shifted to IIT Bombay.

Ever since its launch last year, the project has been running behind schedule.

Inaugurating a teacher training programme conducted by IIT-Bombay under 'talk to a teacher' project of the National Mission on Education through ICT, Sibal suggested IIT-Bombay director Devang Khakhar to present Aakash devices to heads of a few institutions associated with the training programme.

A representative of IIT Bombay symbolically presented an Aakash tablet to the minister.

Sibal thanked IIT-Bombay for doing a 'wonderful' job in incorporating useful software to Aakash.