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Indian govt. purchases 250,000 OLPC laptops for schools |
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Indian government is reported to have purchased 250, 000 OLPC laptops for the schools of the country. However, this huge figure is not enough for the schools.
It is reported that nearly 1,500 Indian Schools will get the latest batch of the laptops. But, it is yet to be cleared whether they will get the latest version with the upgraded processor and storage capacity.
OLPC is also expected to get back its credibility with this purchase by India. Before this, India failed its own $10 laptop project. Indian Government seems to have softened it stand on OLPC`s (One Laptop per Child) after the $10 laptop disaster. In the past, India was not very keen to accept OLPC.
The government has signed an agreement with the OLPC Foundation to purchase as many as 250,000 XO laptops from the foundation for distribution across the country. In the year 2007, OLPC started its journey in India when 20 XO machines were distributed in a Maharashtra village.
Just after few years of setting up the foundation in 2005, it was done. However, Indian government stopped the OLPC plan after successful completion in Maharashtra citing `health` reasons. The MHRD (Ministry of Human Resource Development) thought it was unhealthy for children to use laptops for prolonged periods.
In the meantime, the government went ahead with the $10 laptop project, which sounded absurd right from the beginning but it failed. Now, the OLPC foundation is preparing an update to the current machines. These include a RAM boost to 1GB and a storage boost to 4GB. The latest version is expected to land sometime in 2010. At this moment, it is not known on which version of the laptop the government has opted for.
(Posted on : 29/04/2009)
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| Indian govt. purchases 250,000 OLPC laptops for schools |
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