Cheapest PC launch on oct 5

HRD minister Kapil Sibal will launch the much-awaited Rs 1,500 computer cum access device, labelled as the cheapest computer in the world, for students on October 5. HT reports.

HRD minister Kapil Sibal will launch the much-awaited Rs 1,500 computer cum access device, labelled as the cheapest computer in the world, for students on October 5.

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“The computer will be launched next month,” Sibal said. The new device is a seven-year-old project of the HRD ministry, started after MIT proposed to sell $100 laptops for school education in India. The ministry had rejected the MIT proposal and said it could produce a cheaper computer and formed a committee to indigenously develop it.

Sibal said the new device, whose name will be announced at the launch, will perform all functions from browsing the web to gaming. “That's an enormously empowering tool,” he said, while giving away the first IGNOU-instituted Rajiv Gandhi International Prize for technology to Azim Premji.

Sibal said IT does not help transcend boundaries but it is also an important tool to root out corruption.