ViruRulez Posted November 23, 2012 Posted November 23, 2012 I knew (heard someone mention it) it was manufactured in China but was under the impression that it was designed by Datawind' date=' not bought off the shelf from chinese dealers and sold cheap here because of subsidies offered by the government.[/quote'] In a way, Indian govt. is trying to take credit for Chinese product. It would be need to be seen how much it helps the students. But one thing is for sure. Indian govt. would definitely help the Chinese economy by purchasing truckloads of these tablets and selling them at subsidized rates. Economist Manmohan Singh and Kapil Sibal. :hatsoff: I have never understood why India has never invested in creating a manufacturing sector especially in technology in our own country itself. Labor is relatively cheap here too and there is no dearth of talent and innovation. We could have also become a manufacturing hub not only for our domestic consumption if we do so.
ViruRulez Posted November 23, 2012 Posted November 23, 2012 The discussion is not about the quality of manufacturing in China. China delivers at all quality levels...low' date=' medium, top class. [b']The question to ask is...When will we see the day when electronics manufacturing gets a strong hold in India? Service sector is fine, but manufacturing sector is still poor in India. Don't we have brains in this area. And then there is the 25-35% markup of electronic goods in India. China heavily subsidizes the electronics industry with minimal taxes. As a result their manufacturing sector is booming. On the contrary, taxes/octroi in India for this sector are off the roof. This is not helping... That is what I also mentioned in my post which I posted simultaneously. I would love to see our country becoming a manufacturing hub too. There should be no reason why we should have not become a manufacturing hold especially in electronics when we have cheap labor comparable to China here too. And many would argue Indian brains are equal if not better than China in terms of innovation. The different probably lies in the mentality and govt. encouragement. Their govt. promotes industry, innovation and manufacturing but our govt. instead makes life a lot harder for entrepreneurs. :desiman:
Crookbond Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 Govt almost gives up on Aakash, says no point in hardware obsession http://www.livemint.com/Politics/fmEi8gsOSFgOzSTFfLsw6J/Govt-almost-gives-up-on-Aakash-says-no-point-in-hardware-ob.html New Delhi: The government has given up on the Aakash, a $35 tablet that was once billed by it as India’s answer to the digital divide, saying that users will determine the nature of the device that will help them gain knowledge. The effort should instead be to help students access content, human resource development (HRD) minister M.M. Pallam Raju said on Friday, reversing the government’s stand on a device that had been championed by his predecessor Kapil Sibal, currently minister of communications and information technology. The original idea had been to supply the tablets to students at 50% discount. “Let’s not get obsessed with hardware. The overall (issue) is how we enable students,” Raju told reporters in New Delhi on . “Let the students decide which device is useful.” The project got off to a poor start from which it hasn’t recovered with the first lot of tablets supplied by Canada-based Datawind in 2011 criticized for being low on performance. Datawind hasn’t yet been able to supply the 100,000 tablets that the HRD ministry has contracted for. Higher education secretary Ashok Thakur was also noncommittal about when the government will go ahead with the earlier plan to procure 5 million additional tablets as had been proposed before. “The idea was, once we receive the 100,000 Aakash 2 (revised version of the tablet), we will be more confident to proceed further. On the last review, we have a lot of gap. Also technology is not a stagnant thing,” Thakur said. Meanwhile, states such as Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh have gone forward with their own plans to supply laptops free to students.
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