Soon students across the country will be able to buy designed laptops at affordable prices as the government is planning to provide them laptops at around INR 400. The Indian Institute of Sciences in Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras have developed a special laptop at a cost of $10 for students to help them excel in studies.
While inaugurating the eINDIA2008, an international conference of IT solution providers and government agencies to facilitate practices of e-governance and digital learning in the country, the Minister of State for Human Resources Development, New Delhi, D. Purandeshwari stated that the government has taken this initiative to enable students to make the most out of information technology, which is emerging as a catalyst for the country's socio-economic development. She stated that ICT will empower the mode of learning both in school and at higher education level. These efforts will make the students 'Netizens' in order to enhance their self-learning skills and develop their capabilities for on-line problem solving. The new mission will also focus on developing a very low-cost and low-power consuming access device, making available free bandwidth to every Indian for education purpose. She also released 'Towards a National Policy on ICT in School Education' at the function.
Several IT experts, educationists and government officials from more than 40 countries will take part in the three-day conference to discuss over the modalities of using ICT in e-governance, digital learning, e-health, e-agriculture and municipal functioning.
