India Rejects $100 Laptop Project

really a bold step by the authority at central ,being a student i really this bold act & just pray for the best &rapid accomplishment of this project. it will really boost up the aptitude skills of the students&also will enhance the research aptitude.

A hungry stomach,clothless body,starring eyes will not understand the imprtance of education as rightly said by a poet"Hungry brain will not digest the fact of knowledge" let us donate for the good cause rather than making money to the outsiders.

giving a laptop to poor children wil not solve the problem of malnutrition and education in india. first the govt should look upon free education for each and every child in india,then only our country can develop.

I am Titus Basumatary from India studing doing MCSE course in Guwahati at Assam for 10months. But I am finding difficult to do practice by myself because I don't have computer for myself. So I need some help from you . So please help me.

THE LATEST ON OLPC & HOW INDIA IS DELIBERATELY PLANNING TO MISS THE BUS OF COMPUTER EDUCATION FOR KIDS Prime Minister Shinawatra plans to give OLPCs away for free According to reports, Thailand has jumped on the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) bandwagon and government officials have even announced that it would give away the OLPCs free of charge if the test project is deemed successful. Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters that he plans to have the OLPCs in distribution by October of this year. At first, the units will be distributed to a limited number of children in select areas where technology access is limited. After a period of observation, Shinawatra said he hopes to distribute the OLPCs on a wide scale. Shinawatra also mentioned that Thailand may replace traditional school books with OLPCs because books can be found on the Internet -- although this may present a copywrite situation. "Each elementary school child will receive a computer that the government will buy for them, free of charge, instead of books, because books will be found and can be read on computers," said Shinawatra. The OLPC committee also just announced that the computers would come with a pre-loaded offline version of Wikipedia -- not a bad start for a personal library. The OLPC project has met some criticism along with its success. India currently opposes the project, saying that laptops impede on the analytical and thinking abilities of young children. Despite the concerns, several other countries have expressed great interest in the program although none have placed full orders yet. The OLPC committee says that it is currently talking with a number of counties including Nigeria, though some previous reports of the adoption of these notebooks was originally overestimated. Shinawatra is currently one of Thailand's richest citizens. He previously founded a telecommunications empire in Thailand and prior to that worked for IBM. OUR EDUCATION-HRD MINISTER IS ONLY INTERESTED IN RESERVATION FOR BACKWARDS TO FURTHER HIS SINKING GADDI.

food , shelter and free education should be top priority. Many kids still do not get single meal every day.

3 MILLION NEW ORDERS FOR OLPC-Argentina, Brazil and Thailand have all committed to purchasing a total of three million OLPCs, this is in addition to 1 Mill by Nigeria. The laptops themselves cost roughly $140 each and even come with their own power source.( Just imagine that is only Rs. 6500 each, and no slaving to power source which is so scarce, where these laptops will be required -in rural schools for children who can read and write- can have only access to tech, through these inexpensive education tools. Even these children of India deserve a tool which will enhance a child?s crativity.What part of the project is not understood by majority is - This project is not targeted to starving people in a place where the education can't be achieved. This is targeted to semi-developed regions that have access to basic infrastructure (sometimes underdeveloped, but present), which would NEVER HAVE ACCESS TO COMPUTER EDUCATION OTHERWISE, and that is the true value of this initiative of OLPC.

Computers at home and in the classroom have become a necessity for today's school children. To not be armed with the Internet and the use of digital equipment would certainly put these children at a disadvantage. This will give them every opportunity to be competitive with every student they come across. This will help level the playing field no matter what their dreams are. Laptops will give students a wonderful opportunity, both from use of the Internet and the other functions impossible in the old paper and pencil world. Little do these ill educated loutish politicians, who themselves got through their academics by bullying the institutions thru student politics ?whose only interest is to divide & rule in order to fill their own coffers through kickbacks, understand computers & that educators like Negroponte hope will give the children of today and tomorrow an edge, both academically and in the workplace. What is US $ 500 Million for 5 Million Laptops for a country like India, where the annual kickbacks taken by politicians run into 10 Billion. By the same very politicians who reject a path breaking initiative like OLPC just because there are no kickbacks by a voluntary body like OLPC, wowmir from cal is so right !. Sad day for India, do we want our children also to grow up in dark ages like the previous several did ?

$100 is not low cost. It is approximately Rs.45000. For that price the government can equip a school with 3 ordinary latest desktop computers or 4 lowend computers of the pentium III series without any speakers, cdroms etc.

BAD POLITICS

Ministry rejected because, bribary is IMPOSSIBLE in this OLPC project... So the rest of all the blah blah reasons are irrelevant...

India shoudn't reject this project at all. The above said "fancy things" are really very innovative, creative and moving world. I think more concentration should be there on this project coz it will help to increase literacy and computer skills on large scale. It is actually real world to be standing in the competitive world.

Unless there are broadband plus hotspot (wireless reutors/gateways) installed in majority of schools and villiges, having these information device just make no sense whatsoever!

It should have been accepted....And can anyone tell me wht kind of disease can a child suffer? All the diseases are caught only by getting addicted. SAD POLITICS.

Why not have the cake and eat it too! Let the Education Ministry spend money on strengthening secondary education in other immediate needs, including classrooms and teachers, while the private sector and their foundations chip in to pay for the one million or so $100 computers. Surely, our IT giants and others could lend a hand.

Well I support India's decision to reject this proposal. 1/2 of India lives close to the poverty line and the money can be put to good use. It's true that the Idiot Box has done enough damage to kids and now putting a laptop in their hands is a ridiculous thing to do. I would support this venture only if the laptops were gifted as a prize or scholarship to kids around the age of 10-13 yrs and who have kept his/her grades up.

Of course, that's right.

Do you really think that $100 laptops will get into the hands of the poor children anyways? I am sure that they will end up with richer people who are seeking for a cheaper alternative for a desktop for their 12 something year old kids. I am glad that the govt. is taking the right decision. Instead use that money to provide basic amenities like free food, clothing, free books, free education to the children through NGOs and private organizations and prove it to the public that they actually used that amount for this purpose.

Haha well done...crappy machine anyways. Besides better get the basic education facilties in order first. There are not even proper primary schools and trained teachers and people imagine a so called laptop will the panacea for all ills relating to our rural education system...duh...

Children need hands on as much as they can in their age. It developes there creative ground.

Education minstry should not take the decisions of its own...... An enquery should be done with some public schools.... Teachers and parents should be asked for it.... If we can have just 1 million parents who are ready to pay just 4500 Rs. .... WHY cant we participate.... And the best thing is a student can get a laptop in just 4500 rupees.

Idea of giving a Laptop to every children is just useless for what purpose this laptops will be used??? we dont have any online education system, I dont think every child in US is having a laptop and laptops may end in playing games and movies nothing else whole concept seems like selling low end laptops to developing countries to earn profit and nothing else price is defineatly low but what is configuration, what about its maintanance and warranty... I think there are some good people in Govt who took right step by rejecting this deal. Better we concentrate on basic needs and not wasting money on unbasic things.

Why does the govt. not understand that the laptop is a value addition which will enhance a childs crativity? these bunch of jokers are the main culprit brhind deteriration of Indian Education