Govt planning Aakash 4, calls for suggestions

NEW DELHI: Despite setbacks, Indian government is not giving up on its dream of a low-cost tablet for school and college students. The ministry of human resource development has now formally announced that it is working on Aakash 4. 

In a public note posted on the website of the department of electronics and information technology, the government said, "A sub-committee comprising of technical experts has prepared the proposed vendor neutral Technical Specifications of Aakash IV. These specifications have been developed with a view to have a device at a low cost." 

Unlike the original Aakash and Aakash 2, which were manufactured by Datawind, for Aakash 4 government has not yet finalized who would make the tablets. Instead, it wants to finalize the specifications of the tablet. There are reports that Aakash 4 could be manufactured by multiple hardware vendors instead of one company. 

According to the proposed specifications, Aakash 4 will have a 7-inch screen with a minimum resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. To make sure that the screen has decent touch sensitivity, government wants manufacturers to use panels with at least 5 touch points. "LCD brightness should be a minimum of 290 cd/m2, and its contrast ratio should be a minimum of 500," states the note. 

The government says that the processor that will power Aakash 4 should meet some minimum specifications. It says that the chip should be able to score at least 1469 points in Antutu, a popular Androiding app. It also wants the tablet to handle playback of 720P videos with ease. 

For memory, the government note specifies that Aakash 4 will have a minimum of 1GB DDR3 RAM. The tablet is likely to come with at least 4GB internal storage and support for up to a 32GB micro SD card. The government also says that it wants Aakash 4 to have support for external USB storage devices, keyboard, mouse, popular 3G/4G data dongles, USB to ethernet adapters and USB printers. 

On paper, the minimum hardware specifications for Aakash seem to be on the lower side. But currently these are proposed specifications and the final hardware might be different. As far as software is concerned, government wants the tablet to run at least Android Jelly Bean. 

Government says "all interested stakeholders may examine the proposed specifications and provide their comments especially the point of vendor neutrality, usability and functionality." The comments and suggestions can be sent to the office of Rajat Moona, who is director general of C-DAC headquartered in the Pune University campus. 

Announced with much fanfare, the Aakash project has proved to be controversial so far. Most of the original Aakash tablets, supplied to Datawind to Rajasthan IIT, were found to be defective and the institute rejected the units. Later, Datawind accused the institute of sabotaging the project. 

"IIT Rajasthan put up roadblocks in front of us. It jeopardized the whole project. I can say the dirty tricks by the institute put us around six months behind on the project... they did it because they were favouring other firms... Even now the institute is trying to sabotage the project," Datawind's CEO Suneet Singh Tuli told TOI last year. 

The original Aakash tablets were plagued by poor screen and very poor performance. Aakash 2 was slightly better but was not good enough for daily use in schools and colleges.