Low-cost Aakash 2 tablet debuts with 1GHz processor, will be sold to students for INR 1,132

The second iteration of low-cost Aakash tablet for students was announced earlier today at a press event by the Indian President. Dubbed as Aakash 2.0, tablet’s previous version never reached the students till now, but we hope things are different this time around. The tablet, which comes at a market price of INR 2,236, will be sold to students at a subsidised price of INR 1,132.

The tablet is manufactured by Canada-based Datawind.

The Indian government initially plans to distribute 100,000 of these tablets to students of engineering colleges and universities, followed by other students. About 220 million Indian students will get the device across the country in the next five-six years.

Aakash 2 features a 1GHz processor, Android 4.0, seven-inch capacitive display and will give four hours of battery backup.

Indian president Pranab Mukherjee unveiled the device at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi and the launch event was attended by hundreds of teachers across the country through online video conferencing.

There is still no clarity on how the tablet is going to be distributed to the students in the country. We are trying to find out and will update the post accordingly.

Update: According to Deccan Chronicle, Indian Government has chosen 244 engineering colleges in the country that will work as remote centres for “Aakash in Education” programme, coordinated by IIT-Mumbai under the National Mission on Education through ICT (NME-ICT). The programme will cover all engineering colleges in due course.

Aakash 2 key features:

7-inch capacitive display
512MB RAM
1GHz Cortex A8 processor
4GB storage
microSD card slot
USB port
3,000 mAh battery

 Full press release:

President Unveils Aakash Version 2.0 Tablet on National Education Day
The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee took the occasion of National Education Day to release and dedicate to the nation, the innovative and modestly-priced Aakash Version 2.0 tablet in New Delhi today.
Unveiled in the presence of Dr. M.M. Pallam Raju, Union Minister of Human Resource Development, Sh Jitin Prasada and Dr Shashi Tharoor, Ministers of State for Human Resource Development, Aakash Version 2.0 is a full-fledged tablet computer . IIT Bombay along with the Ministry of Human Resource Development has created several useful educational applications for the tablet. Teachers and students in the remotest corners of India can join a classroom and benefit from lectures delivered by the best teachers.
Some of the initiatives in technology-enabled education that can run on Aakash Version 2.0 tablet include Ten Thousand Teachers Training Programme – a live video interaction with participants , Clicker applications for real time feedback in country-wide classroom, Daisy Books for differently-abled students, NCERT content , GNU Khata- an accounting package for barefoot accountants in rural areas and Scholarship Portal integrated with Aadhar.
On National Education Day, which is also the 124th birth anniversary of Independent India’s first Education Minister , Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, rich tributes were paid to the great freedom fighter and eminent educationist.