The technical education in India has remarkably reached to a top feat after India’s independence. Quality engineers are produced from many premium institutes like the Indian Institutes of Technology, National Institutes of Technology and others which are of national importance. The government of India plays a significant role in the development of infrastructure etc. by providing huge funds to these institutes. As a result, the students who are the nation builders get proper education and play their pivotal role as engineers and technicians. And such education is provided to them at subsidized rate. Many facilities are also provided to the students either free or through subsidy.
One such important step taken by the government of India was to provide the students of these technical institutes with the tablets for educational purpose and that too with a subsidized rate. The Ministry of Human Resource Development along with IIT Bombay developed these tablets which were named as Aakash Tablets. These tablets were manufactured exclusively for the educational purpose only. The Aakash tablets were launched on 11th November 2012. Recently, the honorable president of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee launched Aakash 2.0 on the occasion of National Education Day held at Delhi. Aakash 2.0 is only a new version of Aakash tablet with some modifications. The National Mission on Education envisions that these tablets would help in the empowerment of the students and teachers. The government is trying that these tablets are deployed in more number for academic and research activities.
Aakash 2.0 is a tablet completely meant for educational purpose and therefore not designed with hi-fi configurations. This tablet includes many features such as C, C++ and Python programming, SciLab for numerical computations and for research activities, 3D-modelling techniques, robotic control and many others. The tablet is provided with many useful applications. This tablet includes Mango learning solutions for interactive smart books. There is provision of Intelligia finger tracing application in order to teach letter writing to the toddlers. Some of the other salient applications in the tablet include Blender which is used for video editing and creating animations, Clicker to collect instant feedback from various number of students, proximity for creation of interactive lessons, Robot for design of robots and many others.
IIT Bombay in collaboration with the Center for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), developed the tablet to get assistance with the hardware testing and logistics. Aakash 2.0 has many notable specifications which include 1 GHz processor, 512 MB memory; micro SD card slot which can extend up to 32 GB memory and 4 GB portioned NAND Flash. And it also features Android 4.0 as its operating system. Besides it has got attractive features such as 7 inch multi-touch 4-point capacitive display and good quality 800x480 pixel resolution.
Aakash 2.0 is also provided with Wi-Fi features through which the students can easily access the internet connections. Besides, it is also equipped with adequate number of USB slots in which one can use internet modems. Hence these tablets are worth for the features provided at the price. And the students can really benefit themselves using this tablet specially made for them.