Intriguing, but not yet a smoking gun. Could the Chinese company have been a source for some of the exterior parts? Could the Chinese company be pirating the Indian design?
I was thinking that perhaps the Indian gov had taken the Chinese device and, still using the external case, modified the internals to replace them with cheaper components.
Indeed they could even purchase the dies for the case and actually manufacture the whole thing in India. Would the lack of Indian case design make it not Indian? Not quite a smoking gun.
What one needs is a powerful Indian media company to ask for an example to look at and a trip to the factory.
Whether this proves to be right or not, you should always be skeptical about indian government's frivolous claims. From my personal experience I can tell you its not limited to the government, this kind of attitude it very common among businesses and entrepreneurs in India.
Another good example would be try posting for a freelance dev job in any job boards and watch the frivolous offers trickle down without anyone even reading what the requirements of the jobs are.
I wonder if this is a cultural thing.
Also for some blind patriotism read the comments on this blog post.
PS. Before anyone starts bashing me for generalizing. I am from that region, and have quite a few first hand experience.
I would agree to that a lot and history would justify it too, in Indian government's case.
But, making an overall generalization for "all" Indians is a bit hurtful, personally. There is no denying about the job boards things, but that generalization is not true, atleast from my personal experience of college life at BITS, Pilani and interaction with students from IIT's.
Even if it were so, I find this kind of attitude damaging for society.
It's the same thing in Europe or the USA: nationalistic pride results in more expensive products, and people complain why they aren't cheaper. If instead they are cheaper but produced abroad they complain why they were not made in our home country, and why are we giving money to foreigners.
If the Indian government found that the only way to get a 35$ tablet was from a chinese company, kudos to them to do what's best for their society. A cheap tablet will be a lot more useful than the damage it will bring to Indian pride.
I agree. India in general is a poor country. I don't give a rat's * where they bring it from if I can get a device just to play with for 35 bucks. You don't get a phone that cheap in contract from T-mobile in USA. Plus I hope that people rise above the jingoism and work as one for our future's own sake.
No - the Indian government claimed that the tablet was possible because of their world lead in IT and the involvement of Indian universities.
It did this for it's own political purposes and to the embarrassment of the university involved.
As everyone on here knows, like OLPC, it would end up actually costing more than and doing less than a commercially produced model - like every other government initiative.
It seems that in this case they simply got caught cheating.
"Whatever patents are necessary, will be filed and protected", Mr N K Sinha, Joint Secretary at the HRD Ministry announced. "But the industry today is such, that most of the parts necessary, are available straight off the shelf."
16 comments
[ 168 ms ] story [ 1076 ms ] threadIndeed they could even purchase the dies for the case and actually manufacture the whole thing in India. Would the lack of Indian case design make it not Indian? Not quite a smoking gun.
What one needs is a powerful Indian media company to ask for an example to look at and a trip to the factory.
Another good example would be try posting for a freelance dev job in any job boards and watch the frivolous offers trickle down without anyone even reading what the requirements of the jobs are.
I wonder if this is a cultural thing.
Also for some blind patriotism read the comments on this blog post.
PS. Before anyone starts bashing me for generalizing. I am from that region, and have quite a few first hand experience.
But, making an overall generalization for "all" Indians is a bit hurtful, personally. There is no denying about the job boards things, but that generalization is not true, atleast from my personal experience of college life at BITS, Pilani and interaction with students from IIT's.
It's the same thing in Europe or the USA: nationalistic pride results in more expensive products, and people complain why they aren't cheaper. If instead they are cheaper but produced abroad they complain why they were not made in our home country, and why are we giving money to foreigners.
If the Indian government found that the only way to get a 35$ tablet was from a chinese company, kudos to them to do what's best for their society. A cheap tablet will be a lot more useful than the damage it will bring to Indian pride.
As everyone on here knows, like OLPC, it would end up actually costing more than and doing less than a commercially produced model - like every other government initiative.
It seems that in this case they simply got caught cheating.
All the parts, in fact!