It's not like we expected every developing country in the world to jump at the chance to blow $100 million on the minimum order of Negroponte's
pull-string powered laptops, but India sure did seem a logical fit. With their burgeoning tech economy, it would seem training a new generation of
tech support personnel engineers and programmers would be a priority well met by the
OLPC, but the Indian Ministry of Education busted out the vocab and called the laptop "pedagogically suspect." They seemed to think the funds were better suited for building classrooms and hiring teachers, not "fancy tools," and their reasoning is hard to fault in that regard. Education Secretary Sudeep Banerjee also questioned the maturity of Negroponte's plan, and said no major country was seriously interested. Of course, Nigeria just ordered up a cool million, and places like China, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt and Thailand are still likely targets, but it looks like India is content to wait on the sidelines and call sour grapes for now.
posted July 27th 2006 8:52PM
Yes, even if Indians officials are all corrupt its rather irrelevant to their decision to question the educational legitimacy of having cheaper laptops.
Now I'm biased because I'm very suspect of MIT MediaLabs since most of their creations have been rather either hopelessly artsy and impractical or monolithically ivory towered constructs.
Even with this prejudice taken into account I think India made a conscious decision to reject the OLPC, out of the psychological impact / health effects of introducing laptops to children. But I think the main issue: educational mert, should be the more important topic of debate.
From a geek perspective a cheap laptop without a dependency to outlets or batteries introduce incredible new avenues for the infux of information, valuable information. A laptop with an internet connection could allow students to access millions of books online, from all imaginable topics. There are even efforts taken by certain groups to flood lesser developed countries with educational books in easy to access formats (pdt, txt) and so forth.
However, as we all know technology is a double edged sword. An internet connection could also introduce the world of internet pornography and technological-virii like MySpace, Facebook, and other lesser variants into their conscious. Such scenarios as this would be tragic.
All in all I think India made the right decision.
For all the dumbheads who have been supporting this scheme, got to reply two questions
1) Will they ever allow their children (as low as 6 years old) to work alone in a computer?? If they do and have internet connection they are more prone to stuff like child predators
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/07/28/child-pornography.html
2) How many of you were geeks at the age of 6?? I got my computer 6years back (when i was 18) and for almost 4 years all I was doing is playing games and browsing...and I am sure most of you did the same thing.
It is just a waste of money as not everyone will end up being a software professional. Also there are internet bars everywhere in india for as low as 0.11 US cents per hour. Which is not too bad. Also most schools have computer labs to help the students out
and to all those who have been talking about india being poor, dont worry you should be one of the decendants of a greedy ancestor who had robbed the wealth and killed ppl from asia/india or should I say decendants of murderers??
Good decision india...
Varun, dude great replies (What do you eat man?)
Will you please write something for "UglyAmerican"? This guy needs some dose, I think. He thinks that just getting fertilized on the stolen land called USA, he has the sole right to preach about what others should/not do. However farther you will go in terms of luxury/technology, will still remain doubtful about your middle names. Set your priorities right before taking a dig at India.
India really isn't that underdeveloped... in fact it is growing! I don't want to go too far as to judge the feeling of this report and how it was expressed, but seriously I don't see what the big deal is. Idk why I'm even adding a comment, I guess I'm just mad at so many people not being more open minded. But keep up with updates like this, I like to read these things. (no I'm not Indian)
It's sad that (of what I read, because I got tired of the bickering) some people find it necessary to tell others they are wrong when they are offended. Maybe it's just me but it seems a little rude not to respect other peoples' opinions.
Secondly, computers are obsolete when children aren't getting enough to eat, or dying from totally preventable diseases. Problems that have been identified for years and still have not been solved - one step at a time. It is better to walk down the right path than run down the wrong.
Western life-style is often considered the bench-mark for all others and as if there is no other format for society. Nations go through cycles of super-powers, it seems likely that it will be an Asian country next. Perhaps they will enforce conformity to their way of life - hopefully they are not as ignorant as all others before them.
And on corruption - every country has it's share of corruption. To use the most recent and well publicised example the'war on terror' going after Bin Laden, in Afghanistan, ended up in Iraq. Bin Laden was put on a back burner only to be brought to a gentle boil again now, after 100s of 1000s of civilian deaths in Iraq with most distance made in a backwards direction. Many problems in India are due to the British and our own selfish colonialism and I am ashamed of my nation as a result. If only a country would take the moral upper hand.
No American uses the word "wanker", IndianAmericanAbroad is most probably a limey indian or just plain indian.
limey indian or not, every non-native's opinion of a country is strongly biased based upon the window (of information, not knowledge) they have open into that country:
India: a country where all 6-yr olds grow up to work in tech support centers (sic).
Nigeria: a country where a 100 million Mr. Mogadishus are going to grow up to ask stupid westerners to wire them some money for bargain laptops and ikea couches.
America: a country where, if nothing else, every person is either a hollywood actor or vegas stripper, or both.
travel, don't grovel. and grow up. if you're out to flame, maybe its you who needed a 100 dollar laptop instead of hormone-fed-cattle-milk and videogame kiosks as a 6 year old.
LOL The irony!
Its us Americans who on one hand are handing out our jobs to the Indians and on the other hand bitching about them doing their jobs!
I wonder how many of the disgruntled here would care to work as much for as little the pay.
The $100 laptop on the otherhand might have been good in the Bronx or in New Orleans etc NOT in India. Its not like every American kid has a laptop or computer at home. Why isnt every American kid sitting behind his laptop? Oh right, they're too busy trying to be OG's!
Imagine, with such poor access to computers they've "robbed" so many "hard working" Americans of their jobs and now you want them to get more??? I say more power to the "tech support" in India, where hardwork and enterprise gets rewarded, like it did once here in America!
No wonder.....
I am an Indian, so my comments are probably a lil biased. Take them with a pinch of salt:
When I graduated back in 2003 with a CS degree from a government college, my entire 4-year college expense came to hardly 5000 Rs(includes books and every single college fees) -- that turns out to be about 125 USD!! Each year when I renewed my IEEE membership for a year, it cost me more than 2 semesters worth of my college fees. Granted I had one of the cheapest education out there, but the target audience here is undergoing education way cheaper than I did. Selling laptops that are almost worth 200 USDs would no doubt seem ridiculous to the Indian Government. The budget ppl expected India to allocate to this project.. that would literally fund rural schooling for an entire state for more than a year out there(no, I am not kidding).
Take this with a pinch of salt again, but if I were a corrupt politician in a country where red tape is all over the place and things are painfully slow, I would totally lobby for this project as a golden opportunity to fill my pockets. Feels relieved to know someone out there has the interest of nation in his mind above himself.
Good decision India..!! some more things which I would like India to drop..
Going to Moon project
Going to Mars project
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