Thiru A Raja, Minister of Communications and IT announced the launch of
computing devices starting at an affordable price of Rs 5,000. The devices are
based on Intel's revolutionary Atom Processor and these will be available in the
Indian market very soon. The Minister was launching a unique 'Connected Indian'
movement facilitated by Intel with partners from the industry and support from
the government. Raja said, this could provide the 'unconnected' citizens with a
truly affordable, simple and easy to use access to the Internet. He hoped that
the price range would appeal very strongly to the broad citizen base. Raja
called upon the industry to continuously innovate to create cost effective
Internet access usage models. The Minister had earlier directed Intel to create
a computing device at an approximate price point of Rs 5,000.
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| Thiru A Raja, Minister of
Communications and IT and Navin Shenoy, VP Sales and Marketing and GM-APAC,
Intel at the launch of the Connected Indians initiative |
Raja observed that the Connected Indian movement would bring with it rapid
broadband deployment and help harness the powers of Internet to accelerate
inclusive social and economic change. He commended the industry for working on a
new class of simple, affordable, Internet-centric devices nettops, netbooks and
mobile Internet devices. He said bridging the digital divide is a key concern
for India, considering that nearly 70 percent of the country's population has
been bypassed by the ICT revolution.