So what do you think it’s going to be? The innovation of the century or another government-backed exercise that basks in the limelight for a while and flickers away?

A lot has been written about the 10 dollar laptop. First up, I fail to understand why we should give it a US dollar tag if it is an indigenous product being subsidised by the Indian government? Why not call it the Rs 500 laptop instead like the one lakh rupees car by the Tatas?

As of now, all we know is that the laptop will have a two gigabyte memory and wireless internet capability. A prototype (of a slightly higher cost) has been demonstrated to the Union minister of Human Resource Development but even that sounds like a marvel. The rest will perhaps come from subsidies, but who knows? The government has reportedly earmarked more than 46 billion rupees to develop the low-power gadget to work in rural areas with unreliable power supply and poor internet connectivity.

The laptop, being developed by Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Indian Institute of Technology, Madras will be manufactured at the government-owned Semiconductors Complex in Chandigarh. It will reportedly use a cheap microprocessor and do away with the hard disk, CD/DVD drive and other costly and problem-prone components. The wonder machine, being eagerly awaited by rural school administrators, will be a basic keyboard-screen-USB port model.

Let’s wait for the miracle to happen.