Aakash 2 will be available to students for $21

It seems that Datawind will be making the next generation of the Aakash tablet, called the Aakash 2, for the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD). Relations had soured between the two parties after the failure of the first generation Aakash tablet but it seems the two have buried the hatchet. NYT’s India Ink, which got access to the device, reports it will be available for for Rs 1,132 or $21 for students of 20,000 colleges and 416 Universities. Datawind will also retail it in the market under its Ubislate brand for Rs 3,499 and Rs 4,299.
The Aakash 2 will feature a 7-inch capacitive display, 256MB RAM, 4GB of internal storage along with a memory card slot and a 800MHz Cortex A8 processor. It will come in two variants, a Wi-Fi only model and another with a SIM card slot for data connectivity. It will run on Android 2.3 Gingerbread.
Datawind has to supply 100,000 units of the tablet in the next six months to IIT Bombay for testing and pilot trials. The project was initially handled by IIT Rajasthan but was recently shifted to IIT Bombay after the failure of the Aakash last year. Datawind also had problems with Quad Electronics, its manufacturing partner in India.
Earlier HRD Minister Kapil Sibla had claimed to launch the Aakash 2 would be launched in May but that has passed without any announcement.