India's Rickety Bridge Across Its Digital Divide

The device was supposed to democratize and accelerate India's march into the information-technology era. It was supposed to be India's answer to Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child project: an indigenous brand that brought computing power to children in village schools, and to students of all ages from poor families, at a third of the cost estimated by Negroponte. Even before it hit the market, it generated glowing coverage for its ambitious scale, reach and price. After its pilot version faltered and was sent back to the drawing board, its second incarnation was presented late last year by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as an example of "frugal innovation."

That was about as good as it got, though, for Aakash ("sky"), the $35 computing tablet promised in 2010 by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Two and a half years later, the project is on life-support. Almost every promise made, or intimated, has failed to come true.