So yet another claim by an Indian group comes crashing. The $10 laptop that was hyped and talked about for months, has turned out not even to be a computing device and hardly anything that can function like a laptop. To begin with, the much-hyped device (supposedly) built by the Vellore Institute of Technology students, is merely a storage device. Secondly, it is not selling for $10 but is now priced at $30. And the new claim being made by these folks is this storage device can help build a $60 laptop in future.
Anyone with even a little understanding of computes could have seen that this thing was a hoax to begin with. But we Indians are so gullible about stuff that is supposed to make our chests swell with pride, that we will sometimes ignore the obvious and take the bait rather than challenge and analyze things upfront.
A few years ago there was similar hype about some genius in India who had mastered the art of manufacturing oil from plants. Reputable organizations like Kanpur IIT and its professors had supposedly backed the claim, and a demonstration was planned in New Delhi. The hoax artists won several awards and probably some real estate from his state’s chief minister and somehow never managed a single credible public demonstration of his oil manufacturing process.
Most of the rest of the sane world follows accepted processes and protocols of scientific discoveries and inventions. In India, we have mastered the art of invention without actually doing much.
Even scientists from ISRO, one of India’s few really reputable institutions, seem to be spending more time talking to the news media and making tall claims about how and when India will land Indians on this or that celestial body. Let’s first master the art of getting people from one end of the town to the other before making silly claims about landing Laloo on moon by 2020.
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