India's Foray into an Ultracheap Tablet

choi

April Rabkin, Abourt>REtry>Fail? The $35 Aakash tablet computer was supposed to be a triumph for India. Instead, it became an object lesson in the mismanagement of the nation's tech potential. Fast Company, July/August, 2012.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magaz ... india-tech-industry

Note:
(a) In the table of contents, the article is under the following title:
"India's Tablet That Wasn't.  It sounded too good to be true: a $35 tablet computer known as the Aakash, that would serve India's poor and prove that the country's famed engineers could produce great hardware as well as software. Then things got complicated. BY APRIL RABKIN"
(b) THe surnameRabkin is "Jewish (from Belarus): habitational name from the village of Ryabki, now in Belarus, + the eastern Slavic possessive suffix -in."
(c) Indian surnames:
(i) Kumar (Hindi): from Sanskrit kumara ‘child’, ‘son’, ‘prince’. It is also an epithet of the god Kartikeya, the son of Shiva.
(ii) Mittal (Hindi and Jain): probably derived from Sanskrit mitra ‘friend’, ‘ally.’
(iii) Gupta (Hindi and Jain): from Sanskrit gupta ‘secret’, ‘protected’ (there was a Gupta empire)

(d) For IIT Rajasthan, see Indian Institute of Technology Rajasthan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ind ... echnology_Rajasthan
(Established 2008; LocationJodhpur, Rajasthan, India)

* Jodhpur
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodhpur
(the second largest city in the Indian state of Rajasthan. It is located 335 kilometres (208 mi) west from the state capital, Jaipur)
(e) garrulous (adj; Latin garrulus, from garrire to chatter): "WORDY"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/garrulous
(f) Punjab, India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punjab,_India
(section 1 Etymology)

, which together with a bigger Punjab, Pakistan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punjab,_Pakistan
, forms the Punjab region.
(g) Regarding "Jobsian press conference."

Jobsian is the adjective for Jobs, a prophet in Old Testament.
(h) The article says, "An ample man, jowly in an almost Churchillian way, Minister Sibal is finishing up a briefing with education reporters when I walk into his art-filled New Delhi office."

jowly (adj): "having marked jowls : having full or saggy flesh about the lower cheeks and jaw area <elderly man with a disillusioned jowly face — John Dos Passos>"

(i) Regarding a MALE aide (to India's minister Kapil Sibal) named Uma Shanker.

Compare Uma Thurman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uma_Thurman
(1970-; she is named after an [sic] Dbuma Chenpo (in Tibetan, the "db" is silent; from Mahamadhyamaka in Sanskrit, meaning "Great Middle Way"))

Dbuma Chenpo is a Tibetan phrase, not a person.
(j) The article quotes a professor's website: "Dr. Phatak's dream is to see a resurgent India catching up with the world using Information Technology as the spring board [sic]."

I guess the author means to say there is no gap (or there should be a hyphen: "-") between the last two words. In www.m-w.com, it is "springboard." But Barbylon.com's English dictionary does display "spring board" which is rare among online English dictionaries, though.
(k)
* Douglas Hofstadter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hofstadter
(1945- ; American; best known for his book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, first published in 1979)
* Hofstadter's law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadter%27s_law

(l) The article at the end states, "Finally, [Professor] Phatak suggested that I contact WishTel, one of the manufacturers that is bidding to produce the next-generation Aakash, and I arranged an appointment with Milind Shah, WishTel's founder. * * * For now, he [Shah] is calling it the Ira Thing, after the Hindu goddess of wisdom."

* WishTel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishtel
(On 23 March 2012, it announced the launch of a range of low-cost tablet devices by the name of IRA)
* Ira
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira
(among other things, may mean: "Sarasvati or Ira, the Hindu goddess of wisdom, also for the wind-god, also meaning 'Earth'")