If you were impressed by $199 price tag of Amazon Kindle Fire last week, the Indian Government is here to shock you with their $35 tablet called “Aakash”, which means sky in Hindi. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) developed the Aakash tablet for students and lower income people. The project was first announced by the Indian government last year. The government will be subsidizing the price of the tablet from $60 to $35 for students. A $60 version for general public will be available later this year.

"The rich have access to the digital world, the poor and ordinary have been excluded. Aakash will end that digital divide," Telecoms and Education Minister Kapil Sibal said.

A small London based company DataWind will manufacture the Aakash tablet. It is designed to work in 48 degrees Celsius heat (118 degrees Fahrenheit) and comes with resistive touchscreen, 660MHz processor, VGA camera, two USB ports and WiFi connectivity. The battery life on the tablet will be three hours and it is designed to be rugged.

Indian government will start a pilot run of 100,000 units that will be given to the students for free this month. The Indian Telecom and Education Minister handed out the first 500 Aakash tablets at a launch event on Wednesday.

Some tech reviewers are finding faults like the tablet is slower and has less responsive touchscreen while comparing it to tablets that cost 5-10 times more. But one thing these reviewers are not considering is that for $35 you don’t even get a graphing calculator let alone a full-fledged tablet computer. [Via Reuters]