Saturday, March 16, 2013

Today's news article

Here’s an interesting article I found on “The Telegraph” (UK) website this morning:

Indian laptops that crash if users try to remove pictures of minister

One and a half million laptops given to poor students by India's largest state government crash if their users try to remove pre-loaded screen savers featuring pictures of the new chief minister.

The pledge to give away the laptops was made by Mr Yadav Photo: AFP

By Dean Nelson, New Delhi
4:26PM GMT 15 Mar 2013

The laptops, which feature pictures of Akhilesh Yadav and his father Mulayam, leader of the socialist Samajwadi Party, appear to be hi-tech election leaflets for the next election.

The laptop's political drawback was discovered by a number of students who tried to remove the screen savers shortly after receiving their £210 Hewlett Packard machines earlier this year.

The pledge to give away the laptops was made by Mr Yadav in his successful campaign to oust Mayawati, the controversial 'Dalit' chief minister in last year's Uttar Pradesh state elections. At 39 he is India's youngest chief minister and he and his father, his party's national leader, had sought to counter accusations that his party is anti-technology.

According to 19-year-old Lucknow student Tabrez Khan the laptop arrived branded as a Samajwadi Party gift with photographs of the Yadavs on its home screen.

"I was trying to partition the hard disc, and was also trying to change the image when the system crashed," he said.

The government is now planning to issue new guidelines to students warning them not to interfere with the laptops' settings which flash the politicians' photographs for five seconds.

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