Here’s an interesting article I found on “The
Telegraph” (UK) website this morning:
The pledge to give away the
laptops was made by Mr Yadav Photo: AFP
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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