This appears to be an initiative by the government to push technology to the masses. I doubt the tablet (if it is not vaporware) will be available at this price for everyone. They will probably subsidize these devices to certain sections of the society. We have something called a Ration Card which is given based on your economic status. You can use that to get a subsidy on food, oil etc. I am assuming that subsidy on the tablet would be based on something like that.

India probably has the highest growth in terms of mobile devices purchased. The cheapest Nokia mobile set here costs USD 25 and we have Indian mobile companies now (Lava, MicroMax, Karbonn) who are aiming to provide mobiles for USD 10 in 2011. I have seen beggars with mobile phones. That's how low the entry-barrier is, in India. These mobiles do their job well.

India also has a very good mobile coverage. The areas which are not covered by private providers are covered by the state-owned BSNL. 3G services are going to get rolled out sometime towards the end of 2010.

The government wishes to push technology to masses. This is a good step in that direction.

Once you start getting consumers used to no-buttons-no-wires sort of a thing, there's no stopping.

I think we will see monitors / tv displays coming with an in-built wireless adapter, streaming content from the mobile which is lying on a charging pad.
The flip side is that we will get more and more locked on to proprietary content platforms.

Disclaimer : I am an Indian.

I didn't want to respond, but I thought a bit of a perspective might help.

You know, there is a constant attempt to try and get rid of this problem. The solution to this problem is education and education is only now showing signs of improvement. As the GP mentioned, India has a very old culture and only in the last 50 years or so the country has been trying to get rid of this problem. Looking at the progress we made, we should be able to eradicate most of it in another 50 years.

Can you say the same of other countries ? It is not that long ago that the U.S. managed to mostly solve apartheid. How long did that take since the country gained its independence ? 200 years ? The U.S. by and large was made of immigrants. That means those guys went through hardships and came to the U.S. You would think they would have minimum common sense of how to treat other people. That didn't work out very well for colored people, did it ?

Humans are by and large animals. The only solution is education. Education takes time.

Heh. Interestingly they seem to do this only for currencies that have higher current value than the Dollar.. I dare them to make $199 to INR 199 :)
$1 is roughly INR 50

I want these m*f*ng black holes off the m*f*ng galaxy!

I have seen IPhone rip-offs for Rs. 2500/-. At the current rate of exchange, it would be around $50. These phones don't even have IMEI numbers and the government has banned the phones for that reason.
I have seen the phone in action and it works just fine.
I am guessing you will never get these mobiles in the U.S. :)