India is promising to unveil a prototype $10 laptop meant for its schools. If it can pull off such a wonder, it'll beat the pants off of One Laptop Per Child, Intel's Classmate, NComputing and the Eee.

Next to nothing is known about the creature. India has been working on it for about three years, recruiting cheap design help from the Vellore Institute of Technology, the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras and the state-controlled Semiconductor Complex.

Supposedly the thing was running $47 to make a couple of years ago and right now, according to the Secretary of Higher Education RP Agarwal, "The price is working out to be $20 but with mass production it is bound to come down."

He suggested that the first units could be available in six months presumably from a contract manufacturer.

Skepticism is high that India, which has given no indication of the device's bill of materials, can pull a viable machine considering a screen alone costs more than 20 bucks.

One local blog dismissed it as little more than a "souped up calculator" even with a huge government subsidy and wonders who will maintain and support the thing.

The widget, reportedly called Sakshat, meaning "before your eyes," is supposed to have 2GB of RAM, Wi-Fi, Ethernet and expandable memory and consume 2W of power. There's reportedly no hard drive or CD/DVD.

Local press reports say the government is prepared to subsidize 10 Kbps connectivity.

It's assumed it will be based on Linux, not Windows, and run on something other than an x86.

A number of publishers including Macmillan, Tata McGraw-Hill, Prentice-Hall and Vikas Publishing have reportedly agreed to supply portions of their textbooks for free.

The laptop is supposed to be unveiled as part of the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology that wants to link 18,000 colleges and 400 universities on the subcontinent in an e-learning program via an existing Shakshat portal.

It is unclear if India has notions of commercializing the laptop.