New Delhi, Sept. 1 -- The Simputer was the first genuinely original computer that India built. As the legal advisor to the project, I was lucky to own one of its first colour units off the production line, and I had hours of fun with its truly novel interface and advanced features.

For those who have never heard of it, the Simputer was a palm-sized touchscreen device designed in Bangalore at the turn of the millennium, years before Apple turned its attention in this direction. In 2001, Time magazine called it one of the best and most innovative portable technologies to bridge the digital divide in the developing world, but you will not see any in production today because it died a premature death.

For years, I attributed the demise of t...