It is reminiscent of the Hindi movie Swades, where Shah Rukh Khan has his own high tech van that does space research. Buoyed by the success of the project in Tamil Nadu, Google has launched the Internet Bus in Karnataka. The Internet Bus rolled out from Kolar on Monday and is on an ambitious journey into Karnataka.

Equipped with high speed Internet access, the bus will be used to teach rural folk the use of Internet. They will be taught how to browse the web, use search engines, send and receive email and also how to keep track of commodity and share prices. Videos in local language, kanada, will be the medium of instruction.

The bus is scheduled to run through 15 towns of Karnataka. These include Kolar, Mandya, Mysore, Bengaluru, Hassan, Arsikere, Shimoga, Bhadravati, Chikmanglur, Tumkur, Chitradurga, Davangere, Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum, Gadag and Hospet.

Prasad Ram, the head of Google India research and development (R&D) said “The Internet bus project has been designed to educate the people, particularly the young people, about use of the worldwide web for information, communication, entertainment and education”.

The tour is aimed at reaching out to the class of society that has had little or no access to the Internet thus far.