The successor to the extremely low-cost Aakash (meaning ‘sky’) tablet – the Aakash 2 – is all set to release in India next month on the 1 year anniversary of the original, again for a very low price of Rs. 2000 (~$35) but with much improved internals over the original. The Aakash 2 is a part of the Indian government’s initiative to provide free tablet devices to millions of students, and also a low-cost tablet for the general consumer.

The Aakash 2 sports a 7-inch display, 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor, 512MB RAM, 4GB internal storage, front facing camera, a SIM slot for phone capabilities, a microSD card slot for expandable storage, and Android 2.3 Gingerbread (with an update to Android 4.0 coming later).

DataWind Ltd., manufacturer of the Aakash tablets, plans to manufacturer around 220 million units of the Aakash 2, with DataWind apparently having received an additional 5.5 million orders from the general public. At a price of Rs. 2000 and with much improved specs, that isn’t really a surprise.