New Delhi, Aug. 13: Barack Obama may believe that “iPods and iPads” can sometimes pose a risk to democracy, but he will have a hard time convincing India’s MPs.

Apple’s iPad 2 is now all the rage among Rajya Sabha members, who are rushing to buy the sleek device with the taxpayer’s money, much to the envy of their Lok Sabha colleagues. Since few of the Elders know how to use the gadget, the House secretariat is planning a two-hour crash course for them.

Good training will also help the MPs skirt the “slips” that have embarrassed their counterparts elsewhere. In February, an Italian lawmaker was clicked looking at scantily clad women on an escort service website while the House debated a no-confidence motion against his party’s culture minister. The MP later claimed his fingers had “slipped” and he had found the page by accident.

An Indonesian MP had to resign after being caught surfing child pornography and, according to reports, Britain’s House of Commons has an “iPad and laptop thief” who recently stole Indian-origin member Keith Vaz’s iPad.

In India, though, every Elder will have a computer tablet of his or her own. Last month, the Upper House’s committee on provision of computer equipment hiked the members’ one-time computer allowance by Rs 50,000 — from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh — to buy either an iPad 2 or a Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Members from the left, right and centre of the political spectrum — including the four Rashtriya Janata Dal MPs whose chief Lalu Prasad recently launched a rant in the Lok Sabha against most things American — have been queuing up to buy the device.

Already, 70 of the House’s 243 members have either bought the gadget or placed orders with the Rajya Sabha secretariat. Most have chosen the more expensive Apple product.

Some, like the BJP’s S.S. Ahluwalia, the CPM’s Sitaram Yechury and the Congress’s E.M.S. Natchiappan, have been using the device inside the House to refer to their notes.

They could soon be in a race to become the first Indian MP to read out a speech in Parliament from his tablet.

Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson K. Rahman Khan, who heads the House committee, has made it “mandatory” for the members to buy the device. He says it is a green initiative to end the need to print voluminous parliamentary papers.

But sources say the tablet’s chief attraction for the members is that it will save them from carrying tonnes of parliamentary papers. The average age of the current Rajya Sabha MPs is 62.15 years, and lugging papers around inside the House, where their aides are not allowed, is difficult for many.

The idea to arm each MP with a tablet, therefore, came from the members themselves. Accordingly, the House committee raised the computer allowance, which allows members to buy devices and accessories such as laptops, printers, pen drivers, scanners and even CDs/DVDs over the course of their entire term.

These remain with the members after their terms end, though they may be required to pay back the depreciated cost of the device. The Lok Sabha’s 543 members will soon take a decision to increase their computer allowance too to buy these devices, a source said.

A circular from the Upper House secretariat says the government’s National Informatics Centre has developed an e-reader-compatible software application for “easy access to daily parliamentary papers through Apple iPad 2 and Samsung Galaxy Tab devices”.

It adds: “Using this application, members shall be able to access the latest list of business, papers laid on the table of the House, latest parliamentary bulletins, questions lists, and members’ birthdays on their devices.”

Sources said the House committee got various companies to demonstrate their products and selected only the Apple and Samsung devices. Samsung has offered its Galaxy Tab with “diary case, Bluetooth device, SD Card 8GB” for Rs 25,895, inclusive of all taxes.

The Apple vendor has offered the iPad 2 (Wi-fi, 3G, 32GB) at Rs 40,800 and the 64GB version at Rs 46,645. The Rajya Sabha secretariat has itself bought 20 units of the iPad 2 for its officers.

But since not all the Elders are tech savvy, “we intend to have a two-hour (training) session soon”, said the joint secretary (information technology) in the House secretariat, Sharada Subramaniam.

US President Obama, who is tech savvy and a BlackBerry buff, had warned America’s students a year ago that the spread of “iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations” had made it easy to spread the “craziest claims” and specious arguments.

Obama, whose election was credited partly to his skilful use of modern media, added: “It is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy.”

However, most western legislatures — including America’s Capitol Hill, the German Bundestag, the parliaments of Canada, New Zealand and Britain and the European Parliament — have either bought or are in the process of buying iPads for their MPs. They all are buying it with the taxpayer’s money, ostensibly to save on paper.

In March this year, a Labour MP made headlines by becoming the first member of the House of Commons to use her iPad to deliver her speech.

Who will it be in India? Yechury said he was yet to read out a speech from his iPad “but have referred to my notes on my iPad” during House proceedings.

Was he the first Indian MP to use an iPad inside the House? “I don’t know, hence I cannot (stake a) claim,” the CPM leader said.