72% of India's disabled children between 0-5 years miss out on an education, while just 61% of disabled children between 5 to 19 years attend school, says a UN report. Things the draft National Education Policy fails to take into account, as disability rights activist Shampa Sengupta points out.
Guardian staff reporter
Sat 13 Jul 2019 07.51 BST
Partial sight has been restored to six blind people via an implant that transmits video images directly to the brain.
Some vision was made possible – with the participants’ eyes bypassed – by a video camera attached to glasses which sent footage to electrodes implanted in the visual cortex of the brain.
Himachal Pradesh government has been urged to implement the High Court order to provide free education and accessible libraries in educational institutions to visually impaired and other disabled students.
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In a letter to Chief Minister Jairam Thakur, State Disability Advisory Board’s expert member Ajai Srivastava said Himachal Pradesh High Court has directed the government to provide free education to the disabled students up to the university level.
The Reserve Bank of India will come out with a mobile application to help visually challenged people in identifying currency notes as cash still remains a dominant mode of transaction. At present, banknotes in the denominations of Rs 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500 and 2,000 are in circulation, besides Re 1 notes issued by the Centre.
The RBI said that identification of banknote denomination is key to successful completion of cash-based transactions by visually impaired persons.
A 3-day cricket tournament for the visually impaired persons will be held from 13 July 2019. Cricket Association for Blind J&K will organise the tournament in collaboration with District Administration Doda and Red Cross Society.
The objective behind the tournament is to encourage the visually challenged persons of this mountainous district to take part in the sports and boost their moral.
The tournament is being organised by Cricket Blind Association J&K in collaboration with Chairman District Red Cross Society Doda.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget for 2019-20 has elements of potentially the good, the bad, and the ugly for the voluntary sector in India. Let’s look at all three in reverse order.
Around 68 visually-challenged girls view Dashraj Gyawali as a father-figure because he has let them stay at his Burari home for free till they complete their studies.
In 1998, a visually challenged teenage girl approached Dashraj Gyawali with a cry for help. She had just completed her schooling and had taken admission at Delhi University (DU).
A group of students and faculty members at a Bengaluru college have developed a software called Soft Braille to help visually impaired people get better access to images and maps in Braille.
Accessing images and maps is a major challenge for blind and low vision students, coming in the way of critical choices in academics. A new software aims to help them overcome those challenges.
An Indian-American led non-profit organisation has launched a public utility mobile app to locate and identify disabled-friendly buildings in India.
The NGO, Voice of Specially Abled People (VOSAP), announced the launch of mobile app during the United Nations Conference of State Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities or COSP12, early this week.
A mobile app to find accessible places (for persons with disabilities) is very important in a country like India, it said.
Navigating airports can be tricky. They’re loud, crowded and not always laid out intuitively. They’re even more challenging for visually impaired people.
Chieko Asakawa knows those challenges firsthand, and she has also devised a remedy.
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