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.

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.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, during her Budget speech on Friday, announced that the government will shortly be releasing new rupee coins for public use. 

These coins will be in the denominations of one, two, five, 10 and 20 rupees. 

Forces backed move to tax disability pension: Finance minister - Times of India

Bhanu P Lohumi
Tribune News Service
Shimla, June 30

Himachal Pradesh University (HPU) will be the first one in the country to have its own policy for persons with disabilities.

A committee, constituted by the Vice-Chancellor, will prepare the draft policy document which will be implemented after the approval of the Executive Council (EC).

A decision was taken at a meeting of the EC after the issue was raised by Ajai Srivastava, an EC member, holding additional charge of the nodal officer for disability affairs of the HPU.

According to the World Health Organisation, India has a blind population of 63 million. A substantial number lose their vision late in life and the consequent trauma is something that, leave aside families, even the medical fraternity is not equipped to address. That’s our focus on Story of the Week.

Until 2017, life was going as expected for Praveen Shankhdhar . An art director in an advertising agency, Praveen was in his 30s, married with a child. Then he started losing his vision due to glaucoma.