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DDA demolishes hostel for blind, 20 students left in the cold, open

Fri, 12/22/2017 - 10:34 -- geeta.nair

Occupants of a hostel for visually impaired students in Janakpuri’s Virender Nagar have been sleeping in the open for almost a week now, after the DDA demolished their hostel on December 15. The hostel, Louis Welfare Progressive Association of the Blind, has been running for the last 17 years. Around 20 people, mostly students of Delhi University or the nearby Sarvodaya school, stay there.

Marsha de Cordova: The government shouldn’t blame disabled people for its failings

Thu, 12/21/2017 - 10:17 -- geeta.nair

Afew weeks ago, Labour’s shadow disabilities minister needed to give a parliamentary response to the government’s proposals for its new work and health programme. But the MP in question, Marsha de Cordova, couldn’t read it. This MP for Battersea in south London is registered blind and needs all documents in large print.

Facebook's new face recognition service uses AI to help blind users know who is in the photos in their feeds

Wed, 12/20/2017 - 10:36 -- geeta.nair

When Matt King first got on Facebook eight years ago, the blind engineer had to weigh whether it was worth spending an entire Saturday morning checking whether a friend of his was actually in his friend list. Such were the tools at the time for the visually impaired — almost nonexistent.
Today, thanks to text-to-audio software, it just takes a few seconds for him to accomplish the same task. And because of a new face recognition service the social network is rolling out Tuesday, he can now learn which friends are in photos, even those who haven’t been tagged by another user.

SC push to public access for disabled persons

Wed, 12/20/2017 - 10:19 -- geeta.nair

The Supreme Court has come out with a series of directions to ensure that public infrastructure is accessible to differently-abled persons and ordered that the June 2019 deadline set by the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 to make all government buildings providing public services made fully accessible to them be strictly adhered to.

Pakistani student creates a device for the visually impaired

Tue, 12/19/2017 - 11:29 -- geeta.nair

A Pakistani student from Peshawar has developed a device that helps people with visual impairment walk. The device, Sonic Eye, includes a white stick which has a navigation device attached along with a sensor that buzzes each time it detects an object in close proximity. The student behind the device, Hafsa Jamal, stated that she is also preparing a mobile app which would help the visually impaired navigate using their phone instead of a stick altogether.Late last year, students from Karachi University developed several applications for Android and websites.

World’s first ever IT park for the disabled soon to come up in Hyderabad

Tue, 12/19/2017 - 10:48 -- geeta.nair

For the first time ever, a specially designated IT park is soon going to be established for persons with disability (PwD) in Hyderabad near the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Shamshabad. Under a model of Public-Private Partnership, the government of Telangana has allocated 10 acres of land for this project. The announcement was made on December 3 on the account of International Day of Persons with Disability.

Divyang centre: Injured on duty, paramilitary soldiers take on new skill sets

Fri, 12/15/2017 - 10:49 -- geeta.nair

Introduced by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) last year in December, the Divyang Skill Development Centre (DSDC) has started giving training in gardening and mobile repairing to develop entrepreneurial skills among the physically handicapped soldiers.

The centre, anchored by the Border Security Force (BSF), was introduced to impart skills among paramilitary troopers who have suffered grievous physical injuries on duty rendering them physically disadvantaged.

Delhi students with special needs have to make do with ill-equipped schools, teachers

Wed, 12/13/2017 - 10:50 -- geeta.nair

Since Ganesh was two, his father Sunil Khandelwal could tell that his son was “different”. Now 13, Ganesh was constantly hyperactive, and Sunil says he consulted a long list of doctors for treatment, including ones at the All India Institute of Medical Science.

Ganesh was diagnosed to be severely intellectually impaired when he was five.

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