General

Wyoming Council for the Blind aims to spark new efforts

Graham Steel has talked with State lawmakers this year about maintaining funding for talking books and other resources for people who are blind or visually impaired. The Wyoming Council of the Blind president also met with Gov. Matt Mead to advocate and spread awareness about issues for people who are blind and have low vision in Wyoming.

Steel also invited American Council of the Blind President Kim Charlson to the organization’s annual state convention, which was held Saturday in Casper.

Visually-challenged children take part in art workshop

At the venue of the ongoing Exhibition of Modern Indian Art at Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi, Sector 16 Chandigarh, a unique workshop for the visually- impaired children was organised.

J&K’s visually impaired student in US Space & Rocket Centre

JAMMU, Sept 25: Shubham Tandon, 19 year old visually impaired student of Jammu, has proved that nothing is impossible and disability can’t stop anyone to succeed if the one is determined.
He has won “Light House Vision Scholarship ” and is now representing India in a week long training ca-mp at US Space & Rocket Centre.
He is the Ist visually impaired student of J&K, who got this opportunity. He is one among thirty other worldwide scholarship winners from different countries, who have been selected for this Space Camp at Huntsville (Alabama), USA.

Supreme Court nod for MBBS seats to colour-blind

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has opened the doors for colour-blind students to pursue MBBS course by ordering the admission of two such candidates, who have scored high marks in the entrance examination, for the next academic year.
Terming its action as “transcendental importance of justice”, the apex court said that peculiar facts and circumstances of the case required it to invoke special powers under Article 142 of the Constitution.

Visually impaired singer is youth icon for elections

Tribune News Service

Shimla, September 23

Muskan Thakur, a Blind girl and a budding singing talent, will be the youth icon face of the Election Commission of India for the upcoming Assembly elections in Himachal.

Muskan, a first semester student of MA (music) in Himachal Pradesh University, hailing from remote Chirgaon area in Rohru subdivision of Shimla district, has been a meritorious student throughout. She was given laptop by the government for figuring in merit in class XII examinations.

Bus app launched to aid visually impaired

A FEATURE of the city’s bus service app, which was launched Wednesday, enables visually impaired riders to use their phone’s voice command function to acquire the latest public bus service information.

After visually impaired riders enter Setup Interface and select auxiliary mode on the app, “鹏城公交” (péng chéng gōng jiāo), will switch to a simplified edition that announces detailed bus route information and real-time bus service information broadcasts, according to Shenzhen Municipal Public Transport Bureau, the developer of the app, at a news conference Wednesday.

Visually challenged judokas aiming high

Susheela and Vijayashanthi will be participating in the World Blind Judo Championship. | Photo Credit: M. Vedhan

Helping the Visually Impaired

John Shiklam writes that a non-governmental organisation, Knowledge for the Blind Initiative, is helping in addressing the challenges of visually impaired persons in Kaduna

It was a day of joy for the virtually impaired when a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Knowledge for the Blind Initiative (KBI), visited their Kano Road residences in the heart of Kaduna metropolis.

Medical college seat cancelled, blind student says will commit suicide

A 19-year-old medical student who is unable to see beyond a distance of 8cm has threatened suicide after the Medical Council of India cancelled his admission to college since his disability is regarded too severe for someone taking the MBBS course.

Suresh’s tale highlights a problem of neglect and delays that plague almost every government office in the country: He was given admission in 2016 by authorities in Karnataka who should have taken note of his condition, only for it be cancelled almost a year later by the country’s medical regulator.

Disabling the differently abled

By Koshy Mathew

In July, the goods and services tax (GST) was rolled out to a mixed reception. Its objective is to prevent cascading of taxes and avoid built-in taxes — for example, excise duty at the factory gate, duty on equipment used by telecom companies, etc — thereby lowering retail prices and increasing tax revenue by more voluntary compliance.