Karnataka’s Shekhar Naik, who became the first blind cricketer to be conferred the Padma Shri, talks about the game

The year 2017 has been a momentous year for blind cricket in India. After having won the inaugural T20 World Cup for the Blind title in 2012, India captured the second too, beating Pakistan in the final in early February.

What was also special was the fact that the Indian skipper in 2012, Karnataka’s Shekhar Naik, was awarded the Padma Shri on the eve of the 2017 edition. Naik, now 31 and retired, became the first blind cricketer to be conferred the award.

Ajay R Raj, a visually impaired student from Thiruvananthapuram, emerged as the all-India topper in the differently abled category of the CBSE Class XII board examinations, by scoring 98 per cent marks.

HYDERABAD: With the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE), for the second time in two years, issuing a circular stating that schools affiliated to it must appoint special educators as part of inclusive education, the Special Educators Forum of India (SEFI) has sent two representations to the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan and the Navodaya Vidyalaya Samithi. 

BENGALURU: Over the last sixty years, our country’s use of fertilisers has increased dramatically–120 times or more over, even if we go by conservative government data. This degrades the soil and increases our carbon footprint. Unfortunately, there has been no successful attempt to come up with a solution which is simple and effective enough to be used by the farmers.

To tackle this problem, OpenCube Labs, a Bengaluru-based start-up, is working on an open-source based app exclusively for the farmers to help them gauge the right measure of pesticides and fertilizers to use.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The General Education Department has issued orders giving conditional permission to admit visually impaired students in the state’s higher secondary and vocational higher secondary schools. 

The order also lays down the admission procedure to be followed for such students by the Directorates of Higher Secondary Education, Vocational Higher Secondary Education and the State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT).