Beyond the obvious - athletes with paraplegia, missing limbs and visual impairments - one of the biggest differences between the Winter Olympics and the Paralympics is that there is no judged sport in the latter.
It's just slightly modified hockey and curling games.
With competition set to get underway Saturday, here is a capsule look at the Paralympic sports.
PARA-ALPINE
She doesn’t spout quotable quotes like many others. Nor does she give you examples of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. She merely picks up vignettes from her own life — how struggling with blindness she often fell, but every time got up and walked again.
A 12-year-old New Zealander boy with a degenerative eye disease has lived out one of his dreams thanks to NBA's Boston Celtics, his favorite team.
Louis Corbett made a visual "bucket list" of things he wanted to see before his sight deteriorates and the Celtics made part of that dream come true Wednesday with a pre-game meeting with players, courtside seats, a souvenir shopping spree and an on-court ceremony at which Corbett received a standing ovation.
A 13-year-old visually impaired student of a resource centre at Government Primary School, Surgapurai, Kotkapura, was admitted to a hospital after he was allegedly thrashed by an education volunteer.
Parminder Kumar, a student of Class-2, was allegedly beaten up by the volunteer on Tuesday and was admitted to the civil hospital at Kotpkapura on the same day. He is still under treatment in the hospital.
"The victim has several injury marks due to the alleged cane beating on his back, arms, legs and head," said the mother of the victim.
A new class action lawsuit against Apple alleges that the company is in violation of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act for not designing and providing store employees with point of sale devices (POS) that can independently be used by blind people.
In connection with Blinds Welfare Week, visually impaired kids on Wednesday staged a cultural show in the City.
Two visually impaired students of Post-graduate Government College, Sector 11, suffered fractures when they were knocked down by the official car of the Chief Engineer of Punjab Irrigation department, Harvinder Singh, on Wednesday.
The two students were identified as Balraj and Ramandeep. Balraj suffered a fracture in the thigh while Ramandeep suffered multiple fractures in one leg and an arm. The accident took place on Madhya Marg in front of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee office in Sector 15.
Enhancing accessibility for people with disabilities is an insightful process. Often, solutions designed for a specific problem will improve life for everyone. Take automatic door openers, for example. Anyone with their hands full can push that button and enter a building more easily.
Digital accessibility matters, too. Websites as well as buildings can comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. In addition to website design, apps and devices are improving experiences for differently-abled people across the internet.
Despite the significant push from rights organisations, the Disability Rights Bill was not taken up in the latest Parliament session.
This Bill, an improvement over the 1995 law, provides a comprehensive definition of disability, more rights, and an increase in the quota from 3 per cent to 5 per cent in Government jobs. The Bill, upon becoming an Act, will come as a shot in the arm for those with disabilities.
Director Raj Murugan’s Cuckoo, which stars Attakathi Dinesh in the lead, is a tale of romance between two visually impaired individuals. “They make sense of the world through sound and touch. Cuckoo has been conceived of as a musical to give the audience an experience of how those with visual impairment perceive the world around them.”
Santhosh Narayan, who has emerged as the next big thing in the Tamil music scene, has composed the songs.
Web of conspiracy
Facebook comments