Current Style: Standard

Current Size: 100%

General

Tax breaks for the disabled

Thu, 02/27/2014 - 11:31 -- nikita.jain

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.

Shotcuts: A tale of romance

Fri, 02/21/2014 - 15:54 -- nikita.jain

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

Veer: Visually impaired Ankit Jindal is the marketing manager at Wipro

Fri, 02/21/2014 - 15:22 -- nikita.jain

According to some estimates India has almost 70 million people living with some form of disability, but hardly 1 per cent of them are employed. Ankit Rajiv Jindal, marketing manager at Wipro in Bangalore, shrugs off his impairment as easily as he carries off his skills.

Jindal can rattle off targets without looking once at the presentation and can strategise and plan and reel off numbers. He is 90 per cent blind but he shrugs off his impairment as easily as he carries off his skills.

Lending a voice: Volunteers help visually impaired enjoy newspapers

Fri, 02/21/2014 - 15:15 -- nikita.jain

From the outside, the modest structure, once a private residence, on South Oakland Avenue near SIU appears to be quite ordinary. But the work a team of about 30 volunteers creates within the walls of the converted studio is anything but.

Each week, members of the community and university donate time to Southern Illinois Radio Information Service, stepping into what was once a bedroom and now contains little more than a desk, cabinets and a microphone to read newspaper articles shared across the airwaves with the blind and visually impaired.

Purshottam Express gets first Braille-embedded coach

Mon, 02/17/2014 - 12:03 -- nikita.jain

The Purushottam Express is slated to become the first train in the country to have a Braille-embedded AC coach for the visually-challenged passengers. In a first of its kind, the Railways have manufactured an AC three-tier coach with Braille signages to be operational by the end of this month in the Delhi-Puri superfast Purshottam Express as part of its social commitment to make trains and stations more friendly towards specially-abled passengers.

Injured youth gets Rs 40 lakh compensation for disability in Delhi

Wed, 02/12/2014 - 12:40 -- nikita.jain

A 26-year-old youth, who suffered visual impairment and severe mental disability after a mini bus hit his motorcycle in 2011, has been awarded compensation of nearly Rs 40 lakh by a Motor Accident Claims Tribunal.

The tribunal directed IFFCO Tokio General Insurance Company Ltd, which the offending RTV bus was insured, to pay Rs 39,89,648 to Binesh Kumar, who had filed the case through his father due to his permanent physical and neuro psychological disability.

How blind people teaches us to see differently

Fri, 02/07/2014 - 16:55 -- nikita.jain

 
 
If you were not able to see, would you seek new ways to express yourself creatively? Would you still take photographs? How might you cope in a world that caters so exclusively to people with sight? Blind photography is a field that poses all these questions — and more — by re-framing the way we think about photographs, as well as the people behind the camera.

Donated human eye cells could help restore vision

Tue, 02/04/2014 - 17:13 -- nikita.jain

 
 
Cells from eyes of dead 'may give sight to blind'," BBC News reports. This gruesome sounding news is based on a study that found that after being grown in the lab, a type of cell found in the retina could restore limited vision in rats. However, the research was carried out in rats genetically engineered to develop visual impairment, so it's not something that will be used to treat people any time soon.

The blind coconut seller

Tue, 02/04/2014 - 16:49 -- nikita.jain

His world is dark. Still, 50-year-old Raja has to work for a living in order to look after his family consisting of a wife and two children.

He is usually to be found inside a small shack on the uneven pavement opposite the Pandiyan pastry shop from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. His frail and malnourished body is often hidden behind the piles of coconuts .

Concern over Disabilities Bill

Tue, 02/04/2014 - 16:42 -- nikita.jain

As a person with visual impairment, the experience of disability has been a routine one for me, and disability studies constitutes a significant part of my academic engagement as well. I have also been involved with the activities of the disability rights movement. Your editorial “Disabled by Lack of Political Will” (EPW, 11 January 2014) was a timely intervention in the evolving debates on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill that was cleared by the cabinet in December 2013.

Pages

Facebook comments

Subscribe to RSS - General