General

EMC India COE holds awareness drive on visual impairment

Many employees were amazed with the skills and capabilities of the volunteers with visual impairment during the demos of these assistive aids

EMC India Center of Excellence (CoE) recently concluded an awareness workshop for its employees on assistive technologies for visually impaired individuals at its Bangalore campus.
The program targeted to create awareness and sensitize managers, hiring leads, leadership and other teams on visual impairment and how assistive technologies can help a person with visual impairment function successfully at work.

‘90% of visually impaired live in developing countries’

The Eastern Mediterranean region is home to the second largest number of people in the world with visual impairment, according to estimates.

There are a total of 285mn visually impaired people in the world - 246mn with low vision and 39mn are estimated to be blind.

About 90% of the world’s visually impaired live in developing countries while 80% of all visual impairment can be avoided or cured.

Also, 1.26mn children are blind and 19mn are visually impaired.

Sightless but not without vision, they inspire with their cameras

A photography exhibition questioning the conventional wisdom of 'vision' is currently on at the India International Centre featuring works by three international lensmen, all of whom, once sighted, are now completely blind.

The display, titled 'Vision Unseen', showcases seemingly impossible photographs shot by Frenchman Evgen Bavcar, US national Flo Fox and Kuniaki Ito from Japan.

Serial to celebrate vision of the sightless

Asif Iqbal is a consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers; Sk Mozammal Haque a businessman; Raja Faiyaz and Subhasish Bandyopadhyay theatre activists. All of them are blind. They, along with sculptor Benode Behari Mukherjee who taught at Kala Bhavan in Santiniketan, feature in a 13-episode television documentary conceived by a man who is also blind.

A dream come true

Upasana Makati who pioneered White Print, said to be the country’s first lifestyle Braille magazine in English

Feeling monuments

Pankaj Ghosal remembers the time, the exact day and date when his parents took him to visit Akshardham. "It was November11, 2010, a Thursday. We spent the entire day there," he recalls. It was the first time he had visited a place of historical importance. But being visually impaired, he understood little about the temple's grandeur or beauty. For him, visiting the temple was no different from visiting the neighborhood mall. It was spacious, crowded, a place to spend the day.

National Braille Press Announces $20K Touch of Genius Prize for Innovation

Competition encourages innovation in braille and tactile literacy for the blind

Pavement menace for the visually impaired

How many times have you and I complained about the state of our roads and pavements riddled with potholes? While many of us manage to make our way around them, these can often translate into a real danger for the visually impaired.

Very few residing in cities might be aware that the yellow line dotting the pavement, or tactile pavement as it is called, is actually meant to aid the visually impaired. Any disruption in these - in the form of trees, electric poles or potholes - poses a menace for those who take to the tactile pavement for navigation.

Learning bonus for blind parents' kids

Infants of blind parents learn to communicate in different ways with their parents and other sighted adults - a skill that enhances their development, a new study shows.

The findings add an unexpected twist to our understanding of how early life experiences affect the development of a baby's highly changeable brain, say researchers.

SCORE FOUNDATION LAUNCHES FIRST OF ITS KIND TELEVISION SERIES ‘NAZAR YA NAZARIYA’

The television series to feature real-life stories of visually impaired and blind achievers in India across various fields

Renowned actor Naseeruddin Shah to be a part of the weekly television series, which will air every Saturday at 9:30-10:00AM starting September 21, 2013