You shall not curse the deaf nor place a stumbling block before the blind.
Leviticus 19:14
I realize it's unfashionable to feel sorry for Random House, but I think they're getting the rotten end of the stick for a problem not of their making.
A visually impaired person on Monday took charge as the judge of a Munsif Court in the city, claimed to be the first in Tamil Nadu, perhaps in India.
The 41-year old T T Chakravarthy, native of Arcot in Vellore District, was practicing in the district court there and later enrolled at Madras High Court.
After successfully writing TNPSC, he was called for the judges training and got 13th place in the examination in 2008.
Ashish Jha had to take the help of a reader and writer to take his engineering exams. Vikram Dalmia had to struggle to convince his parents that he was capable of running the family business.
Jha and Dalmia are visually impaired but that hasn’t stopped them from achieving their dreams.
“When I was studying in BP Poddar College, I had to ask my friends or my mother to draw engineering diagrams on my hand so that I could understand them. It was hard but I managed,” said Jha, who lost his sight to retinitis pigmentosa. He is now an IT security specialist with IBM.
With a view to giving convenience to physically challenged people, the Railways have decided to provide special facilities in over 1,500 stations in the country.
Special facilities like access ramps, reserved parking slots, low height water taps and suitable toilets for differently-abled people will be developed in phases at important railway stations, a senior Railway Ministry official said.
He cannot see but was determined to open the eyes of administration. More than his poverty, 26-year-old Ratna Al, it was authorities turning blind eye to development works in his village that pained him.
A native of Rangpar, a dusty hamlet of 750 people in Wankaner taluka, Ratna used Right to Information (RTI). Ratna has put the village on development track. A neat two-km road has replaced the stony path connecting it to highway. The thorny gando bawal shrubs that dotted the roadside are now being cleared regularly and Rangpar is getting the facelift.
Life for the differently-abled at North Campus changed for better on Monday.
And it happened with Delhi University (DU) launching a special free-of-cost bus service meant exclusively for the physically challenged.
Acquired at a cost of Rs 16 lakh, the bus boasts of special features that have been included in the design to suit needs of its passengers.
The service is free of cost.
For starters, the rear entrance door of the bus is enabled with a hydraulic lift mechanism to help wheelchair users board the vehicle.
President Pratibha Patil had once blindfolded herself to experience the life of a visually impaired person but says she could not bear it even for an hour.
"Whenever I interacted with blind people, I thought how they lived their life? I even blindfolded myself to know what will be my life without light. But I could not remain like that even for an hour," she recalled today while receiving the first copy of a book on the struggle of a blind girl Siddhi.
Blind baking is something Stanmore Bay’s Michael Erasmus, 22, does daily.
Michael is fully blind in one eye, and has 5 percent vision in the other.
But that hasn’t stopped him graduating from the North Shore International Academy, or opening his own gourmet pie shop in Whangaparaoa.
In April Michael was the first blind person to graduate with a Culinary Arts and Professional Cookery National Certificate from the North Shore academy.
His dream didn’t stop there.
Extending a helping hand to disabled and elderly passengers, Railways have decided to operate battery-operated cars for them at major stations.
The small cars will operate round-the-clock to facilitate the needy passengers, a senior Railway Ministry official said.
The service will be free.
The vehicles will be run by private operators who will be selected by the zonal railways under certain terms and conditions. Zonal railways have been asked to work out details with the private operators for signing an agreement for a period of one year.
Dibyendu (Debu) Adhikari is excited about his holidays. He would return home from his hostel (Kolkata Blind School) after three months for his Puja vacation. Puja for this 10-year-old is synonymous with good food, a couple of new clothes, dhaks (traditional drums, used especially during auspicious occasions in Bengal), bells and conch sounds. For him, his elder brother is indispensable during these five days of festivity. “Mejda (his elder brother) takes me around each pandal and describes every detail — the lighting, décor, goddess etc,” he said.
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