An NGO for the visually challenged has requested the West Bengal chief electoral officer to ensure better arrangements in polling booths for blind voters in the Assembly election.
The Calcutta chapter of the National Association for the Blind has written a letter to poll panel chief Sunil Kumar Gupta, asking him for adequate Braille ballots in all booths, as well as ramps to provide easy access for the wheelchair-bound.
Scientists from India, the US and the Netherlands have answered one of the world's most famous philosophical questions - a 300-year-old problem that intrigued Locke, Hume, Berkeley and other legendary thinkers - aided by Indian blind children. People born blind and taught to identify objects using touch likely cannot, on gaining sight, immediately identify the same objects using only vision, the researchers have concluded in findings published on Sunday in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
“Why are the disabled denied the right to book railway tickets on Internet and avail concession when senior citizens can do the same,” questioned the Delhi High Court. The court has issued notices to the Railway Ministry and the Railway Board on what it called, a “serious and sensitive” issue.
The notices were issued after a visually challenged Delhi-based consultant Praveen Kumar filed a PIL that raised this question. The last day for the ministry and the board to file its responses is May 18.
he Delhi Government will authorise five more hospitals of the city to issue disability certificates in order to reduce pendency.
The decision was taken by Delhi Health Minister A K Walia today who reviewed the matter of issuance of disability certificates.
Dr Walia expressed concern over the present situation as the applicants had to suffer hardships and were forced to repeatedly visit the hospitals for getting the certificate.
Using ATMs in the city is a task for the visually impaired, as most banks do not have Braille and talking machines, despite instructions from the RBI to make changes. It has been two years since Veena Kumari (35), has been requesting a bank for a debit card. The bank refuses to give her one claiming that she would not be able to recognise the PIN number on the card, and would require assistance to conduct transactions.
Hundreds of children who could only listen to Tagore’s works can now read them as well, thanks to a gift on the eve of his 150th birth anniversary.
Nine city schools for the visually challenged on Sunday received two copies each of two volumes of Gitabitan in Braille along with 21 other Bengali and English storybooks to mark the occasion.
Members of the Indian Institute of Architects (IIA) have begun a survey of all government buildings, as per High Court directives, to check if they are barrier-free and convenient for the differently-abled.
This spring, Patty and Terry Horvath took 46 blind travelers on a Caribbean cruise.
The owners of Best Cruises & Tours in Grand Blanc, Mich., let participants pay $20 a week in installments for months or years to pay for the trip. They subsidized seven volunteers to accompany the group. They arranged special shore excursions on Nassau, St. Thomas and St. Martin. They kept the price as low as they could, pairing up the mostly solo travelers in double rooms.
Their biggest contribution? Serving a completely passed-over market — blind travelers on a budget.
New research from McMaster may answer a controversial question: do the blind have a better sense of touch because the brain compensates for vision loss or because of heavy reliance on their fingertips?
The study, published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Neuroscience, suggests daily dependence on touch is the answer.
Even the skies don’t care for blind people in India. After Kingfisher Airlines recently made a woman get off a flight because she was blind, we ran a reality check on other domestic airlines and found that contrary to international practices, most carriers in India do not allow blind people to travel independently.
When we called the tele-booking counters for Jet Airways, Kingfisher, Spice Jet, Go Air and Indigo, requesting to book a ticket for a blind adult who would travel unaccompanied, all of the above refused.
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