Maharashtra government on Thursday assured the high court here that it would immediately remove all barriers from public buildings to allow smooth movement to physically challenged and the elderly.
Striking a blow for blind and visually impaired citizens across Tamil Nadu and India, the Madras High Court on Friday refused to allow a school to sack a teacher who had lost her eyesight, and ruled that she be allowed to continue using the help of a companion to discharge her teaching duties until her retirement.
As compared to its neighbours, Karnataka is not disabled-friendly. The state funds just 30 schools, a dismal number when compared to Maharashtra, which funds 900 schools, and Kerala, which supports 244 schools.
Making this incisive criticism, on Saturday, disability commissioner KV Rajanna said the commission is sending teams to neighbouring states to study how special schools are administered.
The reason for the government’s apathy is not absence of funds, said Rajanna.
She may not be able to see. But that hasn't dented her spirit to live her life to the fullest. GN Sangeetha, 38, was barely seven when she lost her eyesight to a brain tumour. Her cornea was intact and she has now pledged to donate her eyes so at least two persons can see. Today, she guides and inspires many like her by sharing her experiences.
“Saima is no more,” wrote Ammar Masood, husband of the visually-impaired activist for the blind people, on his Facebook page on Thursday.
Messages from across the globe poured in expressing condolence and sharing the pain with the bereaved family.
A large number of visually-impaired people, friends and admirers of Saima started turning up at her residence. Saima’s father Brig Niaz along with his father-in-law Anwar Masood, a famous Punjabi poet, was seen sharing their grief with the well-wishers.
Under a colourful canopy on the grounds of the Ali Yaver Jung National Institute for the Hearing Handicapped, dozens of students from the Happy Home School on Wednesday, milled around hearing about fantastic technologies that would ostensibly make their lives better.
The occasion was World Braille Day and the students of Xavier’s Research Centre for the Visually Challenged (XRCVC) had put on an exhibition of gadgets and technologies that would help the visually impaired in their education.
Inspired by author J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, a visually challenged 18-year-old from a farmer's family in Gokavaram of East Godavari district, has spent seven years of his life writing Pharaoh and the King, a story based on Indian and Egyptian mythology.
Viswanath Venkat Dasari, a second year student of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies, Nuziveedu, suffers from Nystagmus and Photophobia — his eyes cannot focus clearly on any object for more than a second.
Members of the Ramanathapuram District Differently Abled Welfare Association on Monday presented a petition to the Collector demanding him to expedite distrituion of welfare assistance being implemented by the District Disabled Rehabilitation Office.
Paving way for the visually impaired to have a decisive role in the country's democratic process, the Election Commission is encouraging use of EVMs having braille signs here in Uttarakhand where polling is on to elect the state's third Assembly. Unlike the 2007 elections when only braille EVMs were introduced, these multi-purpose machines can be used both by visually-challenged and normal persons alike. With this, it has now become possible for the literate visually challenged persons to cast their votes without any help.
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