The Dubai Customs on Wednesday waived customs fees on eight major commodities for special needs people, a top official said. 

Ahmed Mahboob Musabih, Dubai Customs Director, said the list includes educational and medical supplies, apparatuses, spare parts, motorised and manual wheelchairs, and customised vehicles for the crippled and paralysed. “These are ... (in addition) to crutches, hearing aids, speech aids, electronic devices for the blind and visually impaired and other equipment and supplies used by special needs people.”

I have been in and out of hospitals more times than I can remember, having eye tests and trying to find ways to improve my ability to see. It was not that I am blind, but rather I can't see as much detail and as far as other people. But my eye problems never stopped my parents believing I could be independent. In the classroom, I had to sit near the board and use magnifying tools supplied by the National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI). Around the age of 10, I started learning touch-typing and braille.

In a ray of hope for visually impaired, researchers have developed an app that uses a smart phone’s camera to detect obstacles and produces a vibration or tone to alert the user. Now, they are developing a version for Google Glass that could hit the market in 2015. 

Bhimavarappu Mouli Aravind lost his eyesight at a young age but he found a way to pursue legal studies at National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS), Kolkata