The Winter Paralympics started in 1976 in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden featuring 198 athletes from 16 countries.

The Games featured alpine and Nordic skiing for amputee and visually impaired athletes and a demonstration event in sledge racing.

The 2014 Winter Paralympics run from 7-16 March in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi - the first time that a Paralympic Games has been held in Russia and is expected to feature over 600 athletes from 44 countries.

According to some estimates India has almost 70 million people living with some form of disability, but hardly 1 per cent of them are employed. Ankit Rajiv Jindal, marketing manager at Wipro in Bangalore, shrugs off his impairment as easily as he carries off his skills.

Jindal can rattle off targets without looking once at the presentation and can strategise and plan and reel off numbers. He is 90 per cent blind but he shrugs off his impairment as easily as he carries off his skills.

The Purushottam Express is slated to become the first train in the country to have a Braille-embedded AC coach for the visually-challenged passengers. In a first of its kind, the Railways have manufactured an AC three-tier coach with Braille signages to be operational by the end of this month in the Delhi-Puri superfast Purshottam Express as part of its social commitment to make trains and stations more friendly towards specially-abled passengers.