Lady Shri Ram College for Women is coming up with a resource centre for its disabled students as part of its equal-opportunity centre, Swavalamban.
"It is a state-of-the-art facility equipped with latest assistive technology aimed at promoting self-reliance and independence among disabled students. The resource centre is endowed with a braille embosser, screen reading software, lex-cam scanner, book scanner, DAISY recorders as well as 10 computer systems with OCR software in both English and Hindi," said Kanika Khandelwal, the college's media coordinator.

Treaty to make copyrighted works available for visually impaired people – 90% of whom live in global south – coming up against film lobbyNegotiators from 186 countries are in Marrakech this week trying to hammer out the text of an international treaty that aims to make copyrighted works more readily available to the world's blind and visually impaired people, 90% of whom live in the global south.
 

Here' some interesting news for music connoisseurs. Ability of Disability- A Night of Melody will showcase performances by disabled artistes as well as various singers including Abhijeet Sawant.

R. Nagaraj, a visually-impaired seller of candles and agarbattis in Ooty, is extra careful when he handles money. He feels every rupee note with his fingers and discerns the denomination based on the length, breadth and thickness. Despite his attempts, there are times when customers get away with giving him short change. “If only our notes had Braille numbers!” says Nagaraj. How friendly are our rupee notes and coins to the visually-impaired?

The government is going to make it mandatory for airlines to allow visually impaired people to board aircraft with their guide dogs.

While the directorate general of civil aviation(DGCA) had allowed this facility some years back, airlines continue to flout it with impunity. Now the regulator is coming out with new rules for both airlines and airport operators. The regulator will also make it imperative for carriers to have emergency procedure brochures in braille script as backup.