Everybody likes to look good -- a flat stomach and a trim, no-flab athletic body are something many people aspire for. Our eating, work and sleeping habits, however, do not help in becoming the lean and mean fighting machines of our dreams. So some people diet, some jog, some go to treatment centres. The last, too, put you on a strict diet. Everything requires sustained effort. The minute you lift your guard, all the good work is undone.
It was hard for NAFISA BUHARIWALA to come to terms with her vision impairment, but her parents were an unending source of inspiration
The baby of the family, Nafisa Buhariwala received a lot of affection and love from her parents and siblings. Her parents realised something was wrong with her sight when she was four months old. They took her to Mumbai, and met with all the good ophthalmologists in the city. The doctors pronounced their verdict: she was born with Retinitis Pigmentosa, and nothing much could be done for the baby.
In each issue of beyond the I, this column presents a first hand account of a visually-impaired person's experiences in the 'real' world. In Delhi, Pranay Gadodia travelled on the Delhi Metro to see how friendly it is for visually-disabled persons
In my childhood, I had once asked my father when India would become 'foreign'. I remembered this boyhood question recently when I travelled by the Metro in Delhi.
Progress on the drafting of the Disability Convention by the U.N. Ad Hoc Committee
Though apprehension may be the first reaction to discovering that your child cannot see, positive parenting ensures that your child grows up with self-confidence and enjoys a good life. The family is a microcosm of the nation, and a well adjusted, confident visually impaired child at home will, in all likelihood, do well as an adult also, find out Naintara Jain and Anjali Sen Gupta
Location: Los Angeles, U.S.A.
March 20, 2006 to March 25, 2006
Organised by Center on Disabilities, California State University, Northridge (CSUN)
www.sdef.org.uk; Scottish Disability Equality Forum
January 18, 2006
Downloadable software that can read emails and Word documents aloud from mobile devices has been launched by the Irish company Magnetic Time.
Access India; January 16, 2006
Sound recordings of a wide range of English language poems read by their authors have been compiled into an archive by a charity co-founded by UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. The Poetry Online Archive contains recordings from as early as 1932.
The Poetry Archive is the world's premier online collection of recordings of poets reading their work. The Children’s Poetry Archive is full of poems chosen specially for children. Meet old favourites and make new discoveries for children in this section.
www.hindustan.net/article513.html
Hindustan Network; January 4, 2006
Over the last 12 years, a blind man, Srinibas Jena of Bhagipur village in the coastal district of Cuttack, has turned a 5-kilometre stretch of barren land to lush greenery.
A.N.I.
Nagpur; January 11, 2006
A gifted but determined blind girl in Nagpur may never see what appears on the television screen, but she has become India's first blind television newscaster and is now looking forward to scaling new heights. Amrita reads her news scripts in Braille.
At 21, Amruta Bhople is a television newscaster with B.C.N., a local news channel in Nagpur. The channel had organised auditions for newsreaders to which Amruta, a gold medallist in English literature, went with trepidation.
India Abroad News Service; New Delhi; December 1, 2005
Children with disability will now have a better chance to secure fair marks in the 10th and 12th standard class, thanks to the decision taken by the Council of the Indian School Certificate Examinations (C.I.S.C.E.). The council has decided to allow disabled children under the I.C.S.E. to use computers and Braille keyboards in examinations with immediate effect.
Neeraj Chauhan; www.dailypioneer.com;
New Delhi; January 17, 2006
The chairman of the Delhi Transport Corporation (D.T.C.), A. Mazumdar, has approved the first ever bus stand meant especially for disabled passengers in India at the Hauz Khas bus terminal in Delhi.
It is a huge task to try and cater to “lawyers, N.G.O.s, academics, human rights activists and the general public” as the National Human Rights Commission (N.H.R.C.) wants to, in its Disability Manual 2005. For a lawyers’ handbook, it may be enough to include legislation and case law, academics may prefer critical analysis, and activists may need practical examples from real life. The Disability Manual works best as the first, with faint swings at the other targets.
She may have been born with very low vision, but REHMAT FAZALBHOY made the vision of integrated education a reality in this country, finds out Laiq Qureshi
Rehmat Fazalbhoy looks frail and small in her bed at Masina Hospital, Mumbai, which has been her abode for the past five months due to spinal problems. Yet she looks refreshingly happy and begins, "It's been a beautiful and a satisfying life. I have been fortunate because what appeared to be a slap on the face turned into a lifetime of grace."
In each issue of beyond the I, this column presents a first hand account of a visually-impaired person's experiences in the realworld. In this issue, Anand Sharma recounts some problems he faced during his college-going years
At the risk of stating the obvious, let me say that the educational system in the country is grossly ill-equipped to handle the educational needs of blind or visually impaired children. I have many bitter-sweet memories, some of which I would like to share with you.
Saksham has taken the lead in audio describing films for blind viewers in India.
Sucheta Narang writes about the initiative
Like most Indians, persons with blindness or low-vision also watch movies. However, a lot of the story and crucial information in the movie is provided through facial expressions, costumes, ambience, environment and body language. Most such information is lost to persons with blindness; or at best perceived by guesswork based on audio clues.
Built environments are a result of conscious, meditated effort on the part of architects, designers, engineers and the people who fund the structures. If we say that our cities are planned, then the problems faced by visually impaired people are also planned. What will it take to make our cities accessible to visually impaired persons? Salil Chaturvedi explores
Location: Bonn, Germany
Date: May 6, 2006 to May 7, 2006
Organised by: International Paralympic Committe
Carlos Bergfeld; Texas Tech Daily Net; Texas, USA
The world's first portable electronic Braille display is small enough to fit in a pocket and can even be rolled up like a newspaper. The display consists of a sheet of tiny plastic paddles that bend in response to a voltage. It is designed to connect to a cell phone or laptop, and could also replace the liquid crystal screen of an ordinary personal digital assistant (P.D.A.).
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