In recognition of its groundbreaking work to prevent debilitating blindness and provide affordable, world-class eye care to the poor, the Aravind Eye Care System, based in Tamil Nadu, India, has won the 2008 Gates Award for Global Health. The 1 million Gates Award—the world's largest prize for international health—honors extraordinary efforts to improve health in developing countries. Founded by Dr. G. Venkataswamy in 1976, Aravind has saved millions of people in India from debilitating blindness.

German scientists have invented a wireless bionic eyeball that canrestore vision to patients who have become blind due to retina damageor disease.

The new prosthetic device caps 12 years of research to help thesepatients. This work has resulted in a unique system - a fullyimplantable visual prosthesis.

The scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute for MicroelectronicCircuits and Systems in Duisburg, Germany, say that the bionic eye canbypass the damaged retina.

The system comprises an implant and an external transmitter integrated in an eyeglasses-frame.

The Bush administration is about to propose far-reaching new rules thatwould give people with disabilities greater access to tens of thousandsof courtrooms, swimming pools, golf courses, stadiums, theaters, hotelsand retail stores.

A team of ophthalmologists from Chandigarh has evolveda way to concurrently treat two eye diseases - cataract and glaucoma -without post operative complications. And that's great news for acountry like India, where 80 percent of those above the age of 50 arelikely to have cataract and six percent are likely to have glaucoma.

Preliminary research shows encouraging results with transplantation of retinal cells in patients with blindness caused by retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to a report in the August issue of American Journal of Ophthalmology (http://www.AJO.com).

It's an annual event the visually challenged look forward to in Chennai - a volleyball tournament exclusively for them. This year, it was a fight between fifteen teams from all over south India.

In this form of the game, the ball is thrown under the net and the players 'hear' the ball advancing towards them. The rules are strict. Those with partial vision are blind folded.

''It's a team effort. Since we are all in the same school we used to practice for a week and we get good understanding,'' says one of the participant girls.

For blind students, surfing the Web or taking detailed notes in physics and calculus classes can require cumbersome and expensive learning aids. Two new technologies, however, promise to greatly expand access to text and graphics for the blind community without breaking the bank.

The Pulse Smartpen, which debuts in retail stores this month, records and synchronizes  nearly everything a student hears and writes. And WebAnywhere, a free Internet-based service released last month, works as a screen reader by converting Web site text to electronic speech.

The Hindi speaking Blind ofIndia have now got reason to rejoice as they too will be able to operatecomputers independently and that too in Hindi. The JAWS Talking Software fromFreedom Scientific Inc., USA,which converts a PC into a talking computer enabling the visually impaired tolearn and operate computers independently is now being released in Hindilanguage also along with English.