Meet Murali C (28), a mechanical engineer and system operation lead specialist at IBM, and K. Joshi (27), a masters degree holder in philosophy now employed by software major Infosys.
They are just two of the thousands of entrants in the city's booming information technology (IT) industry.
However, what sets Murali and Joshi apart from the rest is that both are visually challenged.
To see is to believe but to see people who cannot see dance their way into the hearts of Brits is simply unbelievable.
A group of visually-impaired dancersfrom Bangalore, invited to the region by Kalapremi, an organisationdevoted to art and celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, havedefied all odds and are busy enthralling audiences in north-eastEngland.
Several technologies, from internet-enabled phones, to touchscreen and dual screen handsets, it’s all been evolved in the present technology enhanced world. Though these developments are applaudable, what happens to the physically handicapped individuals who attimes find it difficult to operate the simplest of functions in a phone or maybe are unable to use it at all? Here’s some hope!
The Election Commission will issue directions to State ChiefElectoral Officer M.N. Vidyashankar to ensure that all electronicvoting machines (EVMs) to be used in the Assembly elections in theState have a Braille option. Over 50,000 EVMs will be used for pollingin the State.
Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami told The Hindu that EVMs with Braille option had been used in a few States.
“It should not be a problem to ensure that Braille number strips arepasted on the EVMs to be used in the polling stations in Karnataka aswell,” he said.
Lesson No. 1 on Celia Chacon's television cooking show — use what you have, find substitutes for what you don't.
Except this food TV host isn't just talking ingredients. She's teaching viewers to use touch, smell and sound instead of sight. That's because her viewers are mostly listeners. Like Chacon, most are blind or visually impaired.
Can you visualise blind children learning tap dancingto perfection? This is exactly what one-time TV actor Kumar Bhatia hasdone in his forthcoming film 'Seven'. And he has signed on seven kidswho are actually visually challenged.
'It's an idea turned into afilm that I lived and worked with for four years,' said Bhatia, whoplayed a junkie in Doordarshan's soap 'Subah'.
Working in a food-service job means attention to customers, assembling orders properly and keeping things clean, and doing these tasks requires extra effort if the worker is blind or visually impaired. Three teenagers from the Kentucky School for the Blind are operating Kingdom Sub on weekdays at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom for four weeks as part of the school's Summer Career and Work Program.
Marissa Chambers, Mitch Saylor and Samantha Hubbard are working from 11 a.m. to3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday today through July 18. They also worked June 16-27.
A machine that can predict if you will go blind in your 60s by testing your eyes in your 20s is to be launched.
The Macuscope screens the macular pigment - the area at the centre of the retina that lets us see fine detail and colour - to pick up early warning signs of age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Tom Bremridge, of The Macular Disease Society, said: "We welcome investment by opticians in this equipment."
British researchers have developed a robotic pen that they say may enable blind people to write clearly and consistently.
All that one will have to do to use McSig – as the “force-feedback” pen has been named – is to gently guide one’s hand.
Stephen Brewster, an expert at the University of Glasgow, says the system uses an off-the-shelf haptic device by US-based SensAble Technologies, called the Phantom Omni – a stylus mounted at the end of a motorised arm, which is capable of moving and resisting movement in three dimensions.
A U.N. convention aimed at ensuring equal rights for the world's 650million disabled people in work, education and social life will go intoforce on May 3, the United Nations said on Thursday.
The pact,the first of its kind, takes effect 30 days after being ratified by 20countries that have signed it. The world body received ratificationdocuments on Thursday from the 20th country, Ecuador.
In an effort to unlock the untapped potential of visually-challenged children and to make available Braille literature on science and astronomy, which are pretty rare to find, city-based Planetary Society of India (PSI), has launched a Braille newsletter aptly titled Chandrayaan, India’s first unmanned moon mission.
Bahrain has vowed to provide all visually-impaired students with talking laptops to integrate them to modern technology.
More than 300 blind that would be given free talking laptops are being trained on how to use them. The Ministry of Social Development provided 26 laptops to such students last year and the rest would be given soon.
The service comes shortly after the recently implemented experience, in which all blind students joined public schools with normal bodies.
To most of us, the piano is some kind of magical mystery box. You sit down and play, and what comes out represents perfect precision in sound.
Each key does exactly what it's supposed to do, sounds exactly the way it's supposed to sound in relation to its neighbors, and the whole is a thing of mathematical beauty (skill of the player notwithstanding, of course).
Piano technicians know differently.
"People think you just sit down and make music," said Mark Burbey, a student at the School of Piano Technology for the Blind in Vancouver's Hudson's Bay neighborhood.
It is aimed at giving the blind voters dignity and secrecy. For the first time, Braille-facilitated electronic voting machines (EVMs) are being introduced on a large scale for the 15th Lok Sabha polls.
"A total of 1.05 million EVMs are being used, of which 4,50,000 are Braille-enabled. These EVMs are spread across the country in many states," an Election Commission official told IANS.
He said earlier the rule was that one person would accompany the blind voters. "Now, the blind persons can cast their vote without any help."
At first look, 52-year-old Khairul Bashar would pass off as any another candidate trying his luck in the Lok Sabha polls.
But there is something special about this candidate which makes him different from others in the rat race.
Bashar, who is making a debut in electoral politics by contesting as an independent from Azamgarh parliamentary constituency, is visually challenged and physically impaired.
A miniature telescope implanted into the eye could soon help people with vision loss from end-stage macular degeneration. Last week, an advisory panel for the Food and Drug Administration unanimously recommended that the agency approve the implant. Clinical trials of the device, which is about the size of a pencil eraser, suggest it can improve vision by about three and a half lines on an eye chart.
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