The Birla Industrial & Technological Meseum (BITM) has recently inaugurated a special gallery in Kolkata for the visually-impaired to make them aware about the heavenly bodies.
“A world of darkness” — as the name suggests, the gallery provides a detailed description of the cosmos, including the solar system, the Milky Way, the pole stars, the Andromeda, Cassiopeia and Ursa Major and also the 12 zodiac signs.
Imagine a visually challenged person walking into a restaurant and reading the content of the menu using his mobile phone?
That may not be entirely uncommon for some people, who can afford Rs 80,000 investment to buy a five mega pixel camera mobile phone and install the portable Optical Character Reader software in it. But, if the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) efforts succeed, such a system could be available for free to hundreds of blind persons in India.
Anuj Goel’s eyes hurt. But he kept pushing himself, trying to prove that he could do it. It wasn’t easy sitting in the front row for the visually impaired student — he strained his eyes to make out the letters on the blackboard, peering through his thick glasses.
Friday’s CBSE results showed all his pains were worth the effort: Goel not only stood first among 1,034 disabled students who took the examinations, he was also the topper among government school students.
His score: 96.7 per cent.
Stem cells cultured by researchers on a simple contact lens miraculously restored sight to sufferers of blinding corneal disease.
The simple and inexpensive procedure, considered a breakthrough, requires a minimal hospital stay and significantly improves vision within weeks.
University of New South Wales (UNSW) researchers from its School of Medical Sciences harvested stem cells from patients' own eyes to rehabilitate the damaged cornea.
For 12-year-old Avinash, a visually impaired student of an MCD school in Jahangirpuri, it was smooth sailing from classes I to IV.
But since two years, he has been stuck in Class V, as his promotion now is based on performance.
“What could he do? All four years he just came to school and went back and could do nothing,” says lawyer Ashok Aggarwal.
He is pleading in the High Court for a direction to government and MCD schools to appoint special teachers for differently-abled students.
Disabled persons in the state have urged the BJD government to fulfill its promises in the election manifesto of forming a state level commission to look into their demands, after winning its third consecutive term in Orissa.
The main demands of the physically challenged in the state include hike in disability pension from Rs 200 per month to Rs 1000 per month and appointment of a state commissioner to look after their welfare.
Roger Behm lost his sight at 16, the victim of an inherited disease that destroyed his retinas. Both of his eyes were surgically removed.
Now 55, Behm has made himself at home in a sightless world. He started his own business in Janesville selling devices that help the blind cope with day-to-day tasks. He and his wife have raised five children and just adopted another child from China who is also blind. He fishes, canoes, camps and scuba dives.
Patients suffering from blindness now need not wait for donors as doctors have found a way to treat many with the stem cells derived from the cornea of a dead body.
Doctors at the AIIMS and a private clinic in the national capital are using corneal surface stem cells from a cadaver's (dead person) eye for curing corneal injuries in many.
Adding another feature to its effort for making the admission process a lot more student-friendly for the differently-abled candidates, Delhi University this year has introduced JAWS computer software for the benefit of visually challenged applicants.
JAWS is a software programme designed to work with a speech synthesiser, converting an ordinary computer into a talking computer.
Last year, the University had introduced Braille forms to enable the visually impaired to “feel” the form, even though their admission applications were filled by the student counsellors.
You shall not curse the deaf nor place a stumbling block before the blind.
Leviticus 19:14
I realize it's unfashionable to feel sorry for Random House, but I think they're getting the rotten end of the stick for a problem not of their making.
A visually impaired person on Monday took charge as the judge of a Munsif Court in the city, claimed to be the first in Tamil Nadu, perhaps in India.
The 41-year old T T Chakravarthy, native of Arcot in Vellore District, was practicing in the district court there and later enrolled at Madras High Court.
After successfully writing TNPSC, he was called for the judges training and got 13th place in the examination in 2008.
A Puneite has developed what is probably the world's first carrom board for the visually challenged. Madan Purandare, who tweaked a normal carrom board to create this special one, claims this is the first of its kind.
Purandare, who heads Advait Parivar an NGO that works to help people with physical disabilities, told MiD DAY, "I have verified it through various search engines on the Internet. If anybody has done it in the past, I am ready to take back my claim."
Training started
One of the features that distinguishes Doordarshan from private news channels is a special news programme for persons with hearing disability: the anchor ‘tells’ news through sign languages, covering everything from politics to sports and the weather.
Though no other news channel gives such job opportunities, the Delhi University’s Equal Opportunity Cell is working towards more hearing-impaired students getting the training needed for such work. The course starts this August.
The physically handicapped students, aspiring to pursue higher studies from Allahabad University, have a reason to smile as varsity authorities have come out with various initiates that would enhance the facilities being extended to such students.
With more than 1,500 seats on offer, Delhi University and its affiliated colleges are doing all they can to encourage physically challenged students to enroll.
Many DU colleges, including Khalsa, Miranda House, Sri Ram College of Commerce, Hindu, Gargi, Kamla Nehru, Janki Devi Memorial college and Lady Sri Ram College are ready to welcome their special students with lifts, ramps, specially designed toilets and libraries equipped with resources.
In 2008, DU was able to fill a mere 386 of its 1,500 seats.
Ashish Jha had to take the help of a reader and writer to take his engineering exams. Vikram Dalmia had to struggle to convince his parents that he was capable of running the family business.
Jha and Dalmia are visually impaired but that hasn’t stopped them from achieving their dreams.
“When I was studying in BP Poddar College, I had to ask my friends or my mother to draw engineering diagrams on my hand so that I could understand them. It was hard but I managed,” said Jha, who lost his sight to retinitis pigmentosa. He is now an IT security specialist with IBM.
With a view to giving convenience to physically challenged people, the Railways have decided to provide special facilities in over 1,500 stations in the country.
Special facilities like access ramps, reserved parking slots, low height water taps and suitable toilets for differently-abled people will be developed in phases at important railway stations, a senior Railway Ministry official said.
Computer Training for the visually impaired is the greatest form of empowerment for them. It opens up the world to them: a world of information (aiding research, education, daily living, recreation), people, jobs, books (print to voice). Computer training involves training on Computer Basics, MS office, Internet using the JAWS screen reading software which is talking software that aids the visually impaired to “hear” everything that a sighted person would “read”.
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