The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Disabilities, Sheikha Hessa bint Khalifa bin Ahmed al-Thani, has commended the recent move by the Qatar Central Bank to introduce banknotes which have features to help the visually impaired denominate them.

Filmmakers these days try each and every trick in the book to get maximum audiences to see their films. Now Mirchi Movies, the makers of the children's flick Hari Puttar- A Comedy of Terrors, is doing something which has not yet been attempted in India before. For their upcoming film, the makers have decided to release the film not just in the theatres but also in Audio form in a special DVD which will benefit visually impaired people.

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.

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.

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.