Visually impaired by birth, he was inclined towards music from his nascent days. He not only practiced it, but also went on to give concerts both in India and abroad. 

Now, he has a Ph D in music for his research on the subject- Recent development in Karnatak classical music, under the guidance of renowned violinist Mysore M Manjunath.

Major Gopal Mitra (41) may desire to borrow vision for few moments to salute the Indian tricolour flying high at the UNICEF headquarters in New York on his first day of a new job tomorrow. A former Indian Army officer, Mitra is the first disabled person from India to be appointed at the headquarters of a major UN agency.

This is no usual boy-meets-girl love story. Rakesh Solanki and Sunita Pawar, both visually impaired, will be tying the knot on Sunday.

And, NGO Louis Braille Apang Kalyan Sanstha, Lonikand, is playing Cupid for the couple by making it a grand affair, much
beyond the meagre means of the two.

The NGO works for the visually challenged by making provisions of home, education and vocational skills.

Attributing their alliance to the sanstha, Rakesh said, “The founder of this NGO, Arjun Kendre, was my batchmate at PR Lunkad Blind School, Bhosari.”

The ability to look both ways before crossing a street, read a simple recipe or punch in a telephone number is often taken for granted by those without visual impairment.

But nearly 15 million people living in the U.S. can’t perform some of these tasks. And that includes many American Indians.

Approximately 400 athletes from all over the country will be seen in action in the 8th edition of the National Athletics for the Visually Challenged to be organized by the Punjab Sports Association for the visually challenged persons with the help of Bharat Blinds Sewak Samaj at Baddowal village on the Ludhiana-Ferozepur road on April 17 and 18.

The information was given at a press conference here today by chief organiser Gurpreet Singh Chahal and organizing committee chairman Tit Ram.

Poorva Subramanium is barely 10 years old, but has learnt an important lesson in life — not to trouble her parents when they come out of the schools they have been visiting these days. “It is frustrating. No school wants to admit her. She is good at shapes, colours and can also read,” says her mother, showing her report card from a special school here that deems her, ‘Fit to be admitted in a mainstream school'.

Having landed a much-sought-after job at the research lab of a leading global IT major, fresh out of college, Anirudh Sharma was working on cutting-edge product technologies. But what really drove him was something he was doing on the side, in his own time, over weekly offs and after hours, burning the proverbial midnight oil: developing a shoe that he hoped would transform the lives of millions of visually impaired people.

At a rare workshop organised by a city not-for-profit, 61 vision-impaired participants were given cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and first-aid training on Sunday. This is probably the first workshop of its kind in India. “We wanted to eradicate the myth that the vision impaired cannot help anyone, and therefore thought the workshop was a good idea” said Sushmeetha B Bubna, founder director, Voice Vision, the NGO that organised the workshop that was held at HK Institute of Management Studies and Research in Jogeshwari.

Singers like Suresh Wadekar, Kavita Krishnamurthy and Amit Kumar are set to perform together to raise funds for the education of visually challenged kids.
 

They will take to the stage for Shri Kulswamini Mata Charitable Trust, an organisation that has been working in the field of education for blind children.