Jaipur: Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Tuesday directed officials concerned to ensure facilities for differently-abled in all public building across the state.

For this purpose, the government would take a loan of Rs 115 crore from Housing and Urban Development Corporation, an official said here.

The facilities included lift, ramp and disabled-friendly toilets among others in all government buildings at sub-division, district and division level, he said.

Liverpool will don one-off new-look shirts when they face Chelsea at Anfield this evening to raise awareness for a blindness charity.

The usual Standard Chartered logo on the front of the red shirts has been replaced by the words Seeing is Believing, the name of a charity seeking to tackle avoidable blindness.

Raising awareness: Steven Gerrard (left) and Martin Skrtel (right) will be part of the Liverpool side tonight wearing the alternative shirts

A free service providing visually-impaired Hertfordshire residents with talking books by post has been scrapped and will be replaced with subscriptions to a charity library.
The Cassettes for Blind People (CfBP) service has 378 regular users and is described in council documents as "running at capacity".
Hertfordshire County Council local and libraries cabinet panel met on Wednesday afternoon to approve the discontinuation of the service which costs the council £51,000 per year to operate.

In an effort to help differently-abled children, Tamil Nadu Government has decided to set up a State Resource Centre here, the first of its kind in the country.
 
Making a suo motu statement in the Assembly, the Chief Minister, Ms Jayalalithaa, said the centre would have specialised doctors associated with Ministry of Social Welfare and Health besides experts and consultants from various fields.
 

Though the Ministry of Railways has taken a number of measures to make public transport facilities accessible to differently abled persons, the associations for differently abled persons say that there are flaws in implementation and most of the provisions did not reach them effectively.

According to members of the associations, it is ironical that persons with disabilities (PWDs) are not allowed to book tickets online.

Each time she hears someone complain about the traffic and the reluctance of people to use public transport, journalist Nikita D. has just one question: “Why should people, especially women, be forced to take public transport when we all know how unsafe it is?”