The abacus method to calculate numbers has become a rage among school students not to mention the visually-challenged students of Devnar School for Blind who bagged four prizes at a State level Competition that was held on January 20.

T. Andalu, (9th std.) and G. Satya Veni (7th std.) bagged the first prize while CH. Gopal, a 7th Std. and Yugandhar, 9th Std. students won the second and third prizes respectively in the level one competition.

Over 50 students are being trained in Abacus as a part of a brain developing programme in the Devnar School for Blind.

Thanks to a donation and collaboration between Gelman Library and Disability Support Services, blind and visually impaired students can now access resources in the library with more ease.

Last month the library held a ribbon cutting ceremony in celebration of its two new assistive technology suites - study rooms that are equipped with speech, scan and read, magnification and voice recognition software that help blind and visually impaired students see text and use other library materials more easily. About 35 students, library staff and faculty attended the ceremony.

The Punjab Government has decided to immediatelyclear the backlog of the posts reserved for the blind and partiallyblind persons in the state. 

An assurance to this effect was given by PunjabChief Minister  Parkash Singh Badal to a delegation of NaterheenJagarities Sangh Punjab (visually challenged persons) led by GeneralSecretary Prof. Rajnish Mahal which called on  Badal and submitted acharter of demands to him here at his official residence thisafternoon. 

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 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.