Every year the Collective Action for Basic Rights Foundation (CBRF) recognises and celebrates the achievements of nine people with disabilities from all around India. The aim is to create awareness in the larger public about the enormous potential that lies within all of us, regardless of disability.
For years, that was essentially my experience on Facebook, and it
remains that way for me on other social media platforms and the
internet at large. You see, I am blind. I rely on a screen reader to
use my computer — it reads the words in text out loud. Since a screen
reader recognizes only words and numbers, photographs, diagrams and
other images are often inaccessible.
KOCHI: The person sitting at the telephone desk inside the public relations officer's room at the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) office might appear to be a nondescript man. But he is not your run of the mill employee at a government office. There is something special about Achenkunju Thomas, who will be retiring on February 28 as the EPFO telephone operator. The specialty lies in the fact that he has an uncanny sense of sound.
Of course, people might point out that he is visually impaired!
In a rare feat, three visually impaired Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) students of Alva’s College, Moodbidri, who passed out during 2018-19, have bagged the first three ranks in the final examination conducted by Mangalore University during April-May, 2019.
Of them, first rank holder, Nithyananda from Attur in Karkala, was the cynosure of all eyes when he received the degree certificate from Vice-Chancellor P.S. Yadapadithya at the 38th convocation of the university here on Thursday.
The audience applauded his achievement with a big thumbs-up.
Last week, two headlines on the digital platforms of leading dailies caught my attention. One read, “Two blind HSC students find writers at the 11th hour”. And the second stated, “HSC exams: Finding writers a real test for some”.
Both these news stories highlight one of the most commonly faced problems by any blind student in India. Given their vision impairment, these students are dependent on ‘scribes’ to write their exams.
The National Association for the Blind in New Delhi is opening Beyond Eyes, a first of its kind
assistive technology experience and resource centre for visually impaired people. The centre aims to enable the community to experience the empowering effect of assistive technologies.
Tribune News Service
Shimla, February 21
Visually impaired students of the HPU are in fix as the institute is flouting the Centre’s guideline regarding writers for such students during examinations.
There is no condition regarding the academic qualification of writers in the guidelines issued by the Centre on February 23, 2013, but the new guidelines issued on August 29, 2018, put a rider that the qualification of the writers should be one standard below that of these students.
The Disabled Students and Youth Association (DSYA) has urged the Vice Chancellor of the Himachal Pradesh University (HPU) to immediately withdraw “wrong and misleading” guidelines for conducting examination of visually impaired and other differently abled students who cannot write, posted on the university portal. In a letter to Prof Sikander Kumar, Mukesh Kumar and Saveena Jahan, convener and co-convener of the DSYA, said the university had violated the directions of the UGC and the Delhi High Court by implementing old guidelines without applying mind.
BENGALURU: The Australian Consulate-General, Chennai, announced a partnership with Samarthanam Trust For The Disabled in Bengaluru on Friday, supporting the Karnataka Women’s Blind Cricket Team.
Andrew Collister, Vice Consul, said, “We are delighted to announce this partnership on the same day as Australia plays India in the opening game of the Women’s T20 World Cup in Sydney, Australia. Australia is proud to support women’s cricket from grassroots to the elite.”
NEW DELHI: Recently, the JCB Literature Foundation at ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival announced an initiative to make the shortlisted entries for the JCB Prize for Literature more accessible to the visually impaired. This particular announcement was made by Mita Kapur, writer and Literary Director of the JCB Prize for Literature, during a special session, titled Literature for All: The JCB Prize Shortlist in Braille.
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