A multilingual Refreshable Braille Reader for use of visuallychallenged persons, and having a number of novel features has beendesigned, manufactured and launched by the city based firm AutomaticControl Equipments. This Braille Reader was recently inaugurated by theVice Chancellor of University Of Pune, Dr Narendra Jadhav, at theLaboratory for blind established at the Education Department ofUniversity Of Pune, by reading of pages from the VC's famous book'Aamacha Baap aan Aamhi '

The reading of any text material bysightless and very low-vision persons all over the world is achievedthrough the Braille script, which is a system of raised dots on a paperor a surface. This system of writing and reading being used by manyblind people, was invented over 170 years ago (1834) in France by LouisBraille. Today, in virtually every language around the world, the codenamed after Louis Braille is the standard form of writing and readingused by blind people. In India, text in all Indian Languages can berepresented in the Braille script. Braille system comprises six dotsread by touch of the index finger of the visually challenged person.These six dots when embossed or raised on a surface it is called “theBraille character”, from which can be formed letters of the alphabet,numbers and punctuation marks for all Languages.

One of the majorforms of creating text material as books and documents is by embossingthe text in six dots on a thick paper. All sightless and low visionpersons are taught to read Braille in their schools and later theycontinue to read books embossed in Braille throughout their life, toget knowledge. Although books can be read by a sighted person, and canbe tape-recorded, for later playing for the hearing of sightlesspersons, this method has limitations due to the fact that it has beenproven by experiments that the knowledge gained by reading a book andthat by merely hearing a played-back book, has a substantialdifference. While 'reading', a person's mind is fully concentrated inthe subject matter, whereas while hearing a played text, very less ofit goes in the person's deeper memory. Also hearing of taped speechsuffers from lack of random accessibility and content addressabilitywhich are specialties of printed books for the sighted, and Braillebooks for the blind. Braille embossed books are bulky, expensive tomake, and have a limited life. A 100 pages printed book becomes a 400pages book in Braille, uses a much thicker paper, and since the dotsare embossed on the paper, after some use, become flattened and thebook soon loses its usefulness. The cost of embossing a book becomestypically ten times that of the normal printed book. In spite of thesedisadvantages, the institutions for the blind had no choice but toemboss books and make them available to the blind.

BRAILLE MITRAis a Refreshable Braille Reader for visually handicapped and sightlesspeople for reading in English and all 11 Indian Languages in Braille.BRAILLE-MITRA uses a new technology to have 'soft Braille books' whichconsists of Braille characters formed in a row, with each characterhaving six dots made by smooth plastic pins, which are raisedselectively, by electro-mechanical means to make a line of Braillecharacters. The 'feel' of this line, to the sightless person's indexfingers is exactly same as that of 'feeling' an embossed Braille linein a Braille book. This Braille line, is driven by a micro-computer,which provides many additional features to the reader. BRAILLE-MITRAhas the great advantage that after the person 'reads' a line, the nextline appears automatically on the same place, and the person can easilyread the display word-by-word and line-by-line. BRAILLE-MITRA can keepshowing any number of books 'loaded' in its micro-computer's memory,and once owned, the sightless person can virtually get an unlimitednumber of books for Braille reading on BRAILLE-MITRA, provided ofcourse these books are available in Braille in soft form, as a computerfile. BRAILLE-MITRA is silent, changes fast, and can have a variety ofnavigation features for the reader to make Braille reading a trulywonderful experience.

BRAILLE MITRA is ideally suited as asightless person's companion and is his window to the vast literaturein English and all Indian languages. The advantages and contributionsof BRAILLE MITRA are that an entire book in an Indian Language can bestored in the display and can be read page by page and line by line.The display has user friendly navigation controls which enable thereader to read the multi page Braille document or book in a very easyand convenient manner, with unparalleled speed. The display can beindependent of a Personal Computer. The display can accept a pen-driveof 1 GB or 2 GB capacity. A 1 GB pen-drive can hold about 1000 Englishor multiple Indian language books. The desired book can be loaded inthe basic resident memory of 2MB of the BRAILL MITRA, by a command andthe users can read this book. When the user wants to read another book,the required book can be loaded into the resident memory of the unitand can be read. The user can read the Braille book loaded in thememory by means of user friendly commands like next-line,previous-line, next-page, previous-page, go to desired page number, seta book-mark, go to the book-mark and so on. BRAILLE-MITRA is compact,light weight and convenient to use. The Display has six dot characterswhich are very comfortable and uniform to the feel for extensivereading by the hands of the users. Easy operational commands make thereading experience a pleasurable one. Fast updating of the Braillelines allows users to read from BRAILLE MITRA at speeds of 50 to 60words per minute or more.

Mr Raghunandan Joshi, the ChiefArchitect of BRAILL-MITRA and CTO of ACE said that ACE hasconceptualized the BRAILLE-MITRA and Braille Library idea, and designedand made the BRAILLE-MITRA using entirely Indian expertise inelectronics, system designing, firmware skills, knowledge of IndianLanguages Braille, and the expert guidance and contribution of itsPrincipal Consultant Dr Mehernosh Cooper, and Indian LanguageConsultant Mrs Meena Joshi.

The BRAILLE-MITRA has been designedin two flavors. The 16 Braille characters per line – BM-16 which is aneconomical unit for reading Braille lines in complete words, withoutany word-breaks, and the 32 Braille characters per line – BM-32 whichhas a longer Braille Line and is useful for faster reading of books. Onboth units, books in English and all Indian languages can be read withease. The Display can show English and all Indian Languages. Currentlyavailable languages are English, Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil,Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Assamese, Oriya and Punjabi.

Asignificant advantage of using BRAILLE-MITRA for teaching ineducational Institutions for the blind is that when the syllabus forthe secondary or primary schools changes, the new changes can beimmediately converted to Braille script by using the translationsoftware Shree-Lipi-Braille, and the Braille text can be immediatelyread on the BRAILLE-MITRA, and the teachers can start teaching the newsyllabus in classes, almost immediately. The hard-copy embossed bookswill become available after some time when they are embossed in theBraille printing presses.

A visually challenged girl read partsof the book Agnipankh which is the Marathi translation of formerPresident Dr Abdul Kalam's autobiography, and a page of book written byDr Narendra Jadhav, VC – University of Pune.

Mr Anand Latkar,leading Publisher of Marathi books and educational guides for schoolssaid “A movement is necessary to make the Marathi and other languageeducational books, guides for 10th and 12th standard, college books,and also other technical and literary books in Braille available by allpublishers and authors for use of the blind community. He furtherdeclared that his publishing house will be offering all theirpublications which include guides for students of 10 th standard (namedDahavi Diwali) by converting them in Braille, for free use of the blindstudents who need them the most. He further appealed to all publishersto offer their respective books, by converting them into Braille, forfree use of the blind community. “

He further said “Allpublishers of Indian languages books have now an opportunity to maketheir books available to the blind, and help open the gates ofknowledge to them and make a significant contribution. This willrapidly increase the literacy rate of blind persons and make differentbooks useful for secondary, higher and professional education easilyavailable to them. This will be a great service to the society ”