Reforms and the disabled

The history of codification of the rights of the disabled coincides with the era of reforms.

Any assessment of the economic reforms of the past 25 years could well do with some understanding of their impact on people with disabilities in India. Indeed, in view of the negligible levels of participation of people with various impairments in economically productive activity, the influence of these sweeping policy changes would seem at best minimal. In the event, even the staunchest critic of liberalisation would have to acknowledge that the greatest legislative and policy changes since Independence that affect such a large section of our population have been initiated in the post-privatisation phase. A plausible explanation of this post-protectionist paradox may be found in the need for greater regulation under more market-oriented conditions.

Codifying rights for the disabled

Most curiously, the history of codification of the rights of people with disabilities coincides more or less with the commencement of the era of economic reforms. Even though legal guarantees enshrined under the Constitution were read into judicial and executive decisions during earlier decades, they were notably few and far between, informed largely by an ad hoc approach to addressing issues, or at times a spillover from an activist judiciary.

It was the landmark Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995, over four years after the reforms, which stipulated specific provisions concerning equal opportunities to basic education, employment, and accessibility. Every policy advance, or its absence, witnessed since that path-breaking legislation has turned on these three fundamental ingredients critical to a better quality of life. Since the passage of that comprehensive law, the lot of the disabled had moved, one might say, from a mode of thinking akin to the Directive Principles of State Policy discourse, to a more robust, Fundamental Rights approach to matters.

Any serious evaluation of what people with disabilities have gained in these past 25 years would probably have to begin with showcasing the political will India’s leadership displayed to generate the very tools to arrive at such an independent and impartial assessment. That was the bold decision the National Democratic Alliance government took to canvass disabilities in the 2001 decennial population census. The real import of the measure becomes apparent when we consider that the 1981 census was the lone exception to the otherwise routine exclusion of this category from the countrywide exercise since Independence.

As per the 2011 enumeration, India is home to 26.8 million people with disabilities, whereas other estimates put the figure at about thrice that number. Census 2011 also shows that 54.5 per cent of people with disabilities in India are literate — a 5.2 percentage point improvement over the previous decade.

Jobs and the open economy

Under liberalisation, employment opportunities have expanded into the private sector, almost unthinkable hitherto. Employers such as ITC, Lemon Tree Hotels, Mphasis, Wipro, and so many others have seen the economic wisdom behind playing on the strengths, rather than the impairments, of our manpower. Notable here are also the equality and diversity norms that the corporate sector is beginning to incorporate in its hiring practices. It would be hard to overlook the direct benefits flowing from the adoption of an open economy in these respects.

In the arena of state employment, the more industrious and enterprising among the disabled have, aided by the Supreme Court’s proactive interpretations of the equal opportunities provisions in the 1995 law, entered the corridors of the administrative services. There are athletes with disabilities who have brought laurels to the country. Access at polling booths seems to have become almost irreversible since the apex court’s landmark 2004 ruling stipulating easy access through ramps. The greater visibility for disability-related concerns in our media is also part of this broad picture of inclusion, howsoever restricted.

The Government of India has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and corresponding domestic legislation is in the making. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship initiatives such as the Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan — designed to bridge physical barriers — are encouraging signs. Yet, they cannot conceal the impatience among disabled people with the glaring disparities that stare us in the face every day.

The census and other data discussed above in fact capture this dismal reality. Of the literate among the disabled, only 8.5 per cent boast a graduate degree, as per the 2011 census. A mere 21.1 per cent of Indian schools adhere to inclusive education for children with disabilities; just 1.32 per cent of teachers have been equipped with the relevant special skills training. This finding of a survey by the National Council of Educational Research and Training points to the challenges in relation to employability. As much as 73.9 per cent of disabled people in the employable age are either non-workers or marginal workers.

These are the numbers that should worry us, and prod us into action. Women with disabilities are most vulnerable to exploitation, as also people with psycho-social impairments and those hard of hearing. The revised National Building Code of India and the corresponding revision of State bylaws can potentially break many of these barriers provided elements of universal design are incorporated.

Javed Abidi is Honorary Director of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People and founder of the Disability Rights Group.

Keywords: UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act 1995, open economhy, National Council of Educational Research and Training, NCERT, National Building Code of India

Source: The Hindu, 4-08-2016

JNU creates special cell for differently abled students

In an effort to take better care of the visually and physically challenged students as well as students from marginalised sections of the society, the Jawaharlal Nehru University has created a special cell within its Equal Opportunity Office (EOO), the first of its kind among Indian universities.

“JNU is providing all possible facilities to disabled students by providing them opportunities and empowering them, and for this purpose a special cell has been created within Equal opportunity Office (EOO) of the university to oversee the challenges faced by them. The university is proud of those disabled students who have excelled in studies and sports,” said Prof Sudhir K Sopory, university vice-chancellor at a seminar organised by the Visually Challenged Students’ Forum and EOO to celebrate the International Day of Persons with Disability 2015.

Besides carrying out a drive to make the entire JNU campus barrier free for differently abled, JNU follows the 3% reservation policy in its admission and provides hostel facilities to disabled students on the same day of admission. JNU also provides laptops with assistive software, voice recorders etc to its researchers with visual disabilities.

“All educational institutions should have an EOO and JNU is ready to share its experience and challenges with establishing such an office for effective implementation of policies for disabled and marginalised section students, which is very important for social justice at institutions of higher education and society,” said professor Manu Mittal, chief advisor, EOO.

Recently, Akshansh Gupta, a student of the university’s School of Computer and System Sciences who has 95% disability due to cerebral palsy, completed his Ph.D and a special felicitation program was organised to acknowledge his hard work and achievement on the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. The university patrons hope that many more students like him could be facilitated to complete their education.

Source: Hindustan Times, 11-12-2015

International Day of Persons with Disabilities

A thin boy in a wheelchair

On International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the families of people with disabilities want one thing most: acceptance.

My brother was disabled. I talked about him to friends, maybe referred to him only in broad terms in work environments, and very rarely wrote about him. When I did write about him, I was asked — both by people who knew me at the intimate-at-a-remove level that social media has made common and by those who have my family and I knew for decades — why I had never done so before.

The reasons are not that easy to explain. But I’ll try.

(A caveat: I speak only of places we’ve lived in and visited: Vizag, Secunderabad, Madras, Bombay and New Bombay, Ooty. Other people’s mileage may differ.)

John’s disabilities were cerebral palsy, mental retardation (what is called a learning disability now, but those words still appeared on his medical files and were the ones used by our family doctor to refer to his handicap) and a heart disease.

Peter Griffin

The heart condition did not manifest visibly, but the palsy was, of course, clear to see. His legs were stick thin, bent a little. More so his right leg, which thanks to muscle atrophy and a hip joint that disintegrated, was bent a little more and could never straighten. Because he had the use only of one hand, he was unable to support his body evenly when sitting. So as he got older, his spine curved more to the right. His right hand was small; he had very limited control over it: just a little movement at shoulder level and the ability to twitch two fingers. It mostly would just be folded, palms and fingers hanging. When he was younger, before the curvature became pronounced, he could manipulate his own wheelchair by propelling the left wheel and then reaching over to propel the right wheel. Later, this became impossible, and he needed extra support on one side whenever sitting up. Another manifestation of his palsy was in slurred speech. He also had a pronounced gagging reflex, so we were never able to clean his teeth properly, and he couldn’t gargle, so he wound up losing all his teeth eventually. There was a slight squint in one eye. He couldn’t wink, though he did, in his words, ‘wink his eyebrows,’ basically a theatrical blink. One side of his face was more mobile than the other, so except with a wide grin (which resulted also in a ‘wink), his smiles were always lopsided. We tried to teach him to read and write, but he could not. He could count reliably up to three, sometimes five.

In brief, he was visibly disabled.

In close interaction — with our friends, our neighbours — he was often talked at or talked around or talked about rather than talked to. Sometimes this is awkwardness: people didn’t know if he understood and would ask us, his caregivers, about him. Mostly these questions were on the lines of ‘what is wrong with him?’ and ‘was he born like this?’ Our answers would then inevitably provoke pity. They would see the disability, recognise that it handicapped him, but they so very rarely look beyond the condition at the person.

The thing is, if you could get past the slurred speech, the retardation was not immediately evident in conversation. In the subjects he could talk about, he was always coherent, though sometimes approaching topics from very different perspectives which needed patience to figure out.

(All John’s favourite people always talked to him, never condescending, but adjusting the topics of their conversation to him, as some people have the gift of doing naturally with children. You know who I mean, that favourite aunt or uncle who you were hugely fond of as a child and who will always be special to you, the one who always talked to you straight, never made you feel like a child.)

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To the casual passer-by, he was just a thin boy in a wheelchair. (I use ‘boy’ advisedly; though he was older than me, he looked at most 20 right through his adult years.) But, in all the cities we lived in, John would attract curiosity in public spaces. At its best, it would be mild double-takes. Sometimes — often, yes, often — it would also be that gawker nudging a companion, inviting the companion to gawk as well. Sometimes it would be open pointing and loud remarks.

I’ve heard, often, in different places, the word in the local languages for ‘mad’. All this made me furious when we were children. It continued to cut deep even when I became an adult, even though I would tell myself that these behaviours were just a result of poor education about mental disability in this country, that one couldn’t blame individuals for cultural mores they’ve imbibed.

Even so, when in casual conversation, on social media, the anger still boils up in me when I hear the suffix ‘-tard’ as an insult, when I hear people laughing about spazzing out.

It enrages me that this world, this country, this city, does so little to make a more accessible, more caring planet for those whose bodies aren’t ‘normal’, whose minds will stay, always, childlike. And that needs more space than this page will allow. So let me not go there. Let me get back to the personal.

Over time, I reached a point where I don’t want to explain any more. I didn’t want to be angry. I definitely didn’t want concessions. That last is also partly why I haven’t spoken publicly about my brother; one didn’t want to be seen as seeking attention, or seeking pity, or largesse from the state or society.

All this I’ve heard this from friends who have family members with learning disabilities: all you want is acceptance, for your loved one, for your family. You want the world to just be okay with the fact that this is just another person's ‘normal,’ that it doesn’t need pity, or sorrow.

You don’t want the attention. You’re not brave, you’re not extraordinary. You’re not a saint, heaven knows. This is just your life. This is his life. This is our life. You would do the same, but these just don’t happen to be the circumstances of your life.

All we want, the families of and caregivers to people with disability — I deliberately do not try to speak for people with disability, because I do not know that world — is to not be ‘special’. To not be a symbol for courage. To not have our loved ones be the disability.

From where I sit, your fight against the financial circumstances you have risen above, or the loss of a parent early in life or of a child, or a bad marriage or broken heart or rebellious children, they are all strange to me, perhaps. Are you a hero? I don’t know; perhaps you are. But it could be just that you are playing with the cards you have been dealt.

There is no divine plan, I’m sure. This isn’t happening to you or me ‘for the best’.

It is what it is.

You live the life you find yourself in, the best way you know how.

peter.griffin@thehindu.co.in

Keywords: International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Cerebral palsy, learning disabilty

Source: The Hindu, 3-12-2015

95% disabled, JNU scholar battles huge odds to get PhD

Manash Gohain

New Delhi:





At a special convocation held in the vice-chancellor's office recently , Jawaharlal Nehru University awarded a doctorate degree to Bunty Dada. The proud student struggled to grasp the degree being handed to him by VC S K Sopory , though his eyes shone and his hands moved towards the document that signified a tremendous victory of mind over matter.The name inscribed on the doctorate degree was “Akshsansh Gupta“. But he is Bunty Dada on the campus of India's top university .
Gupta's lower limbs are of no use, his slurred speech is difficult to decipher and his arms have the stiff, awkward flailing of someone not quite in control of his movements.In a system that insensitively rates disability in terms of percentages, the 32-year-old is deemed 95% disabled -he grew up with cerebral palsy . More equipped people would have quailed at the extraordinary hardships Bunty Dada faced in trying to get a “Dr“ as a prenomial, but he persevered and that is why the university honoured him with the special convocation, months in advance of the formal ceremony next year.
From his room in the Kaveri Hostel, Gupta braved the odds for five years to finish writing his thesis on “Brain Computer Interface“, in between travelling to Malaysia to present a paper on his chosen subject of computer science. “I opted for computer science as it is easier for me because of the nature of practicals and laboratory work it entails,“ says Gupta. Of course, when stated like that, it sounds like a fairly easy achievement. But the words do not reveal that even getting admission into a primary school in his hometown of Jaunpur in east Uttar Pradesh was a challenge. “When I saw my siblings go to school, I wanted to do likewise.But in my condition, which school would admit me?“ he says. Then, with admirable lack of rancour, he adds, “In general, in our country the attitude towards people with disabilities is quite negative. The first thing people ask is, `Kya karega padhke (What will you gain by studying)?'“ In his small hostel room, you see a wheelchair, radio set, laptop, piles of books on computers, and in a corner, a garlanded photograph of his mother among statues of Lakshmi, Saraswati and Ganesha. It is with justified regard that he places the picture of his mother, whom he lost in 2011, among the divine beings, for she was one of the two women who determined his destiny . She was the one in the family who insisted the tot who couldn't walk be given an education. The other was Meera Sahu, a teacher who finally got him admitted to school.
Gupta is also eternally grateful to Mahajan, the rickshaw puller who ferried him every day to Umanath Singh Institute of Engineering and Technology in Jaunpur, where he pursued a BTech degree in computer science. An illiterate rickshaw puller and a student with physical limitations dreamed an unimaginable future when they travelled the 15 km between home and college every day . “Mahajan and I talked about the world beyond Jaunpur and that is when I decided I want to step out. My family was reluctant, but they eventually agreed, and here I am in Delhi,“ he says.
Piyush Maurya, an MPhil student and his hostel mate at JNU, knows the sort of person Gupta is.“He has an extraordinary mind. He always wanted to prove that disability was a myth,“ he marvels.And while Maurya says that Gupta mostly refuses to take the help of others, the scholar did benefit from JNU's policy of having two helps in every hostel for those like Gupta who might need their assistance.
Gupta, a freshly minted doctor now, is hopeful of getting a job, preferably in the university itself. If JNU obliges, he will be overjoyed. “JNU's atmosphere is such that anyone would like to always live here,“ he says with a grin. He does grudge the government, though, for framing disability policies without consulting the affected people. “Because we are not vote banks,“ he explains.

Source: Times of India, 19-11-2015

IITs to shelve fee for differently-abled

In a welcome move, the Indian Institute of Technology has decided to waive off the tuition fee for the differently-abled students. The decision was taken by IIT council headed by Human Resource Development minister Smriti Irani.

Irani shared the news on her social networking Twitter handle and wrote, “Happy to report that IIT Council has decided to waive off fees for our physically challenged students.”

The council had earlier suggested that IIT should hike tuition fee of the students from Rs 90,000 to Rs 2.5 lakh to meet recurring expenses of the institute, however, the HRD minister put the proposal on hold. Irani also insisted that they cannot overlook the interest of socially and economically weaker sections.

Another proposal by IIT Joint Admission Board (JAB) to increase the quota of students appearing for JEE (Advanced) from 1.5 lakh to 2 lakh had been approved in the meeting.

Source: Elets News Network (ENN) Posted on October 7, 2015

Only a 10th of disabled quota filled, OBCs way short of 

central job quota 

At a time when the country is celebrating Ira Singhal’s achievement in topping UPSC, the fact remains that disabled candidates occupy only a 10th of the central government posts reserved for them. The reservation is 3 per cent for the disabled category but only 0.3 per cent (9,339 out of 29.59 lakh) of the present central government workforce belong to that category, according to an RTI reply to The Indian Express from the Department of Personnel and Training.

The DoPT said in its response dated June 30, 2015, that the data is for 71 departments of the Union government. The government has 91 departments, including the President and Vice President’s secretariats, but DoPT did not specify which departments are absent from the information provided. The data does not include contractual staff and consultants because they do not come under the purview of reservation.

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In terms of community reservation, too, the SCs, STs and OBCs are short of their quota in central government jobs. The shortfall is actually only among the OBCs, who represent 17.7 per cent of the workforce against a quota of 27 per cent, implying that roughly a third of their quota has been filled by non-OBCs. The SCs and the STs, in fact, either exceed or match their quota.

The actual representation of the three groups adds up to 43 per cent (SC 17.6, ST 7.7 and OBC 17.7) when the quota for them is 49.5 per cent (SC 15, ST 7.5 and OBC 27). This implies that 6.5 per cent of occupied government posts, or 13 per cent of the reserved 49.5 per cent, have been occupied by employees of the general category when these should have been reserved.

Of the total central government strength of 29.59 lakh, 5.19 lakh belong to SCs, 2.28 lakh to STs and 5.24 lakh from OBCs. The remaining 16.87 lakh account for 57 per cent when the balance for the general category works out to 50.5 per cent.

For the gap in representation of OBC employees, a possible reason is that reservation for OBCs started only in 1994 based on the Mandal Commission report. Again, the representation of disabled employees is poor evidently because reservation for them was introduced only in 2004. The highest representation of the disabled is among Group-B employees, with 1.6 per cent belonging to that category. In all other employee groups, they count for less than 1 per cent.

The SCs, STs and OBCs have their highest representation among safai karmacharis followed by Group-C excluding safai karmacharis. The OBCs’ representation is slightly higher in Group-C (other than safai karmacharis) in comparison to SCs but in Groups-A, B and C (safai karmacharis) the OBC proportion is lower than that of SCs.

Among Group-A officers, general category employees have the highest representation (69.3 per cent). In Group-B, too, 67.4 per cent officers belong to the general category. Among safai karmacharis, the general category count falls below 50.5 per cent to 43.4, mainly because of the high SC count.

- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/only-a-10th-of-disabled-quota-filled-obcs-way-short-of-central-job-quota/#sthash.6lHgu8rq.dpuf

Only 0.56 percent disable students in top colleges

There are only 8,449 disabled students, or 0.56 percent, studying in the country’s 150 top universities and colleges that have a total strength of 15,21,438, said a recent survey conducted by National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP). The national survey ‘Status of Disability in Higher Education’ was released as part of the 3rd National Convention for Youth with Disabilities.

The nationwide survey of status of disabled students in top Indian colleges, institutes and universities, revealed that of these differently-abled students, 74.08 percent were male and 22.07 percent were female students. Of the over 200 institutions that were written to,150 responded — which included all the 16 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and 13 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).The colleges were identified on the basis of streams and courses on which the survey was to be conducted.

It may be mentioned that last year, the total number of students with disabilities was 0.63 percent.

Javed Abidi, Director, NCPEDP, said, “It is a big reason to worry that years after the law, only 0.56 percent students are disabled”. He also pointed out a significant number of institutes that did not respond was that of private institutions, which he said were the ‘biggest culprits’. He said that the first step which needs to be taken is that of ‘accessibility. “It is about removing both — architectural and technological barriers.

Students with learning disability should get exam writers: Court





The Bombay High Court on Monday asked the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) to allow exam writers to all students with learning disabilities. The NIOS had earlier turned down requests for writers for hundreds of such students for their upcoming Std X and XII exams.Last week, the High Court took up a PIL suo moto after receiving a letter from psychologists Dr Harish Shetty and Dr Sanghnaik Meshram who highlighted the issue.
According to NIOS, students who requested for writers did not have certificates from the government-authorised learning disability centres.But the court learnt that very few centres in the state provide the certificate. A division bench headed by Chief Justice Mohit Shah directed the state to set up at least one centre in each district.

Only 0.6% of disabled students in higher edu

New Delhi: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





About 0.56% seats in higher education go to disabled candidates though there's reservation to the extent of 3% in public institutions. Of this 74.08% are male and 22.70% female.This came out in the third survey on the Status of Disability in Higher Education conducted by the National Centre for Promotion of Employment of Disabled People .
It includes responses from over 150 institutions of higher education across the country including 16 Indian Institutes of Technology and 13 Indian Institutes of Management, architecture, law, medicine, hotel management and other engineering and business schools.
The participation rate varies across disabilities. Of the total number of disabled candidates, 46.67% have ortho paedic disabilities, 32.13% are visually impaired, 5.16% are speechhearing impaired and 16.05% have other types. The percentage of students varies across streams as well ­ the IIMs, surprisingly, come closest to completing the 3% quota with 2.49% disabled students of the total enrolled. Social work schools have an enrollment of 1.75% and IITs, 1.47%. The general universities are at the bottom with a 0.31% fill-rate. The total number of the students considered is 15,21,438.
Bipin Tiwari of Delhi University's Equal Opportunity Cell explains why it's difficult for universities ­ even proactive ones ­ to fill the quota.“There is a clear disconnect between schools and colleges.I don't know how many disabled children graduate from school every year. We try to spread awareness and enrollment is increasing. There are about 1,300 disabled students enrolled in DU right now,“ Tiwari said.
Of the 1,500-odd seats, about 700 are filled. The gender ratio is far healthier than the national average the survey furnishes ­ about 60-40. The largest category in DU is not that of the orthopaedically-disabled but of the visually-impaired and the percentage of the hearing speech-impaired is far lower.
He explains that most students in this group come from special schools and prefer computer-based courses.“They are often advised at the special schools to take up vocational courses.“
Particular categories of the disabled tend to go for specific streams. For instance, 99% of the disabled in medicine are orthopaedicallly disabled; 57% of the disabled students in general science are blind and 62% in hotel management are in the other disability category (including learningmental disability).
The survey also found that over a 100 of the respondent institutions have a “disability unit“ on campus and over 130 have a “disability policy.“

Dec 23 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

`71% of disabled kids in rural India'

Sivakumar B

Chennai:





India has 20.42 lakh disabled children aged between 0 and 6 years.Around 71% of them -14.52 lakh children -are in rural areas. There are 5.9 lakh disabled children in cities. Of them, 11.04 lakh are male and 9.38 lakh are female children. Among them, 1.49 lakh children have multiple disabilities.Children with hearing and eyesight disabilities form the lion's share among them. All age groups put together, there are more than 41 lakh children with eyesight problems and 47 lakh children with hearing disabilities in the country, says the latest report on 2011 Cen sus released on Monday .
“More children with disability are found in rural areas because of lack of paediatricians in villages. Many community health centres in rural areas don't have even a doctor, leave alone paediatricians,“ said chairman and founder of Narayana Health Dr Devi Prasad Shetty . “Only a paediatrician will be able to detect disability in a child at an early stage. If detected on time, the child can be sent to urban centres to consult specialists,“ he said.
“Even many years after independence, in many villages, women give birth with the help of midwives and not under a gynaecologist's care.Problems that a pregnant woman faces affects the child also. At times they are born with mental disability,“ Shetty said.
There are more than 5.80 lakh children in this age group with other disabilities like autism and cerebal palsy .Uttar Pradesh has the maximum number of children with disabilities. Bihar is next on the list with 2.90 lakh children. Maharashtra has 2.17 lakh children with dis abilities. In the south, undivided Andhra Pradesh has 1.27 lakh children, followed by Karnataka (92,853), Tamil Nadu (62,538) and Kerala (26,242).Among the smaller states, Sikkim has the lowest number (628) of disabled children.Assam has the maximum number of disabled children (35,742) in the northeast.
“State governments should take steps based on census numbers. Even in Tamil Nadu, the state government has not taken any step like incidence analysis based on the 2011 census,“ said Meenakshi Balasubramanian of Equals, an NGO working with disabled people in the state. The country's disabled population has increased by 22.4% between 2001 and 2011.

Special Academy for Training Teachers of Differently-Abled Students

 Given the unique challenges that need to be addressed when it comes to imparting education to differently-abled children, HRD Minister Smriti Irani has revealed that a separate academy would be established for training teachers to address the issues.

On the role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), which can help differently-abled students, Irani said at a UNESCO conference, “The academy and institutions will be developed so that teachers can be specially trained for those who are differently able and their challenges and needs are addressed within the educational system.”

The minister shared plans to engage the best of practices the world has to offer in the field of ICT and education in order to adapt to these technologies and methodologies to help citizens in the best possible way.

In this year’s general budget, there was the Madan Mohan Malviya teaching mission that acknowledges the need to train teachers to address challenges of specially-abled children. Rs 500 crore has been allocated toward this initiative by the government.

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Nov 20 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Unesco meet on rights of handicapped

New Delhi: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





Unesco will host a three-day international conference -From Exclusion to Empowerment: Role of Information and Communication Technologies for Persons with Disabilities -between November 24 and 26 in Delhi.In addition, Delhi will also play host to a `We Care' film festival and an exhibition of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and assistive technologies for persons with disabilities and handicaps.
The film festival will aim to raise awareness on the rights of persons with disabilities across the globe and act as a vehicle in bringing disability issues to the fore among government agencies and civil society , affecting both institutional and grassroots level attitudinal and behavioral change

MICA to turn disability-friendly next year

Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA) will turn its entire campus into disability-friendly by 2015 with the introduction facilities for special students.

According to the institute, significant additions will include ramps in all the buildings on campus, to facilitate easy access to the ground floors, including all the hostel blocks. The institute will also resurface all the walkways and pathways, which currently have brick-edge con-surfaces. These will be replaced with RCC finish or paving blocks to make them smoother. Thus, movement around the campus including the student’s service area, the micafe plaza, parking areas etc. will be smoother and more accessible.

Nov 07 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

BOOKS PLANNED - A social lesson to help special children

New Delhi: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





Realizing that kids with learning disabilities will get only so far academically, former fashion designer Roma Sahni is exploring whether they can tap into their reserves of creativity and “have a life and be independent“.Sahni has been working with children with autism and Down's syndrome for a while and in 2008, started Freesia--more club than NGO. “I have a small set-up, running from the basement of my home, where we hold some vocational training,“ she says, “My plan is that young adults with learning disabilities do something creative.“
What got her started on this road is her own son.Now 15, he has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and is “borderline autistic“.
“The mental difference and learning difference between kids with special needs and the rest means there is rarely any tie between them,“ she explains.“The only tie that can exist is through the creative sector.“
And this discovery explains her latest project--a series of books that serve the dual purpose of helping teach kids with learning disabilities and raising awareness about the “social issues“ they have among the “mainstream kids“.
“My son, for instance, was invited to birthday parties.I'd take him too till I realized that my child has not taken interest, that he's only a prop at these parties.“ “The idea is not to gain sympathy ,“ she continues, “Kids need to understand that it's not the other child's fault they are the way they are.“ At the same time, Sahni realizes that it's a tad too late to start on the cur rent batch of older kids and adolescents; the first book in the series is addressed to kids in the four-nine age range but future books will be dedicated to older kids. The series will be for kids from age four to 16 and can be used for academic purposes for children with learning disabilities.It's designed for that--with extra-large fonts, bold colours, and familiar animals serving as characters.
This group of kids doesn't learn the same way most others do--progressing from alphabet to word and sentence.“A six-year-old without a disability will be done with the book in an hour but a child with learning disability can spend hours on a single page,“ says Sahni. “We picked out animals--dog, squirrel, cat--because those will already be familiar to these children. For them, you need visual input. They'll learn the corresponding words afterwards.“

Sep 13 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

3% quota for disabled must in govt jobs: SC

New Delhi





The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Centre to ensure 3% reservation for differently-abled persons in all category of government jobs, including in appointments and promotions to IAS.Appearing for the Centre, additional solicitor general Pinky Anand argued that reservation could not be given for promotion to Group A and Group B category .Dismissing the Centre's plea challenging a Bombay HC order, a bench headed by CJI R M Lodha said the government was taking a narrow view of appointment and “frustrating the reservation policy“ and legislation passed to benefit the disabled. P 12

Jul 17 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

RIGHT COURSE FOR THE DIFFERENTLY ABLED - They Came not on Their Own & Still Conquered IIMs

DEVINA SENGUPTA & ANUMEHA CHATURVEDI

MUMBAI | NEW DELHI





India's top business schools go the extra mile to help students with special needs

He often mixes up `who' with `how'. And, when asked for directions, he needs to look at the hand with which he eats to point towards the right direction. Apoorv Agarwal is dyslexic and has just made it to Indian Institute of Management, Raipur, acknowledging his disability for the first time during his interview there.“Because of high content of lead in my blood, language comprehension gets affected, but I will manage because I need to be an example for my sister,“ says Agarwal. His sister too suffers from the disorder.
Sai Prasad Vishwanathanan wheel-chaired his way into Indian School of Business, Bangalore, in 2010 and was hired by Deloitte. He was operated unsuccessfully for a birth condition of additional growth in spinal cord. Subsequent injuries during childhood rendered him disabled.
Seventy-three such students with disabilities are now on campuses at a handful of IIMs ET spoke to for this story . There are more such heroes -with visual, locomotive, hearing and learning disorders -all defying life's cruel blows to make it to the IIMs. Some of them were chosen in general quota -in some cases at the insistence of the candidate -though 3% of the seats are reserved for the disabled in IIMs.
ISB did away with stairs in one of its four entrance gates en abling Vishwa abling Vishwa nathan to take the wheelchair, put a ramp around his ac commodation, built a new washroom, gave him a bat tery-powered wheelchair that cost them . 1 lakh, and ` brought down the height of the stage on his graduating day.
“It touched me when ISB started making changes because it was the right thing to do and not because they could foresee numbers of students like me going up in future,“ says Vishwanathan. “Reservation is not the answer.
What we need is the right infrastructure that can make life easy ,“ Vishwanathan said.
B-schools are trying their best for their disabled students by adding voice announcement facility in lifts, providing them motorised wheelchairs, giving more time to students with learning disorders, adopting special software for the blind and encouraging volunteers to help them in their studies. Infrastructural changes have been made in class rooms and hostels, and students have been sensitised on the needs of the specially-abled. Some IIMs are also in the process of creating a special centre where the needs of the differently-abled can be discussed and met.
IIM Calcutta is planning a centre for specially-abled students.
With 26 such students this year (batch 2015 and 2016), it is an urgent need for the institute.
IIM Kozhikode set up an audit committee last month to make infrastructural changes to cater to the needs of the differentlyabled. “The institute is built on a hill, so we are reviewing the entire space,“ said Debashis Chatterjee, dean of IIM-K.
The B-school has 20 such students in the campus this year.
“There was difficulty in getting qualified DA students in the past. Now, the awareness has increased. This year we could fill up 10 seats out of the 12 in the DA category,“ he added. The Bschool has also admitted meritorious students with special needs in the general category.
In 2010, IIM Bangalore installed a lift with features such as voice announcement and accessible control panel for easy access to classrooms and offices on higher floors. They installed Braille in computers and bought motorised chairs for those with locomotive disorders.
“Professors give me notes a day before the lecture and when there are many equations solved on the board, volunteers from other classes sit with me and explain what is being written,“ says C Gaurav. He is blind and made it to the 2016 batch at IIM Bangalore.
IIMB appoints readers, scribes and tutors as and when required for the 27 such students on the campus now.
Newer IIMs aren't far behind.
IIM Raipur, for example, gives all visually-impaired students larger hostel rooms, which they have to share with two other roommates who do not face similar needs. “This was done to ensure that even if one room mate is not there, we are not alone,“ says Yogesh Gupta (24) from the 2015 batch.
Gupta became blind in 2005 and found it difficult to learn Braille. He relies on speech software to understand notes. Gupta wants to make a career in marketing in the logistics industry.
An internship with Transport Corporation of India this year has boosted his confidence. His classmate Piyush Rakheja wants a career in finance and absence of sight holds no barrier for this commerce graduate from Kolkata.
SUPPORT FROM RECRUITERS Recruiters are also doing their bit. Vodafone just recruited two management trainees with special needs from campuses out of a total of 110 management trainees.
“We have not yet hired students with special needs and it hasn't come up in our hiring discussions, but we will look out for such students closely and will be delighted to hire them,“ says Sachin Nandgaonkar, partner, and head of recruitments for Boston Consulting Group in India.
“Recruitments of the specially-abled tie in with our policy on inclusion, and students are assessed on a variety of factors, including marks and capabilities,“ says P Thiruvengadam, senior director, human capital, Deloitte.
Meanwhile, Vishwanathan will be leaving for a US stint with Deloitte next month.

Jun 12 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Is obesity a disability? Court to decide

Kounteya Sinha

London TNN





Man Weighing 158Kg Sues Employers For Sacking Him, Alleges Discrimination

An overweight Danish citizen may make legal history by calling for employers across Europe to treat obesity as a disability.The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg will on Thursday hear proceedings brought by Danish childminder Karsten Kaltoft, who alleges he was dismissed by his local authority Billund Kommune as he is obese.
The authority claimed that he was unable to perform his duties and needed the help of colleagues to even tie children's shoelaces.
The issue is whether Kaltoft's obesity falls within the definition of disability under EU law and whether, by dismissing him, his employer may have been guilty ofdisability discrimination.
If Kaltoft -who weighed more than 158 kg when he was dismissed -wins the case, obesity would need to be approached like any other physical or mental impairment, preventing an employer from treating an employee less favourably because of their weight, not because of consequential medical problems. This would include the ability to dismiss. The court, whose rulings are binding throughout the EU, will have to decide whether it is legitimate to discriminate on the grounds of obesity and whether the burden of proof in any future cases should be on the employer or employee. The ECJ will also consider whether, if there is a duty to prevent discrimination against those suffering from obesity, it applies just to the public sector or across the labour market.
The Danish court has asked for clarification from the ECJ as to whether the European Framework Directive, which sets the benchmark of discrimination laws across member states, can be interpreted to encompass obesity as a disability .
Audrey Williams, partner and head of discrimination at law firm Eversheds said, “The European court will consider for the first time where obesity sits in legal terms and whether it should be considered a disability in the case of Karsten Kaltoft v Billund Kommune. The outcome could prove significant for employers, triggering potential obligations to make reasonable adjustments at work or restricting opportunity to reject job candidates due to their weight. It will be some weeks before the European court publishes its decision in the Kaltoft case. However, depending upon the outcome, the impact could prove significant for employers, particularly those in the UK which continues to reveal the highest percentages of obesity in Europe. Discrimination law in the UK, the Equality Act, 2010, has been interpreted as protecting physical and mental conditions which result from obesity , to the extent they meet specified criteria in terms of their nature, effect and duration; obesity itself has been rejected by the UK courts as a disability in its own right. If the European Court reaches a contrary conclusion, the Equality Act would need to be applied very differently.“
For the full report, log on to http://www.timesofindia.com