What’s New

SC brings hope for this blind student

A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court has stayed the Madhya Pradesh High Court order that barred a visually challenged student from studying medicine.

The road to becoming a doctor is finally clear for Nitin Mantri. This visually challenged student in Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh now has the permission of the Supreme Court to finish his medical degree.

Mantri says, “I will fulfill the dreams of my parents and family members. They wanted me to be a doctor and now that the Supreme Court has endorsed our stand I will become a doctor."

Heard any good movies lately?

GPS and Bluetooth system 'to help blind people'

Easy Walk consists of a two-buttoned mobile phone, a Bluetooth Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, software that converts text to speech and a call centre, the BBC reports.

The first button on the phone connects to the GPS system to inform the user of their precise location - including house or building number - while the second requests assistance from the call centre, which then phones the user to help them navigate their way.

Visually impaired pilot aims to raise 1m pounds with microlight trip

Hilton-Barber is the first blind person to fly over the English Channel in a microlight, holds the British duel microlight high-altitude record and has wing-walked on a fully aerobatic 450 HP Boeing Steersman bi-plane.

He has endless feats to his credit, such as being the first blind person to do the solo kamikaze skeleton run down the 5G Olympic bobsleigh track in Lillehammer, Norway, and has also participated in the toughest desert ultra-marathon in the world through Death Valley, California.

Soccer Sight to bring commentary to blind and partially sighted fans

BBC NI recently teamed up with the RNIB NI, the IFA’s Grassroots Department and the George Best Foundation to introduce the initiative at Northern Ireland’s home internationals. A competition was run to find two people to become professionally trained commentators at Northern Ireland games. Jackie Fullerton and Joel Taggart had to judge entries of five-minute commentaries describing the imaginary moment your team scored the winning goal in the 2006 World Cup.Robin Peake from Portrush and Brian Elliott from Newtownards won the competition. <b

Turkey’s visually impaired to get GPS devices

S.S.L.C. Topper

Kerala State Institute of Educational Technology (S.I.E.T.) recently launched audio C.D.s of class 10th syllabus in a condensed format for visually impaired students.

Titled `S.S.L.C. Topper', the C.D.s are dubbed in English and Malayalam and will be given free to all visually impaired students. They’re of 28-hour and 20-hour duration respectively.

The C.D.s were devised as an alternative learning methodology, as it was found that a majority of the visually impaired students lacked the speed and skill to decipher Braille literature.

A computer center for blind children in Chandigarh

Set up with funds from ‘Dell Foundation’, the first Dell computer centre in Chandigarh (Punjab) was inaugurated at the Institute for the Blind, recently.

The centre has 12 Dell desktops and two laptops. The hardware is enabled to support software programmes for the visually impaired children to aid their education.

The centre will also provide opportunities for ‘Dell community champions ‘ to make a difference to the lives of the children, by extending a caring hand and sharing their knowledge with them.

Blind navigators lead the sighted drivers in Mumbai car rally

The uniqueness about the event was that the route was kept under wraps and it was made known to the rally drivers only during the course of the rally.

The 70 kilometer long journey led by blind navigators commenced from the National Association of the Blind building on Worli Seaface, Mumbai. They guided the sighted drivers through a series of checkpoints, highlighting their skill and ability.

What parents and children expect?

Research Studies

Teddy bear business to help blind women in India

Students and lecturers from the B.A. (Honours) Fashion, Textiles Enterprise course (the University of Portsmouth, U.K), visited the women at ‘The Little flower convent’ (Chennai) to run workshops teaching blind women how to turn their hand-spun cotton into teddy bears, bags, table mats and other household goods. They are about to establish a design and manufacturing company that will create and retail them in the U.K. and in Europe.

An introduction to tactile teaching aids

By Monika Sharma
Ask people to describe a classroom situation and most would think of a teacher standing at a blackboard, chalk in hand, drawing diagrams and writing the lesson down for the students. Now look at the students, all busily copying the lesson into their books. But what if there is a blind or visually impaired student in the class? Even if they are seated right at the front, how much can they learn from such teaching methods?

Blind masseur to give hands-on lessons in Malaysia

A blind Tokyo masseur will put his healing hands to work as a volunteer at a facility for the physically disabled in Malaysia with the hope he can "pass techniques on and make a difference."

Saburo Sasada was due Tuesday to head to Malaysia on a two-year stint as a senior overseas volunteer for the Japan International Cooperation Agency. According to the agency, he is the first totally blind volunteer it has sent abroad for an extended period.

Where is the button?

Learning material

HSBC Bank announces audio accessible ATMs available in more than 250 locations across the U.S.

HSBC Bank USA, N.A. today announced the availability of
audio-enabled or "talking" ATMs in more than 250 locations across the
U.S. The talking ATMs provide spoken instructions in English and
Spanish and allow individuals with visual impairments to hear
on-screen information when conducting banking transactions.

Practical tips for teaching blind children

Here are some suggestions on how to begin:

Know the extent, intensity of blindness

Technology empowers visually impaired voters

Dorothy Nykiel stepped away from the polling machine set up at the Barnstable Unitarian Church satisfied with her choices: Strawberry ice cream, a Ferrari, Frank Sinatra and three-day weekends.

Nykiel, 88, who has limited vision and walks with the aid of a cane, took part in yesterday's demonstration of new voting machines for the disabled.

AutoMARK Voter Assist Terminal

Large touch screen

Radcliffe’s wizard gift to exhibition

My big idea: Traveleyes

The Leeds-based tour operator was born out of entrepreneur Amar Latif's frustration at the lack of options available to blind travellers.

When Amar Latif discovered that the sort of travel experiences he was looking for didn’t exist for blind travellers, he was faced with two options. He could either do without, or organise them himself. Not being afraid of a challenge he decided on the latter option and in April 2005 the Leeds-based tour operator Traveleyes was born.