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Sunday 17 April 2016

Demographic Dividend Of Special Need People Must Be Tapped: PM Modi

Demographic Dividend Of Special Need People Must Be Tapped: PM Modi
The Prime Minister said his government is fully committed to the provisions of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
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Centre is taking steps to ensure that demographic dividend of people with special needs is adequately tapped in for nation building, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday.

He also said the government is working on starting a centre for developing sign gestures for Indian languages. PM Modi said this in his message to the ninth World Assembly of the Disabled People's International starting today.

The Prime Minister said the cost of exclusion of people with disabilities from the workplace is estimated by the World Bank to be around 37 per cent of a country's GDP.

"It is, therefore, imperative that as the world advances to accomplish the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, particularly eradication of extreme poverty, people with disabilities are included in this journey," he said.



Citing philosophy of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam' (world is one family), PM Modi said India believes in the principles of inclusion and integration.

The Prime Minister said his government is fully committed to the provisions of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for achieving empowerment and inclusion of persons with special needs, he said.

"In the last two years of office, we have already taken several significant steps to ensure that the demographic dividend of people with disabilities is adequately tapped in for nation building. Initiatives such as Accessible India Campaign aim to make the built environment inclusive for people with disabilities.

"We are also working on making the Railways accessible and starting a centre to develop Indian sign language," he said.

Disabled People's International (DPI) has members from over 150 countries. The event is supported by the United Nations and G3IC.

Thanking the Prime Minister, Global Chair for DPI, Javed Abidi said, "I would like to emphasise that rebuilding and retro-fitting to accommodate persons with disability must be discouraged. It has become imperative for governments to collectively have a positive procurement model. Accessibility has to be built into both public and private sector procurement. Otherwise the disabled people cannot even get education, let alone employment."




Source: ND TV , 11th April 2016 

ALIMCO camps for Aids & Assistive Devices



A mega distribution camp for Aids and Assistive Devices has been arranged in Bareilly by the Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation Limited (ALIMCO) on Tuesday, Bureaucracy Today has learnt.
ALIMCO which has been working under the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment stated that almost 1578 beneficiaries were provided with state-of-the-art high-end technical devices. 

Thaawarchand Gehlot, Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment conducted the entire event in the presence of Santosh Kumar Ganwar, Minister of State of Textiles (Independent Charge), Member of Parliament, Bareilly.

Praising the efforts of the Central Government for initiating transparency to the ADIP Scheme, Thaawarchand Gehlot said that 315 children with Hearing Impairment have been successfully provided with Cochlear Implants. He also added that the Government has launched the Accessible India Campaign/Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan as a step towards achieving Universal Accessibility. 50 Cities and 705 Railway stations in India are being covered under the Campaign.



Source : Bureaucracy Today , 13th April 2016 

Leaping over spinal cord injury, researchers teach a quadriplegic's hand to move again

In  a development that could help restore fine motor movement to patients with brain or spinal-cord injuries, researchers have briefly restored a 24-year-old quadriplegic man's ability to grasp a cup and perform other everyday tasks with his hand, wrist and fingers.

The effort, reported Wednesday in the journal Nature, set out to circumvent a spinal cord injury and reanimate a limb directly, using reinterpreted electrical signals issued by a patient's own brain.
In a lab in Ohio, those signals — recorded by a suite of sensors sunk into the subject's motor cortex — were painstakingly translated into electrical impulses that would command the young man's fingers to wrap around a cup, his wrist to twist so he could pour out the contents of a bottle and his hand to grasp a stick and stir.
When 24-year-old Ian Burkhart, a quadriplegic injured in a diving accident five years ago, subsequently thought about those movements, a cuff worn around his lower arm would issue electrical commands to his fingers, hand and wrist to perform them.

Researchers described their experiment in brain-machine interfaces as a way to bypass a severed connection between brain and limbs and restore some independent movement to those with grievous injuries.
Others working in this field have used recorded sequences of brain signals to make a variety of robotic devices move on command. But the latest effort to be reported, which occurred in a lab two years ago, sent those messages directly to distant muscles via a cuff wrapped around the forearm.
Receiving those impulses through the cuff, the muscles in Burkhart's hand and wrist — which at that time had been immobilized for three years after his spinal cord was damaged — briefly went back to work.
"That was just like the flicker of hope. This is something that is working," said Burkhart in a news conference this week. "I will be able to use my hand again. … With enough people working on this and enough attention, this may be something I can use outside, and it could really improve my quality of life."
Study co-author Chad Bouton, an engineer at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, N.Y., said, "We literally are connecting the brain to the body."
In the current effort, Bouton said, "We are seeing the potential for spinal cord injury. But we now realize if we can reroute signals around a spinal cord injury, then why couldn’t we in the future reroute signals around an area of the brain that’s been injured by stroke or brain trauma?"
At the same time, Bouton and his colleagues acknowledged there is much work to be done — at least a decade's work — before small-scale efforts like these will yield devices capable of helping some brain- and spinal cord-injured patients outside the lab.
"This research opens many options, which is wonderful for patients," said Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, who has pioneered the use of brain-machine interfaces for those with brain and spinal cord injury. "Different people have different injuries, which will require many different approaches."

Nicolelis called the latest report "another variation" on efforts to restore function by transmitting the brain's commands past a broken connection. But he underscored that implementing such measures on a large scale will require many improvements over the relatively crude devices used in the study. 
To produce a wide range of movements outside of a lab, he said, the devices that record brain activity will have to be capable of listening to vastly more neurons, to be more sensitive and to remain functional in the brain for much longer than they do now. (Because they are a foreign body surgically implanted, microarrays such as the one used on Burkhart eventually kill off surrounding brain cells and stop working.)
And ultimately, researchers will need to show that these devices do more than issue commands, Nicolelis said. Researchers will need to show that by restoring disrupted connections and reanimating idle muscles, their interventions are promoting the actual regeneration of lost feeling in patients.

"They didn’t say anything about what happened when they turned the system off," said Nicolelis, who in his lab is seeing evidence of renewed sensory perception on the part of injured subjects. "Did the patient improve? Most studies show that sensory perception and motor recovery go together. The clinical evaluation was a little superficial."
With a cervical spinal cord injury between his fifth and sixth vertebrae, Burkhart is young, injured relatively recently and has some residual ability to move his shoulders and upper arms. In addition to having an array of recording electrodes surgically implanted in his brain, Burkhart attended three sessions weekly for 15 months to learn to use the "neural bypass system."
In those early sessions, a 96-channel array of electrodes sunk into Burkhart's motor cortex recorded the firing of roughly 50 brain cells — and eventually several hundred, researchers said — as he imagined moving his hand, wrist and fingers in various ways. Researchers used that information — a gigabyte's worth of data every three minutes — to generate specific electrical commands to be issued later through the skin by Burkhart's cuff.
Translating brain signals into commands required the extensive use of computer software that detects and distills regular patterns in data. The particular sequence of signals each human uses to command certain movements is also highly individual. So generating a list of commands unique to a given subject is a painstaking task that takes hours of repetition and a vast amount of computing.
"Initially, we would do a short session, and I was completely mentally fatigued and exhausted, along the lines of taking a six- to seven-hour exam," said Burkhart, who was 19 when he dove into a wave and was pushed head-first into a sandbar during a post-college vacation with friends.
"They’re asking me to think about how to move my finger or hand, when it’s something you don’t even think about," Burkhart said. "The first 19 years of my life, it's something I definitely took for granted: My hand just does what I tell it to. So you have to break down each part of that motion, and think about it in a more concentrated way," he added.

With time and practice, he said, it became easier.
Bouton and his co-authors — neurosurgeon Ali Rezai of Ohio State University's Neurological Institute and engineer Nick Annetta of the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio — set out to build a system to bypass Burkhart's injured spinal cord that would minimize the use of assistive devices and directly recruit muscles idled by the disrupted chain of command.
"The control has been taken away" from patients with spinal cord injury, Rezai said. "So it’s significant psychologically to see your own limb functioning again. We want the patients to use their own body parts and limbs that have become dysfunctional."
Burkhart echoed that sentiment.
"You’re not going to be looked on as, 'Oh, I’m a cyborg now because I have this big huge prosthetic on the side of my arm. It’s something a lot more natural and intuitive to learn because I can see my own hand reacting."

Source : Latimes, 13th April 2016 

Read More and to watch video at -
 : http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-spinal-cord-hand-movement-20160413-story.html


Over 1 lakh PwDs given skill training during the last year - Delhi


Other than providing aids and assistive devices to persons with disability, the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) has also provided skill training to over one lakh PwDs in the past one year according to Secretary DEPwD, Dr Vinod Aggarwal.


Quodsi everti ancillae vim qui lorem persius petentium
                                         Over 1 lakh PwDs given skill training during the last year


Aggarwal was speaking at a mega distribution camp organised by Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation Limited (ALIMCO), working under DEPwD, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in Bareilly on April-12, as per an official release.
During the event presided over by Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Thaawarchand Gehlot in the presence of Minister of State of Textiles, Santosh Kumar Ganwar, as many as 1578 beneficiaries were provided with state-of-the-art high-end technical devices.
Speaking on the occasion, Gehlot said that the central government has brought transparency to the Assistance to Disabled Persons Scheme (ADIP Scheme) which provides assistance to disabled persons for purchasing / fitting of aids / appliances which are essential for their social, economic and vocational rehabilitation at minimum costs.  Its aim is to promote physical, social and psychological rehabilitation of PwDs, by reducing the effects of disabilities and enhancing their economic potential.
The Union Minister also informed that 315 children with hearing impairment have been successfully provided with Cochlear Implants. He also added that the Government has launched the Accessible India Campaign/Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan as a step towards achieving universal accessibility.  As many as 50 cities and 705 railway stations in India are being covered under the Campaign.
The camp will go a long way to help PwDs overcome the odds they currently face in their daily lives.  According to the release, 1578 beneficiaries were provided with free-of-cost equipment worth Rs 1.31 Crore.
The beneficiaries were identified under a screening exercise carried out by ALIMCO’s Baliya Unit with help from District Administration, Bareilly. The distributed high end devices included - motorised tricycles, folding wheel chairs, CP Chairs, crutches, walking sticks, braille cane, behind the ear hearing aids, etc. 



Source: Education News Agency , 13th April 2016 

Scholarship at Sitaram Jindal Foundation

Scholarship at Sitaram Jindal Foundation
- Last Date : NA - 
Sitaram Jindal Foundation logo


The announcement is about Sitaram Jindal Foundation Scholarship. Any student who is studying in Post Metric and Post Graduate level with an excellent academic record can avail the scholarship.

For details, log on to: www.srjf.org.

Eligibility criteria and some important details are given below .




Criteria for availing Scholarship
CATEGORY -'A' : BPL Students 


a) Girl students belonging to BPL families studying in class IX to XII in a Govt. and Govt. Aided Schools. 

b) Boy and Girl Students belonging to BPL families studying in Graduation and Post Graduation Courses as mentioned below in Category 'C'. 

CATEGORY -'B' : ITI Students 

Students studying in Govt. and Private ITIs in courses/ trades as per Annexure-III Courses of duration, one year or two year shall only be eligible. Further, students staying in hostel shall be paid extra in addition to scholarship. 

CATEGORY -'C' : General Students 

1. Students who have secured 55% or above in the case of girls and 70% or above in the case of boys in their last/ qualifying examination including X & XII. 

2. Students whose entire family income from all sources is less than Rs.2.00 lacs p.a. shall be eligible. 

3. Scholarship shall be discontinued after the student crosses the age of 30. 

4. Only those who study in reputed colleges on regular basis, affiliated to university of repute – UGC are eligible. 

Those who study through correspondence or in Part time colleges are not eligible. 

Following courses shall be eligible for scholarship : 
1. Students of Graduate Courses like : B.A., B.Com, B.Sc., BFA, Homeopathy, B.Pharma, BCA, BBA, BBM, Bachelor of Business Economics/Finance, B.Sc. (Agriculture), BVSC and course in Naturopathy like : BNYS. Engineering courses like : Computer Science/ Engineering (IT) / (Bio-Technology), Nuclear Engineering, Industrial Environment Engineering, Plastic Technology & Petro Chemical Engineering. 

2. Students of Post Graduation Courses like : M.A., M.Phil, M.Com, M.Pharma, M.Lib (Science), MBA, Master of Business Economics/Finance/ Human Resources Management/ International Business/ M.Sc. / MVSc, M.Sc. (Agriculture), MCA, Organic Agriculture, Solar Energy, Rural/Urban Management. 

3. Students of Graduation and Post Graduation including diploma courses in the field of Environment like : Environment Scientist, Environment Engineer and Environment Journalist. Students of Graduation and Post Graduation Courses in Hospitality, Architecture, Physiotherapy, Micro Biology, Forensic Sciences and Social Work. It is further to clarify that no Ph.D. courses are eligible for scholarship. 

Applications for medical including dentistry and engineering courses -degree or diploma other than mentioned above will not be entertained at all. 

Physically Challenged or Handicapped Students :
Scholarship eligible for pre-university, graduation and post graduation courses. 
 Widows and unmarried wards of ex-servicemen: 
Scholarship eligible for graduation and post graduation courses. 
 Meritorious Students : 
Students who have secured 80% or above marks in their qualifying examination shall be paid additional amount for graduation and post graduation courses. Students staying in hostel owned by the institution and pursuing graduation and post graduation courses shall be paid extra in addition to the scholarship amount 

I. Application forms and documents to be attached 

1. Application(Click on the link to download application) form is now applicable to all cases of Scholarship. The form is available on the website of the Foundation, www.srjf.org and can be freely downloaded from there. 

Application forms may also be called for from the Foundation office. Photocopies of the prescribed form are also permitted. Typed copies and Hand-written applications shall be allowed, provided they follow the prescribed format. 

2. The candidate should have his photograph affixed on the application form. He should fill the application form carefully and in detail. He should give His full name at all places. The form shall also be signed by his father/Guardian. 

3. The applicant shall have the application form signed by the Principal/Head By way of verification and attestation of the photograph and all the Information contained therein. The Principal/head of institution shall sign In full and affix his seal. 

4. The application should be accompanied by the following documents:- 

For BPL Students 
(School Girls & College Boys & Girls) Photocopy of BPL Card attested by the Principal and copy of Marks Card of previous Examination 

For ITI students In case student stays in hostel, submit payment receipts alongwith original hostel Certificate/ letter from Warden duly attested by the Head of the Institution where studying. 


For College Students 
(both graduate and post graduate)
Photocopy of income certificate issued by competent authority duly attested by the Principal/Head as per ANNEXURE-IV.Download Income Certificate 
Photocopy of the marks sheet of class X, XII and last qualifying examination passed, duly attested by the Principal/ Head of the Institute. 
In case student stays in hostel, submit payment receipts alongwith original hostel certificate/letter from Warden duly attested by the Head of the Institution where studying. 

Additional documents to be attached in case of : 

(a)BPL Student : Photocopy of BPL Card duly attested by the Principal/ Head of the Institution. 
(b)Physically Handicapped Students : Photocopy of the disability certificate issued by the competent authority duly attested by the Principal/ Head of the Institute. 
(c)Widows and wards of Ex-Servicemen : Attested copy of ex-serviceman/ widow identity card issued by Rajya Sabha/Zila Sanik Board and attested copy of relationship/dependency certificate from OIC records. 

For release of subsequent scholarship installments, the following documents should be submitted; 

1. Money receipt (if possible) in respect of the previous installment duly signed by the student and countersigned by the Principal/Head of the Institution, along with seal. 
2. Progress report of the student, including result of the last examination taken by the student, to be signed by the Principle/Head, along with seal. 
3. report by the Principal/Head of the Institution with seal, that the student is continuing with his/her studies. 

II. Disbursement of Scholarships 

1. All scholarships will be given in instalments covering a period of six months at a time, irrespective of the amount involved. For courses of just 9 months duration, the scholarship shall be given in a single consolidated instalment. 
2. In case the candidate has appeared in an examination during that period and the result has been announced, the result of examination shall be conveyed by the Principal in his progress report. 
3. In case the result has not been announced, the instalment shall not be released till such announcement. If the student fails in an examination or is unable to appear in it, the payment of further scholarship shall be suspended till he passes the examination. 
4. The scholarship amount shall be disbursed through electronic transfer to the bank account of the student if possible, otherwise through crossed A/c.Payee cheque or DD in favour of the student. The cheque/DD shall be sent directly to the student. 
5. In case of electronic transfer, intimation shall be sent by post to the students. An intimation about sending of the amount to the student shall also be sent to the Principal/Head of the Institution through e-mail or by a letter. 
6. The scholarship shall not be denied merely because the student has availed himself of a bank loan for his/her studies. 
7. If a student leaves the educational institution, it shall be his/her duty and the duty of the Principal/Head of the Institution to give intimation to SJF. 
8. In the case of ITI students, if they are allowed by the institute to leave the course in the middle and rejoin it after some interval, the due amount of scholarship shall be given at the time of resumption of the course, but not for the intermediate period of absence. 

Source: E-PAO , 17th April 2016 

Sand lorry owners scrapping vehicles to make ends meet - MYSORE ( Karnataka )



           Over 500 sand lorries in Mysuru have been scrapped in the last few months




Rizwan, 44, used to earn a decent livelihood from his sand lorry. But ever since a ban was imposed on extraction of sand from river beds, he has lost his only source of income. When his debts began mounting, Rizwan sold the lorry, which he had bought for Rs 3.5 lakh in 2009, for just Rs. 1.2 lakh to a scrap merchant.

“Not only was I finding it difficult to feed my family, I was not able to pay the school fees of my two daughters. I had no option but to scrap the vehicle,” said Rizwan, who is physically challenged.

Rizwan is not alone in this. More than 500 out of the estimated 1,400 sand lorries in Mysuru have been scrapped and dismantled in junkyards during the last few months, said Azghar Ahmed Y.K., secretary of the Mysuru District Rural Lorry Owners’ Association.


Unable to feed their families, many of the remaining lorry owners are also on the verge of scrapping their vehicles. The sand lorries, whose capacity had been fixed at 5.5 cubic metres under the State Sand Policy of 2011, are of no use to the crushers and M-sand (manufactured sand) producers, who have their own fleet of tippers to supply the material.


“A sand lorry is as good as junk if there no sand to supply. The other construction material suppliers do not engage sand lorries to transport size stones, crushed stones, bricks and M-Sand,” said Mr. Ahmed. Also, tippers do not require labourers for unloading, unlike sand lorries.


While most sand lorry owners have not been able to pay their quarterly transport tax — amounting to Rs. 3,000 — to the RTO, some do not even have the money to pay parking fee to owners of the sheds where their vehicles have been standing for months now.

Now, many lorry owners and drivers are doing odd jobs for a living even as the lorries rust away under the hot summer sun. “If a constant vigil is not mounted, vagabonds steal parts of the parked lorries, including tyres and engines, and sell them,” said Chand Pasha, who has parked his lorry at Sathgalli, near the ring road.




Such vehicles are of no use to crushers and M-sand producers, who have their tippers.





Source : The Hindu , 14th April 2016 

Device Helps Physically Challenged Block Print - Banagluru

Summary: That’s how the idea for the Assistive Block Printing Device for the physically challenged, which can be used in the traditional art, was born. We want to ensure that they have job satisfaction.” This device also helps greatly in training newbies in block printing. Wood block printing on textiles is the process of printing patterns by means of incised wood blocks. “As part of our work with the local artisans around the country, we came across challenges faced by block printing artisans at the HHH, mostly leprosy patients and burn victims. It makes the whole process less labour intensive, thereby attracting more people to take up block printing as a sustainable employment option.
With a background in textile designing and working with tribal artisans of Northeast India for over a decade, Smitha Murthy founded The ANTS (Action Northeast Trust) Craft in Indiranagar. Murthy along with CEO of The Ants Craft, Sridhar Srigiriraju, works on development issues and showcasing the handlooms and crafts, mainly of the Northeast. Though their focus has primarily been on making these artisans self-sufficient, providing designs and helping them market their products, their experience with block printing artisans at the Hubli Hospital for Handicapped (HHH), made them take on a bigger task. “As part of our work with the local artisans around the country, we came across challenges faced by block printing artisans at the HHH, mostly leprosy patients and burn victims. We realised that their lack of precision and poor grip due to deformity of hands and weight of or pressure on the block was affecting their productivity. 

Deliveries were becoming a problem and we couldn’t really put any pressure on them to meet the demand,” says Murthy. That’s how the idea for the Assistive Block Printing Device for the physically challenged, which can be used in the traditional art, was born. They were are working with the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva), which aims to create affordable assistive devices and sustainable livelihoods for the physically challenged in rural areas. While Murthy along with Srigururaju presented their idea at the ICRC’s ‘Enable Makethon’ campaign, techie Prabhu Govindarajan, student/entrepreneur Abhinav Dey and CEO Nitin Bawsay came on board with their individual skillsets to turn this idea into reality.




Source: NYOOOZ ,13th April 2016  

Saturday 16 April 2016

Can a rape survivor with special needs be tried as a child ? : DELHI


Nirmala says her daughter’s case proves how insensitive and ill-equipped India’s legal system is in enforcing the rights of those with special needs in the country.

For 69-year-old Nirmala (name changed), having a special child was never a hardship until two years ago. Tragedy struck her household in July 2014. Her daughter, then 36, was raped by their security guard. Nirmala rues the fact that she could not reach home in time after her help left the house.
“There was a time-gap of 40 minutes between her leaving and my reaching home. The accused had not left. I felt something strange in my daughter’s behaviour as I stepped into the house. There was an eerie silence and she refused to eat dinner. At night she kept screaming,” says the mother, an expert in mother and child health.
Her daughter, a cerebral palsy patient, could not speak out that night. The disease has rendered the woman’s cognitive ability and communication skills to a six-year-old child’s. The ability plummeted to that of a three-year-old after the incident.
Nirmala says her daughter opened up when they were on a road trip to Dehradun the next day. “She kept crying in the bus and talked about some bad man. I kept asking her what he did and that’s when she told me through actions,” she claims. On reaching Dehradun, she took her for a medical test and got an FIR registered, which was later transferred to Delhi.
Nirmala then realised how “unfriendly” and “insensitive” the legal system in India is towards mentally-challenged people. Her experience began at the hospital itself.
“The staff was untrained to handle the victim,” she says. The Delhi Police reportedly refused to detain the culprit until the case was formally transferred.
There was no provision for a psychologist during the trial. She took one to the court on receiving a notice summoning her daughter to record her statement. “My daughter was fluent with three languages but lost confidence post the incident. Her statement was recorded through an audio-visual and the psychologist translated her narrative to the judge, who refused to record it. He insisted my child speak and asked her to sing a song. My daughter broke down that led to an adjournment,” she recalls, adding the judge warned that he would give bail to the accused on the next hearing.
Thereafter, Nirmala refused to take her daughter back to the court. The mother went to the court and informed the judge, this time a woman, that her daughter was recuperating after a surgery and had 22 stitches in her mouth. Despite showing surgery documents, the judge asked for a medical certificate.
Nirmala has moved the Supreme Court requesting her daughter’s case be tried under the special law meant for the welfare of a sexual abuse child victim. The petition is listed for a hearing on May 3 before Justice Dipak Misra’s bench.



Source : Hindustan Times,16th April 2016 

Nagaland government launches 'RAISE' for children with special needs

The Secretary to Government of Nagaland for Social Welfare Department, Dellirose M. Sakhrie launched the Regional Action on Inclusive Education (RAISE) Northeast on Tuesday.

Nagaland government launches 'RAISE'
Nagaland government launches 'RAISE'

The Secretary to Government of Nagaland for Social Welfare Department, Dellirose M. Sakhrie launched the Regional Action on Inclusive Education (RAISE) Northeast on Tuesday, so as to provide holistic support to children with special needs.
According to newspaper reports, Christoffel Blinden Mission (CBM), Light for the World and Liliane Fonds are the three international agencies supporting the project. 15 NGOs will be implementing the project in five states of the region.This project has been started to complement the programme of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan on inclusive education to improve the quality of education for children with disabilities in government and government-supported schools in selected districts of Assam, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura.
M. Sakhrie also asked people not to discriminate those with special needs. While observing that Nagaland has about 29,000 people with special needs, she also said that social stigma about disabled people should be taken away.
''It is not only the responsibility of the government but the society should also take the initiative towards empowering the people or children with special needs by providing education and help them live as responsible citizens'', she said.
The launch was done at Hotel Japfu.  RAISE North East director, Bibhu Dutta Sahu and SSA representative gave speeches regarding the same, while parents of children with special needs also gave testimony. Earlier, invocation prayer was pronounced by TPM Kohima, Pastor Felix and welcome speech was delivered by CBS principal D Adani. Zeneilenuo Solo offered the vote of thanks.


Source: India Today , 14th April 2016

INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

According to UNESCO, inclusive education is seen as “a process of addressing and responding to the diversity of needs of all learners through increasing participation in learning, cultures and communities, and reducing exclusion from education and from within education.” The goal is that the whole education system will facilitate learning environments where teachers and learners embrace and welcome the challenge and benefits of diversity. Within an inclusive education approach, learning environments are fostered where individual needs are met and every student has an opportunity to succeed. Inclusive education is a real implementation of the basic human right to education. It is not only about attaining universal access to education, but universal access to meaningful and purposeful knowledge and learning for all. Although the context in every country and region is unique, we all share common concerns in education regarding justice, equity and peace. Students need to acquire the competencies and appropriate qualifications for life in an ever-changing and increasingly plural and interdependent political and economic landscape of the 21st century.

Inclusive education brings all students together in one classroom and community, regardless of their strengths or weaknesses in any area, and seeks to maximize the potential of all students. Inclusion is an effort to make sure that diverse learners – those with disabilities, different languages and cultures, different homes and family lives, different interests and ways of learning – are exposed to teaching strategies on a more personalized platform as teachers in inclusive classrooms vary their styles to enhance learning for all students.
Historically special classes were created for students with special needs. Special educators felt that if they could just teach these students separately, in smaller groups, they could help them to catch up. However, the reality is that students in segregated special education classes have fallen further and further behind. Research shows that most students learn and perform better when exposed to the richness of the general education curriculum, as long as the appropriate strategies and accommodations are in place. At no time does inclusion require the classroom curriculum, or the academic expectations, to be watered down. On the contrary, inclusion enhances learning for students, both with and without special needs. Students learn, and use their learning differently; the goal is to provide all students with the instruction they need to succeed as learners and achieve high standards, alongside their friends and peers. Schools of the future need to ensure that each student receives the individual attention, accommodations, and supports that will result in meaningful learning.
A question frequently asked by skeptics is ‘will the learning of students without special needs suffer because of inclusion?’ Studies have shown no slowdown in the learning of children without special needs in inclusive classrooms in fact research suggests that students without special needs can gain a number of important benefits from relationships with their classmates who have special needs which include friendships, social skills, personal principles and values and caring classroom environments.57
Inclusive Classroom Practices
Inclusion requires some changes in how teachers teach, as well as changes in how students with and without special needs interact with and relate to one another. Inclusive education practices frequently rely on active learning, authentic assessment practices, applied curriculum, multi-level instructional approaches, and increased attention to diverse student needs and personalization.
The general principles that govern specific inclusive classroom practices focus on several aspects which include:

Remediation is an important component of inclusive education as it makes provision for intervention or support to help all students attain their achievement goals.
A remediation plan helps teachers to organize the specific remedial work after they have identified the specific problem areas and have linked them to steps that can produce attainable results
.The remedial plan can be used to:
Involve Students in their own learning : a teacher-student conference is held to go over the details of the remediation plan to make certain the students understand what they are expected to achieve
Involve Parents as much as possible: the remediation plan is shared with parents so that they are equally involved and they understand the steps their children should take to improve their performance in class.
Identify common steps and resources that can be used for different levels of remedial study: Teachers identify several sets of steps and resources for at least two different levels of student need in the identified academic area.
Once the teacher identifies students in need of intervention, she can choose their level and the appropriate remediation plan. While the teacher will probably want to customize the plan per student, she will at least have a defined set of steps with which to begin. After the end of a semester the teacher/ special educator can then evaluate each plan’s success rate and determine what can be revised to improve each set of actions or resources.
A writer, thinker, published author and an educationist, Dr. Farooq Ahmad Wasil, is CEO of Goldline Education, Dubai, UAE. He has over 3 decades of experience in the field of education – setting up, operating and managing schools. You can contact him at farooq.wasil@gmail.com.



Source: Daily Kashmir Images,14th April 2016