Inspiring: Lost both arms at the age of 7, yet he drives, swims...

Vikram Agnihotri’s demand for driving licence has left Regional Transport Office (RTO) officials bewildered as the man drives car with all precision, but not with his hands.

Vikram lost his arms in an accident when he was just seven-year-old. But this didn’t stop him in fulfilling his dreams and today he can drive car easily, even on the busiest of roads.

But traffic rules are now acting as a hindrance as there is no law to provide driving license to physically disabled person.

According to Madhya Pradesh transport minister Bhupendra Singh, government will consider giving a license to Vikram after conducting a special driving test for him.














Vikram did his schooling in Germany after which he completed his graduation and post-graduation from Indore. Now he is pursuing LLB.

According to reports he cleared exams of IIM-Ahmedabad twice, but couldn’t get admission because of his physical disability.

In many countries, physically disabled persons are allowed to drive but there is no such provision in India.

In such countries, people get the car modified for this but Vikram can drive without any modifications.

Vikram can swim, can type with his legs, does shaving and operates Smartphone from his nose.

Source: Daiji World , 22nd Dec 2014

Act against those not implementing disability quota:Parliamentary panel

A parliamentary committee has recommended appropriate action against "erring authorities" who are not implementing the provisions of the Persons with Disabilities Act, which mandates three per cent reservation for the differently abled.

In its second report submitted in Parliament last week, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has noted that the Act makes it mandatory for the government to reserve "not less than three per cent of vacancies for persons with disabilities (PwDs)."

Observing that only one per cent of the vacancies have been filled by such candidates, the report said a huge backlog of vacancies exists with respect to posts meant for them.

The committee asked the Department of Disability Affairs to take up the matter with all central ministries, PSUs, state governments and universities recognised by the University Grants Commission to collect a data on the backlog of vacancies of posts reserved for PwDs.

"The committee desires that appropriate action be initiated against erring authorities for non-implementation of provisions of the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995," the report said.

It further urged the Department of Disability Affairs to take up with DoPT, a nodal ministry for implementing the reservation policy, to clear the backlog by launching special drives.

The committee also recommended "strict monitoring" of the Deendayal Disabled Rehabilitation Scheme and ensure that grants are being extended only for "deserving NGOs".

Expressing displeasure over the trend of utilisation of funds under the scheme during the past four years, the committee said that only about 50 per cent of the allocation has been spent in 2013-14.

"Despite an allocation of Rs 124.85 crore in the year 2013-14 in the scheme, expenditure has been about 50 per cent only," the report said.

Source: Zee News , 21st Dec 2014

Will new nursery admission norms affect special-need kids, asks High Court

The Delhi High Court on Monday raised the issue of whether reservations in nursery admissions for differently-abled children will be adversely affected by the recent single-bench order, which had said the Directorate of Education (DoE) cannot interfere in nursery admissions of private unaided schools.

The issue came up during a hearing in a PIL seeking implementation of the Persons with Disabilities Act to provide three per cent reservation for children with special needs (CWSNs), after the Principal Secretary (Education) Anindo Majumdar said the DoE had been directed to not issue any guidelines for admissions.

The court of Justice S Ravindra Bhat and Justice Vipin Sanghi noted that the issue of persons with disabilities had not been taken up by the court while looking into the regulatory powers of the DoE.

During the hearing, amicus curiae Ravi Gupta and senior advocate Kirti Uppal, who had appeared for the petitioner, also pointed out that the DoE had failed to submit the data on the facilities available in various private unaided schools for CWSNs.

The lawyers informed the court that every recognised school, aided or unaided, has to fill specific information regarding facilities for CWSNs. This is submitted annually to the government under the Unified District Information System (UDISE) run under the aegis of National University of Educational Planning and Administration.

The court then pulled up the DoE for not submitting the data even though it was allegedly available.

“Our anxiety was that the maximum number of children get admission this year. If schools have given data on facilities available, it was your job to submit it. Admissions are open already and data is not there,” the court said.

The DoE, however, argued that the data was “primary data” and that it was in the process of creating a system for verification on the basis of a format prepared by the Rehabilitation Council of India.

The court has allowed the DoE to submit the collated data by January 14, and has directed that the verification process can continue “in the meantime”. The court also noted that it was the “duty” of the government to ensure facilities for differently-abled children.



Source: The Indian Express, 23rd Dec 2014 

University devotes December to special needs - Jeddah

Dar Al-Hekma University organized several activities and programs during December to improve the quality of services provided in the field of special education.



The events took place in the university campus, Jeddah Institute for Speech and Hearing (JISH) and the Disabled Children Association.

This program started at the beginning of the month with a celebration of International Day of Persons with Disabilities and ended with a training session on challenging skills.

Dr. Amal Al-Yamani, chair of the Special Education Department at Dar Al-Hekma, said: “Dar Al-Hekma University is one of the leading universities in giving back to the community, which is the result of the belief that education should serve the community as a whole.

“To fulfill this need to serve, the Special Education Department started several programs, one of which is ‘Our Contribution Transcended’, a training project directed to advance and improve services in the special education field to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the professional.”

The “Our Contribution Transcended” initiative aimed to provide training programs to improve the quality of services provided in the field of special education and focused this year on learning disabilities.

Research indicates that up to 10 percent of people in the Kingdom suffer from learning disabilities.

However, individuals with learning disabilities usually have an average to above average intellectual abilities.



Source: Saudi Gazette, 22nd Dec 2014

Mass Wedding for Handicapped, Persons with Special Needs

Celebrations and activities have continued at Martyr Suad Tambal Center, in the neighborhood of Haj-Yousif, where a number of the disabled and persons with special needs tied the knot in a ceremonial atmosphere.


Sidiq Ali Al-Sheikh, the deputy governor of Khartoum state, called for including the newly-wed persons with disabilities and special needs in the umbrella of health insurance.


State Minister for Welfare and Social Security, hailed the center which organized the event and fasciculate the mass wedding for the persons with special needs, for its gracious efforts contributions to the needy. 

Dr. Amal Al-Bili revealed that an estimated 15 million Sudanese pounds will be deposited in favour of the persons with disabilities and special needs.


A wedding ceremony was held at the center for one hundred persons with disabilities and special needs under the theme of a “Chaste Nation”


The marriage for the persons with disabilities and special needs was donated by a Saudi Muslim clerk of charity, who refused to have his identity or his assistants disclosed.


Attendees in the matrimonial ceremony were the families of the grooms, graced the center’s board of trustees in addition to the members of the executive office and the unions of the persons with disabilities and special needs.


The ceremony was organized in collaboration with United Financial Bank, Challengers to Disability Union in Omdurman and Sudanese Women Union in addition to other civil society organizations.


Helping 100 individuals with disabilities and special needs tie the knot was the first biggest event of its kind to be organized by Martyr Suad Tambal Center within its social contributions and efforts to preserve purity and chastity of the Sudanese society.


Source: Sudan Vision , 22nd Dec 2014

Higher Education for Person with Special Needs (HEPSN) - Delhi

The University Grant Commission (UGC) has implemented a scheme called "Higher education for Persons with Special needs (HEPSN) which is basically meant for creating an environment at the higher education institutions to enrich higher education learning experiences for differently-abled persons. Creating awareness about the capabilities of differently-abled persons, constructions aimed at improving accessibility, purchase of equipments to enrich learning etc. are the broad categories of assistance under the scheme.


This information was given by the Union Human Resource Development Minister, Smt. Smriti Irani in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha question. 

Source: Business Standard, 22nd Dec 2014 

Differently-abled women feel no safer at public places in MP: Survey - BHOPAL

It seems moving out to secluded or less crowded area is much safer for women, especially those with disability than visiting a busy market, street and using public transport. This has been revealed in a survey conducted by crime against women cell of Madhya Pradesh police.


The survey suggested that women, especially with disability, experience sexual harassment more at public places and in public transport vehicles than the less-crowded areas. Remarks, obscene comments, abuses and touching with bad intention were faced by girls in crowded markets and roads.


The survey also suggested that about 40% harassment and telephonic harassment incidents were not being reported with police as the latter usually tried to solve the issue through their parents, brother or friends.


Additional director general of police (ADG) and in-charge of crime against women cell Aruna Mohan Rao said the survey was conducted to figure out the problems faced by the fairer sex and identify the unsafe areas of Bhopal and Indore so that the police could curb harassment cases.


"The incident of exploitation and assault with specially-challenged women and girls were also reported as most of time anti-social elements took undue advantage of their physical limitations," Rao said.


"To deal with this problem, we are going to organise a 10-day self defence training programme for visually impaired women so that they could fight against harassment," she said. Similar programmes for hearing and speech impaired and physically challenged women would also be conducted in the future, the ADG added.


Police would hold a meeting with superintendents of police (SP) of Bhopal and Indore to tighten security at public places and public transports.



In the survey, women also said they felt more comfortable to share their problems and harassment incidents with women police personnel as compared to males. Hence, more woman police personnel would be deployed at crowded area and busy markets.


"One positive thing that came out in the survey is that most of the women were aware about the women’s helpline numbers and laws," Rao added.



Source:Hindustan Times , 16th Dec 2014

Nitaqat status for women working from home - JEDDAH

The Ministry of Labor has issued three new decisions to create more job opportunities for women and the physically challenged.

Women working from home will be included in the Nitaqat system. For the platinum zone, those who work from home will be calculated as 30 percent of the total Saudi staff. For the green zone, they will be calculated as 20 percent of the total Saudi staff while for the red and yellow zones they will be considered as 10 percent of the total Saudi staff. The decision will come into force on Feb. 20 in 2015.

For nursing women, the decision tries to strike a balance between work and childcare. Women are allowed to take a rest for an hour or two everyday during work hours to nurse their children for 24 months after delivery. The rest hour(s) will be included in work hours. If the business where a woman works does not have a nursery, she can nurse her child either at the beginning or at the end of work hours.


The decision will also deal with the pressing challenges such as transportation, places of daycare for female workers' children and the creation of a work environment for women.

Meanwhile, the Shoura Council asked the Civil Service Ministry to increase the transportation allowance for female workers.


Source: Zawya, 16th Dec 2014

Now, it’s possible to get passport in a jiffy: Chandigarh

The regional passport office has eased the difficulties of people applying for passports. Now, if the applicant can prove his urgency with documentary evidence, he can walk into the regional passport office and get it within a short span of time.

Besides, the regional passport office has done away with clause of seeking mandatory appointment for senior citizens and children below 16 years.

The applicants who are in urgent need of passports and have all necessary documents to obtain passport and are not able to get online appointments may approach the regional passport office in Chandigarh with necessary documents.

If an applicant wants to get his/her passport processed under tatkal quota but is unavailable to book an appointment under the said quota, he can apply under normal quota and the passport will be processed as per tatkal quota rules. Also, applicants for Police Clearance Certificate (PCC), senior citizens above 60 years, children below 16 years and physically challenged applicants reporting with medical certificate do not have to take an appointment and can walk-in between 9 am and 11 am on all working days.

Regional passport officer Rakesh Agrawal said: “There is no scope of touts, agents in the passport office. We have made some changes for those who want passport in emergency.” Aggarwal said the appointment cycle had been reduced to three working days in the regional passport office.

Applicants belonging to all 25 districts of regional passport office can take appointment in any of the three Passport Seva Kendras in Ambala, Chandigarh and Ludhiana as per their convenience.

He added: “We are regularly holding meeting with the police to reduce the verification time.”


Source: Hindustan Times, 15th Dec 2014

Custom New app to enable visually impaired walk freely launched:Puducherry

A team comprising members of the faculty and research scholars from Pondicherry University has developed a mobile application to help visually-challenged people navigate independently the varsity campus.

The application, called 'Vilosen' (Visually impaired location sensor) can be customized for any localion after mapping and feeding details of buildings, roads and routes to reach different parts of the area, and other physical infrastructures that would be used by the visually-challenged.


The team -- led by K S Kuppusamy, an assistant professor from the Department of Computer Science, and comprising A Chidambaram, assistant professor in the Department of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, and five research scholars -- has already customized the application for the 35 visually challenged students in the Kalapet campus.


The application would help its users by furnishing details about sites, information about buildings and the routes to be followed to reach desired destinations.


"The team plans to upload the application on the university's website and visually challenged students can download the application and use it for easy navigation. It is an open source software and anyone can download and modify it as per their requirement," said Chidambaram adding that the application can be upgraded by integrating several other features like GPS and Google Maps among others.


The team is also developing an application to help the visually-challenged to identify Indian currencies and an application to guide them to choose apparels and accessories of different shades and colours.


"These two applications are under trial. We hope to develop them within the next three or six months," Chidambaram, who is also the coordinator of the higher education for persons with special needs programme of the university, said.


The application will identify Indian currencies for now but later can be upgraded to expand its range. "Presently the application takes roughly 20 seconds to identify an Indian currency. We are fine-tuning the application to identify the currencies in lesser time," he said.


Vilosen was formally launched during the observation of International Day for People with Disability at the varsity campus. The other two applications will be launched soon. The United Nations this year advocated observance of the day under the theme 'Sustainable development: The promise of technology'.


"We wanted to play our part in realizing the UN's goal and came up with the idea of developing applications and softwares to assist the differently-abled people," he said.


Source: TOI, 20th Dec 2014

Visually impaired prof with a vision for his students - Bangalore

An eye-to-eye contact is one of the most pertinent forms of communication between a teacher and student. However, for partially blind assistant professor, N Dasharath from University Law College, Bangalore University, this was never a deterrent when it came to teaching law to his students...inside and outside the classroom.

             Prof Dasharath receiving the award from the President

Dasharath, 51, has played coordinator for the college's legal literacy camps in villages such as Yeliyur in Devanahalli Taluk and Tavarakere village in Kunigal Taluk for the last 10 years. He travels with students to educate Anganwadi workers in these villages on legal services, availing pension for disabled and issues like female foeticide, domestic violence, dowry and more.

Dasharath has penned two books - Vision for Social Justice and Vision for Reasonable Accommodation at Work Place for Person with Disabilities.

He hopes to continue contributing to teaching by creating legal awareness among his students and generating academic literature that they can benefit from.

His efforts did not go unrecognised. He was recently conferred the National Award For The Empowerment Of Persons With Disabilities as 'Best Employee' in Blindness category.

The award, instituted by Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, was handed over to him by President Pranab Mukherjee.

Dasharath, who teaches students pursuing their LLM, says: "I am not able to see my students in front of me but I keep the class alive by making them talk. My lectures are replete with case studies, breaking the theoretical approach and keeping it practical. The students are also comfortable that way and so far they have been very supportive with this approach."

Hailing from a lower middleclass Raichur family, Dasharath was born with Retinitis Pigmentosa, an inherited and progressively degenerative eye disease. Dasharath had enrolled in RV College of Engineering but dropped out because his deteriorating vision restricted him. "So, I dropped out of college in my first year when I was 21," he said.

He decided to settle for his second passion - law. He completed his PhD at Indian Law Institute in 2010.

"I can only see four metres ahead of me, beyond which everything is a blur. It would have been difficult to practice (law). (Therefore) I focused on my strong suites - communication skills and an absolutely clear knowledge of the subject and decided that teaching is the best way I could be of service to society."



Source: Bangalore Mirror, 19th Dec 2014

European Court of Justice rules obesity can be a disability

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) [official website] ruled [judgment, PDF] Thursday that morbid obesity can be considered a disability under the Equal Treatment in Employment Directive [text] if the employee is prevented from fully participating in professional life because of his or her weight. The case arose from the Retten i Kolding [official website], a Danish court, where there was uncertainty on how to rule in the case of a fired child care provider who claimed his termination was a cause of his inability to perform because of his weight.



The Danish court then posed two questions to the ECJ: whether the EU Treaty and Charter contains an independent prohibition on weight-based discrimination, and whether obesity can be classified as a disability, and as such, fall under the Equal Treatment in Employment Directive.

With respect to the first question, the ECJ found that there was no stand-alone prohibition. In responding to the second question, the court noted that a disability implies "limitations which result from long-term physical, mental or psychological impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder the full and effective participation of the person in professional life on an equal basis with other workers." The court found that a morbidly obese person could be classified as disabled.

The court, stressing their commitment to protecting against all discrimination, stated that it is not necessary that the actual work being performed be hindered in order to see obesity as a disability. As long as an employee is being hindered from "full and effective participation on equal terms with others," then weight could very well be a disability.

The awareness of disability rights and the prevention of discrimination against the disabled has been a pertinent topic for many years. In September the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights [official website] celebrated [JURIST report] Guyana's ratification of the disability convention, boosting it to 150 signatories.

Just last month the US Supreme Court [official website] agreed to hear [JURIST report] the question of whether the Americans with Disabilities Act [official website, text] requires the accommodation of mentally ill and violent suspects in custody by law enforcement.


Source: Jurist.org, 18th Dec 2014

Access to Work: Disability scheme 'not reaching people'

Substantial numbers of disabled people are missing out on government support to help them into work, MPs have said.

The government's Access to Work programme suffers from a lack of funding and publicity, the Work and Pensions Select Committee report found.

Staff from the Department for Work and Pensions often failed to understand the needs of disabled people, MPs added.

The scheme helped 35,000 people get or keep a job this year - up by 5,000 on two years ago, a DWP spokesman said.

Access to Work assists disabled workers by paying for specialist aids, equipment, building adaptations and support workers. ‬

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"This week we announced further improvements to the service and we have also committed an additional £15m to ensure even more people can benefit," the spokesman added.

'Profoundly detrimental'

The parliamentary committee found that where Access to Work worked well, it "transformed the lives of disabled people", many of whom would be unable to work without it.

But MPs said DWP staff had displayed "unacceptable lack of disability awareness" and called for staff to be given additional training.

It was not possible to estimate how many people the scheme could help, MPs said, but they stressed there were "substantial" unmet needs.

In one case, the committee found a clampdown on pay for support workers had threatened the employability of deaf British Sign Language (BSL) users.

A "30-hour rule" - which capped the hourly rate for support workers - had a "profoundly detrimental" impact on many people, it said.

There was also a "misperception" the scheme only provided physical aids, equipment and transport for people with physical disabilities, the report stated.

"Consequently relatively few people with other types of disability and different support needs currently use the programme."

Dame Anne Begg, Labour MP and chairman of the committee, said the scheme should be about "removing barriers for the full range of disabled people who can benefit from the programme".

Only "relatively few" required high costs, she said.

"Access to Work's modest budget risks an approach which seeks to boost the numbers helped by Access to Work by bearing down on the awards of people whose support needs happen to be high cost, including those who use BSL," she added.

The DWP spokesman said 250,000 more disabled people were in work this year compared with last.

"Access to Work and our Disability Confident Campaign are key parts of this, ensuring that disabled people have the same choice of jobs as everyone else," the spokesman added.

Earlier this month, Minister for Disabled People Mark Harper urged every British business to take on someone with a disability for a work placement in 2015.‬‬


Source: BBC News-UK, 19th Dec 2014

Curbs on privilege darshan at Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam on January 1-Tirupati

No privilege darshans will be allowed in the TTD on January 1 on the occasion of Vaikunta Ekadasi coinciding with the New Year. Even physically challenged, aged, NRIs and people from defence services will not be allowed special darshan. No reference letters will be entertained, said TTD executive officer Dr D. Sambasiva Rao on Friday.

After a five-hour long review meet on security arrangement for the mega fete at Annamaiah Bhavan in Tirumala on Friday, he said VIP darshan timing will be from 1.45 am to 5am.

The Sarva darshan will commence by 5 am and there will be no advanced booking of accommodation. Divya darshan tokens will not be issued from early hours of December 30 to early hours of January 3.

A quota of 10,000 tickets of Rs 300 advanced booking through Internet for Vaikuntha Dwadasi darshan will be released on December 24 at 9 am.

Mr Rao said, buffer stock of laddus will be arranged to meet increased demand. The services of srivari sevakulu and the students of the TTD educational institutions will also be utilised. 

Food, drinking water, coffee and milk will be supplied in compartments and queues, said Mr Rao. 

Source: Deccan Chronicle, 20th Dec 2014

Those flouting reserve seat rule to face tough action: Kathmandu

Though it has been made mandatory that public vehicles must allocate seats for women, senior citizens and persons with disabilities, people seem to be not giving two hoots about the rule and vehicle operators are only paying perfunctory attention, as a result of which these special seats are occupied by others.


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On the first day of monitoring‚ youths and others were found occupying seats reserved for women‚ senior citizens and people with disabilities 

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In the wake of reports that women, senior citizens and persons with disabilities were failing to have comfortable journey on public vehicles, traffic police in the Kathmandu Valley have launched tough action against those passengers who are caught occupying these reserved seats.


SP Basant Pant, Spokesperson for the Metropolitan Traffic Police Division, said any person found occupying thees reserved seats would be made to disembark the vehicle immediately. They also need to attend an hourlong lecture on why women, senior citizens and persons with disabilities need care and support.


On the first day of the drive, traffic police took action against 345 male passengers for occupying reserved seats.


“We have deployed three monitoring and inspection teams led by DSPs in Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur. The teams will force those passengers who are found occupying reserved seats to get off the vehicles and immediately take them to traffic police office to listen to lectures,” said SP Pant. “The concerned vehicle drivers will also be punished with Rs 200 fine.”


SP Pant said traffic police had to resort to this measure after the law enforcement agency’s repeated efforts to convince passengers, drivers and transport entrepreneurs to follow the rules went in vain.


According to the MTPD, it is exercising the power conferred on it by the Motor Vehicle and Transport Management Act, 1999.


As per the Act‚ a public bus must allocate six seats for women, elderly persons and people with disabilities. A mini bus must allocate four seats and a microbus should allocate three seats, as per the Act.


Similarly, the Act requires transport entrepreneurs to write or paste stickers saying ‘reserved seats for women, elderly persons and disabled’ above these seats and the signs must be visible from the door.


Traffic police launched the campaign in the wake of growing complaints of abuse against women and physically challenged people in crowded public vehicles.


During the monitoring, many women and elderly passengers were found struggling to stand properly while the seats reserved for them were occupied by youths and others.


On-duty traffic cops are also encouraging women, senior citizens and persons with disabilities to not hesitate to stake claim to their right. Traffic police have also urged them to call 103 (Traffic Police Control Room) and lodge complaints if they are denied their right.


Officials say the existing fine of Rs 200 is not enough to make bus operators follow the rules. The law enforcement agency has been asking the Department of Transport Management to empower it to slap a fine up to Rs 1,000 on transporters flouting the rules in the Valley where around 500,000 people commute in around 4,000 public vehicles on a daily basis.


While fine could be a good deterrent, it’s about the mindset of the people that needs to be changed. People must be encouraged to respect women, elderly and people with disabilities.


Source: The Himalayan Times, 19th Dec 2014

Facilities certified ‘friendly’ for people with mobility issues - Taiwan

In an effort to encourage the construction of buildings and living spaces that are accessible for elderly and disabled people, the Ministry of the Interior certified 149 facilities around the nation as “friendly environments” for those with limited mobility.

The housing complexes, hotels, hospitals and leisure facilities were awarded the certificates by the Architecture and Building Research Institute.

Minister of the Interior Chen Wei-zen  presented the awards at a ceremony.

Among the winners were the Fumao Yuhsiu apartments and Howard Hotel in Greater Kaohsiung; Taijiang National Park in Greater Tainan; Kuang Tien General Hospital in Greater Taichung; the Sheraton Hsinchu Hotel; and Wanfang Hospital in Taipei.

They and all other access-friendly facilities have been put on the digital map thanks to a mobile app launched by the ministry to promote certified infrastructure.

Chen said that the nation’s aging population means it will become an “aged” society as soon as 2016, with “aged” being defined as the number of people aged 65 and older accounting for 14 percent of the population.

In the future, Taiwan will have to adapt to the needs of about 4 million people with special needs, including senior citizens, physically and mentally challenged people, infants and expected mothers, the minister said at the ceremony.

Chen called for more architecture and public facilities, including housing, playgrounds and restaurants, to be made accessible for people with limited mobility and other disabilities.

According to ministry statistics, the nation’s population of people aged 65 and over was 2.78 million as of October, accounting for 11.9 percent of the nation’s total population of just over 23 million.

The number of physically and mentally challenged people was 1.13 million in the second quarter of the year, about 4.8 percent of the population, the statistics showed.



Source: Taipei Times, 20th Dec 2014

When playing mattered over winning or losing - Coimbatore

For J. Bhavani, the very act of touching and holding the volleyball was special. “I would feel happy whenever I held the ball,” said the visually challenged girl, who along with other differently abled students, played adapted volleyball at the sports meet Avinashilingam University had organised on Saturday as part of the International Day of Differently Abled.

The sound of ball bouncing would bring me relief, she said. She and her team member were on one side of the net and her opponents were on the other side.

They had to roll the ball beneath the lowered net. If their opponents failed to grab the rolling ball, they got a point. And, when Bhavani and her friends failed, the opponents scored a point.

For Bhavani’s classmate A. Aaiyesh Banu, an eighth grader, playing ball relaxed her mind. And, for G.Amirthalakshmi, it brought a change from the mundane.

The girls along with A. Arul Mary of TLC Middle School fought hard in the volleyball event.

The University had organised sack race, lemon and spoon race, potato picking, kabaddi, chess, carrom and a few other events, said Premavathy Vijayan, Head of Department, Special Education.

The girls had earlier taken part in the district-level sports for the differently abled and won their way to Madurai to participate in the State-level event.

And, they won, said the students.

The differently abled students got a helping hand from the students of Physical Education Department, who taught them the rules and guided them in the competitions.

A. Praveena, a second year physical education student, said that it was a good learning experience interacting with the differently abled students, for they were surprised by their level of understanding. The students showed enthusiasm that was contagious as well.

Ms. Vijayan said conducting such sports events had a therapeutic effect on the students.

Her physical education counterpart. T. Shanmugavalli said that such events also brought the talents in differently abled students, which, when identified and groomed, helped them compete at national and international events.



Source : The Hindu , 7th Dec 2014

Children with special needs: Everyone can live a better life with proper care: experts : LAHORE:

Every person with special needs can live a better and meaningful life if proper diagnosis and treatment is provided, experts speaking at the inauguration of Centre for Advanced Medicine (CANMED) clinic said on Saturday.

Doctors, paramedics, parents of children with developmental disorders and staff from schools for special-needs children attended the event.

The clinic offers comprehensive evaluation and treatment of persons with developmental disorders, intellectual disabilities, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), opposite defiant disorder (ODD), learning disorder, language disorder and cerebral palsy.

The clinic, which will become operational on Monday, will also treat metabolic genetic syndromes and sleep and memory disorders.

Dr Sohail Khattak, the CANMED Clinic CEO, said that patients needed individual care and treatment. “Medicines for patients with the same disability can vary given the difference in there disability level. We are opening a specialised clinic in collaboration with two Canadian healthcare providers. A team of experts in Canada will be monitoring the cases through video link,” he said.

He said that the clinic would provide psychiatric and biological assessment of special-needs people.

Ashba Kamran, who runs a chain of schools for such children, said that the opening of the clinic was a good development. “It is high time parents realised that they need to invest in their children. My child was dyslexic and had a learning disability.

He is now leading a normal life because we invested time and money in his treatment,” she said.

She said that such children should not be called disabled. “They need attention. Right now, there is no clinic in the country where biological diagnoses are made. The clinic is good news for parents with special-needs children,” she said.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Khattak said that every disorder was unique. “Disorders are seldom diagnosed rightly here,” he said. He also said that cases of deafness were increasing due to cousin marriages. “It is time, we paid more attention to the next generation,” he said.


Source : The Express Tribune, December 7^th, 2014

NPSC issues guidelines to its members

The National Progressive Schools' Conference has issued a set of guidelines to all its member schools following the High Court's judgement, upholding autonomy of private schools and granting them freedom to devise their own admission guidelines.

The NPSC, an association of senior secondary schools and 150 leading private schools, in its General Body meeting held on December 3 decided that the guidelines should be transparent, student friendly and cater to all segments of society.

"The policy designed should be clear and such that it is easy to implement and without any confusion," said NPSC Chairperson Ameeta Mulla Wattal.

"NPSC schools are already following the Right To Education Act and have provided quality education to children admitted under 25 per cent seats for EWS. Children from all social and economic backgrounds shall be equally considered for admission. No parent or child would be interviewed," she said.

The NPSC guidelines include neighbourhood concept where in each school can decide the points keeping in mind their own specific requirements and catchment areas, sibling, alumni concepts.

Under the Staff ward category, everyone agreed that status quo should be maintained at 5 per cent.

All schools can have discretion upto 20 per cent seats under the Management quota and all the schools must be disable-friendly and bring in children with special needs as a social responsibility.

Other categories like single parent, girl child, first born child, minority could be made optional depending upon school's specific requirement. All the parameters are only for general seats.

It may be noted that as per the directions of RTE, 25 per cent of the seats have to be reserved for the EWS category.

Further, the member schools were asked to charge Rs 25 for registration (no other charges) which will include the brochure.

The distribution and collection of forms will take place from December 20, 2014 to January 20, 2015 and the draw of lots for EWS will be held between January 25 and February 5, 2015.

The schools should give dates for display of first list or any subsequent list on website or notice board and the entire admission process should finish March 31, 2015, according to the guidelines.



Source : Business Standard Via PTI , 6th Dec 2014

Taking Inspiration - Hyderabad

A poet, a dreamer, a philosopher and a writer – that’s how she likes to describe herself. An alumna of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta; Disha Chhabra is the author of two books, ‘My Beloved’s MBA Plans’ and ‘Because Life is a Gift’.   Disha loves life for all it brings. She is passionate about doing her bit for the society through her group Pick-a-Fight.She shares her top five books

‘The monk who sold his Ferrari’, Robin Sharma

Inspirational read to balance the professional, personal, spiritual and social goals in life. The story is told through a character who embarks on a journey to confront his life’s crisis. This book defined ‘life’ for me. It made me think about my own life, its purpose and my long term goals. It made me peaceful within my own self. A book I have read and reread so many times. 

‘The Fountainhead’, Ayn Rand

A fictional story of love, revenge, ethics, values. Howard Roark is an architect who struggles to live in a world bound by traditions. Dominique Francon is a strong woman who learns to live life on her own terms. Their love hate story forces one to question your own beliefs, make your own value systems, question the wrongs. Ayn Rand’s beautiful and detailed portrayal of her characters is totally engrossing.

‘I dare’, Kiran Bedi

The saga of India’s first and the highest ranked woman IPS officer who pioneered a humane method of policing marked by willpower, devotion to duty, innovation, and compassion and, above all, a never-say-die attitude. Kiran Bedi fascinated and inspired me since my childhood. She has not just opened the doors of bureaucracy for women, or transformed Indian Jails; she has also been instrumental in India’s fight against corruption. The book talks about her character, upbringing, the challenges she faced and her strengths.

‘Lady, You’re not a man’, Apurva Purohit

A book on how women should accept, adjust and adapt for a balanced work life. It talks about the challenges working women face in India and how they can strike a balance in their personal and professional lives. The book simplifies so many aspects for working woman in a humorous way. It talks about importance of prioritising, support system in a woman’s life, Indian women’s guilt factor – all of it is very relatable and a must read for every woman.

‘The Fault in our Stars’, John Green

A love story of two terminally ill cancer patients, Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters in dire circumstances and makes one believe in the magic of true love. This book taught me that life has to be enjoyed in all circumstances and how love can transform one’s life. The book has moments where you almost put the book down and pray for the character’s health. It also describes the struggles of cancer patients across the world and how life can be made worthwhile one day at a time.


Source : The New Indian Express , 2nd Nov 2014 

Can track other news on her book from this link: 

http://dishachhabra.com/media/