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Visually Challenged
In a significant verdict, the Supreme Court on Monday held that visually impaired persons cannot be denied opportunity of employment in judicial services. A bench comprising justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan had reserved the judgement on six petitions, including a suo motu (on its own) case, on December 3, last year over non-grant of quota to such candidates in judicial services in a few states. Pronouncing the verdict, Justice Mahadevan said that persons with disabilities must not face any discrimination in their pursuit of judicial service recruitments and that the State must provide them affirmative action to ensure an inclusive framework. "Any indirect discrimination that results in the exclusion of persons with disabilities, whether through cutoff or procedural barriers must be interfered with in order to uphold substantive equality," the judge said. The judgement said no candidate can be denied consideration solely on account of their disability. The top court also set
India has the maximum number of visually challenged people in the world but 85 per cent of the cases of vision loss are preventable or treatable and there was a need to spread awareness about it, experts say. On the occasion of the World Sight Day, the experts noted that India is home to an estimated 34 million people living with blindness or moderate or severe visual impairment (MSVI). Dr Ikeda Lal, senior cornea, cataract and refractory surgery specialist, at Delhi Eye Centre and Sir Ganga Ram Hospital Delhi said, "It is important to spread awareness around preventable blindness because more than 85 per cent of the blindness is preventable if only people know how to address it". The common reasons for blindness in India are cataract, glaucoma, macular degeneration, uncorrected refractive error, diabetic retinopathy and corneal blindness. Unfortunately, people often do not know that all these conditions can be treated and blindness can be reversed, Dr Lal said. Dr Rajesh Sinha, .
The Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday told the Bombay High Court while it acknowledges the concerns of visually impaired persons regarding identification of currencies, introducing new banknotes was a monumental task that is time-consuming and also entails heavy expenditure. The RBI, in an affidavit filed in the HC, maintained the process of introducing a new series of banknotes is an extremely complicated and time-consuming process extending over a period of six to seven years. The affidavit was filed in response to a petition by the National Association of the Blind (NAB), claiming new currency notes and coins issued by the central bank posed difficulty for visually-impaired people in identifying and distinguishing them. The matter is being heard by a division bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar. The affidavit said the process adopted before introducing new series of banknotes involves multiple considerations, including incorporation of visually impaired-friendly .
Visually challenged people will now have easier access to the vast repository of resources in the parliament library which is now equipped with necessary assistive technologies, officials said. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Tuesday inaugurated special facilities that provide visually challenged people access to more than 1.7 million publications and resources in the library, they said. Birla took the initiative after he found that visually impaired people were facing difficulty in accessing the library for want of digital visual aids. After consultations with institutes and domain experts, the Lok Sabha Secretariat procured necessary hardware and software to assist such people to access library resources, officials said. Visually challenged people will be able to listen to the contents of the screen in Indian accented voices, read, translate, digitise, take audio output for any printed books, and listen to physical books, they said. Persons with partial blindness who can operate .
The World Health Organisation on Tuesday called for accelerated action to provide quality, affordable, integrated and people-cantered comprehensive eye care for everyone, addressing the increasing disproportionate burden of vision impairment and blindness in the WHO South-East Asia Region. Nearly 30 per cent of the 2.2 billion people living with vision impairment or blindness globally are in the WHO South-East Asia Region, it said. Addressing a high-level meeting of member countries on 'Integrated People-Centred Eye Care' in Hyderabad, Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, said, "This huge burden is unacceptable as nearly half the global vision impairment could have been prevented or are yet to be addressed." Young children and older people are most vulnerable, while women, rural populations and ethnic minority groups are more likely to have vision impairment and less likely to access care, she said. The increased prevalence of vision impairment and blindness in the region