You may ask, what’s so special about this 21-year-old when there are hundreds of students passing out from various IITs and joining big companies like Google?

Naresh is special. His parents are illiterate. He has no legs and moves around in his powered wheel chair. (In fact, when I could not locate his lab, he told me over the mobile phone, ‘I will come and pick you up’. And in no time, he was there to guide me)

Ever smiling, optimistic and full of spirit; that is Naresh. He says, “God has always been planning things for me. That is why I feel I am lucky.”

Read why Naresh feels he is lucky.

Childhood in a village
I spent the first seven years of my life in Teeparru, a small village in Andhra Pradesh, on the banks of the river Godavari. My father Prasad was a lorry driver and my mother Kumari, a house wife. Though they were illiterate, my parents instilled in me and my elder sister (Sirisha) the importance of studying.

Looking back, one thing that surprises me now is the way my father taught me when I was in the 1st and 2nd standards. My father would ask me questions from the text book, and I would answer them. At that time, I didn’t know he could not read or write but to make me happy, he helped me in my studies!

Another memory that doesn’t go away is the floods in the village and how I was carried on top of a buffalo by my uncle. I also remember plucking fruits from a tree that was full of thorns.

I used to be very naughty, running around and playing all the time with my friends. I used to get a lot of scolding for disturbing the elders who slept in the afternoon. The moment they started scolding, I would run away to the fields!

I also remember finishing my school work fast in class and sleeping on the teacher’s lap!

January 11, 1993, the fateful day
On the January 11, 1993 when we had the sankranti holidays, my mother took my sister and me to a nearby village for a family function. From there we were to go with our grandmother to our native place. But my grandmother did not come there. As there were no buses that day, my mother took a lift in my father’s friend’s lorry. As there were many people in the lorry, he made me sit next to him, close to the door.

It was my fault; I fiddled with the door latch and it opened wide throwing me out. As I fell, my legs got cut by the iron rods protruding from the lorry. Nothing happened to me except scratches on my legs.

The accident had happened just in front of a big private hospital but they refused to treat me saying it was an accident case. Then a police constable who was passing by took us to a government hospital.

First I underwent an operation as my small intestine got twisted. The doctors also bandaged my legs. I was there for a week. When the doctors found that gangrene had developed and it had reached up to my knees, they asked my father to take me to a district hospital. There, the doctors scolded my parents a lot for neglecting the wounds and allowing the gangrene to develop. But what could my ignorant parents do?

In no time, both my legs were amputated up to the hips.

I remember waking up and asking my mother, where are my legs? I also remember that my mother cried when I asked the question. I was in the hospital for three months.

Life without legs
I don’t think my life changed dramatically after I lost both my legs. Because all at home were doting on me, I was enjoying all the attention rather than pitying myself. I was happy that I got a lot of fruits and biscuits.

‘I never wallowed in self-pity’

The day I reached my village, my house was flooded with curious people; all of them wanted to know how a boy without legs looked. But I was not bothered; I was happy to see so many of them coming to see me, especially my friends!

All my friends saw to it that I was part of all the games they played; they carried me everywhere.

God’s hand
I believe in God. I believe in destiny. I feel he plans everything for you. If not for the accident, we would not have moved from the village to Tanuku, a town. There I joined a missionary school, and my father built a house next to the school. Till the tenth standard, I studied in that school.

If I had continued in Teeparu, I may not have studied after the 10th. I may have started working as a farmer or someone like that after my studies. I am sure God had other plans for me.

My sister, my friend
When the school was about to reopen, my parents moved from Teeparu to Tanuku, a town, and admitted both of us in a Missionary school. They decided to put my sister also in the same class though she is two years older. They thought she could take care of me if both of us were in the same class. My sister never complained.

She would be there for everything. Many of my friends used to tell me, you are so lucky to have such a loving sister. There are many who do not care for their siblings.

She carried me in the school for a few years and after a while, my friends took over the task. When I got the tricycle, my sister used to push me around in the school.

My life, I would say, was normal, as everyone treated me like a normal kid. I never wallowed in self-pity. I was a happy boy and competed with others to be on top and the others also looked at me as a competitor.

Inspiration
I was inspired by two people when in school; my Maths teacher Pramod Lal who encouraged me to participate in various local talent tests, and a brilliant boy called Chowdhary, who was my senior.

When I came to know that he had joined Gowtham Junior College to prepare for IIT-JEE, it became my dream too. I was school first in 10th scoring 542/600.

Because I topped in the state exams, Gowtham Junior College waived the fee for me. Pramod Sir’s recommendation also helped. The fee was around Rs 50,000 per year, which my parents could never afford.

Moving to a residential school
Living in a residential school was a big change for me because till then my life centred around home and school and I had my parents and sister to take care of all my needs. It was the first time that I was interacting with society. It took one year for me to adjust to the new life.

There, my inspiration was a boy called K K S Bhaskar who was in the top 10 in IIT-JEE exams. He used to come to our school to encourage us. Though my parents didn’t know anything about Gowtham Junior School or IIT, they always saw to it that I was encouraged in whatever I wanted to do. If the results were good, they would praise me to the skies and if bad, they would try to see something good in that. They did not want me to feel bad.

They are such wonderful supportive parents.

Life at IIT- Madras
Though my overall rank in the IIT-JEE was not that great (992), I was 4th in the physically handicapped category. So, I joined IIT, Madras to study Computer Science.

Here, my role model was Karthik who was also my senior in school. I looked up to him during my years at IIT- Madras.

He had asked for attached bathrooms for those with special needs before I came here itself. So, when I came here, the room had attached bath. He used to help me and guide me a lot when I was here.

I evolved as a person in these four years, both academically and personally. It has been a great experience studying here. The people I was interacting with were so brilliant that I felt privileged to sit along with them in the class. Just by speaking to my lab mates, I gained a lot.

‘There are more good people in society than bad ones’

Words are inadequate to express my gratitude to Prof Pandurangan and all my lab mates; all were simply great. I was sent to Boston along with four others for our internship by Prof Pandurangan. It was a great experience.

Joining Google R&D
I did not want to pursue PhD as I wanted my parents to take rest now.

Morgan Stanley selected me first but I preferred Google because I wanted to work in pure computer science, algorithms and game theory.

I am lucky
Do you know why I say I am lucky?

I get help from total strangers without me asking for it. Once after my second year at IIT, I with some of my friends was travelling in a train for a conference. We met a kind gentleman called Sundar in the train, and he has been taking care of my hostel fees from then on.

I have to mention about Jaipur foot. I had Jaipur foot when I was in 3rd standard. After two years, I stopped using them. As I had almost no stems on my legs, it was very tough to tie them to the body. I found walking with Jaipur foot very, very slow. Sitting also was a problem. I found my tricycle faster because I am one guy who wants to do things faster.

One great thing about the hospital is, they don’t think their role ends by just fixing the Jaipur foot; they arrange for livelihood for all. They asked me what help I needed from them. I told them at that time, if I got into an IIT, I needed financial help from them. So, from the day I joined IIT, Madras, my fees were taken care of by them. So, my education at the IIT was never a burden on my parents and they could take care of my sister’s Nursing studies.

Surprise awaited me at IIT
After my first year, when I went home, two things happened here at the Institute without my knowledge.

I got a letter from my department that they had arranged a lift and ramps at the department for me. It also said that if I came a bit early and checked whether it met with my requirements, it would be good.

Second surprise was, the Dean, Prof Idichandy and the Students General Secretary, Prasad had located a place that sold powered wheel chairs. The cost was Rs 55,000. What they did was, they did not buy the wheel chair; they gave me the money so that the wheel chair belonged to me and not the institute.

My life changed after that. I felt free and independent.

That’s why I say I am lucky. God has planned things for me and takes care of me at every step.

The world is full of good people
I also feel if you are motivated and show some initiative, people around you will always help you. I also feel there are more good people in society than bad ones. I want all those who read this to feel that if Naresh can achieve something in life, you can too.

Note: This is a mail forward I received, so I thought of posting it here for more people to get inspired.

1) Make the content easily accessible to the blind at one single place

2)Provide our members with a wider choice of rich content. This would especially help those who have just learnt computers, and aren’t aware of the plethora of reading options available on the net.

We are getting in touch with a range of content providers across different categories like news, religion, entertainment, education and so on. We are looking at getting their permission to put the content on our website so that it can be easily accessed by the blind. For this initiative, we intend to use the channels on Inclusiveplanet.com. Channels have the ability to import RSS feeds as well, so it immediately makes sharing of content possible. The channel would have the name of the content provider, and content will be attributed to them. The RSS feeds will pull in content from the content provider’s website to the inclusiveplanet.com channel, and thus make it “accessible” for the blind.

You can get involved in this initiative in the following ways:-

a) If you are a content provider, and would love to see your content on inclusiveplanet.com, then do get in touch with us.

b) If you are interested in volunteering, you can take up projects to aggregate different types of content onto Inclusive Planet

Do write to us at contact@inclusiveplanet.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

If you want to work on a project that combines social impact and community building and bleeding edge technology and design challenges then Inclusive Planet might just have that experience you’re looking for!

We’re looking for part-time and full-time interns / volunteers in the following areas:

1. Engaging deeply with our 4000+ user community and nurture it through content, guided interaction and plain old solid listening; we have a performance linked stipend for both full time and part time interns. If you’re already a member of our community then that’s even better because anyone interacting with the community needs to bring the perspective of a community member;

2. Helping our team collect the right seed content, either by aggregating from other sources through partnerships or by creating our own. In case you’re wondering what seed content is – it’s the content that you put on your site to draw users in the early days where user-generated / shared content sites like ours don’t have enough user-generated/shared content to attract new users.

3. Working on a new technology and design-led project to create tools/products that could tremendously increase access to the web for the print-impaired. Here you could do research, actually help on tech creation or in the design process etc.

In case you’re interested in the work we do please write in to founders@inclusiveplanet.com. We welcome students, professionals and all else with time to spare and a curious mind to apply to some of the most interesting problems out there. Thanks!

SM

Rahul Cherian is present at the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights happening at the moment in Switzerland.

Following is the statement of Inclusive Planet, India on the matter of the Treaty for the Blind, Visually Impaired and other Reading Disabled, proposed by Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico  and Paraguay.

June 21, 2010

Mr. Chairman, distinguished delegates and ladies and gentlemen , I thank the WIPO Secretariat for processing our accreditation to the WIPO as an observer and the decision of this Committee to accredit my organization. I represent Inclusive Planet Foundation, a non profit organisation based in India, focusing on policy reform in the disability space as a part of which we have been campaigning in India for appropriate amendments to Indian copyright law to create exceptions and limitations to enable persons with disabilities to access material in alternate formats. Our sister organisation, a for profit organization runs Inclusivelanet.com, one of the fastest growing social networks for persons with visual impairment, with users from 80 countries. Inclusive Planet’s Services division provides technology solutions and consultancy to organisations related to web and content accessibility.

Mr. Chairman, Inclusive Planet Foundation believes that the Treaty proposed by Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Paraguay is essential to improve the lives of the millions of persons with disabilities in India and we are extremely supportive of the Treaty for the following reasons:

1. Firstly, We believe that in India and other developing countries where large funding for conversion and distribution is not available, and where there are no institutional intermediaries with the kind of reach, infrastructure and financial support as the intermediaries in the US and Europe, all stakeholders including NGOs, educational institutions, libraries, persons with disabilities , parents and volunteers must be allowed to convert and distribute and import and export material in accessible formats. The Treaty proposed by Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Paraguay allows for this. Any proposal which limits these activities only to intermediaries that have the support of rightholders will not be of any great benefit to India or other developing countries.

2. Secondly, We believe it is important that persons with hearing impairment and persons with other disabilities who need alternate formats must not be discriminated against and be left behind. The Treaty proposed by Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Paraguay covers not only persons with print disabilities but also persons with other disabilities who require alternate formats. Other proposals in the table have also good definitions of beneficiaries. We believe that any proposal which extends only to persons with print disabilities will be unjust.

3. Thirdly, We believe that non-commercial conversion and distribution should not require payment to rights holders keeping in mind the cost and effort taken in such conversion and distribution. We also believe that rights holders must be compensated for commercial conversion and distribution. The Treaty proposed by Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Paraguay provides for these two options. We believe that this system will incentivize rights holders to convert and sell material in accessible formats at affordable prices, which we believe is the only long term solution to solving the book famine.

4. Lastly, We believe that for-profit entities who wish to undertake conversion on a not-for-profit basis must be permitted to do so. It has been our experience in India that large corporations wish to convert material into accessible formats as part of their corporate social responsibility initiatives on a non-commercial basis. This must be encouraged. The Treaty proposed by Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Paraguay provides for this. We believe that any proposal that does not recognize the roles that can be played by for-profit entities is limited and will not contribute to long term solutions.

In short Mr. Chairman, the ground realities in India and other developing countries are completely different from those in the United States and in Europe. In India and other developing countries, people with disabilities need all the help we can get, from all parties willing to help. Any proposal that recognizes only intermediaries as part of the solution will be of extremely limited impact in India. We believe that the Treaty for the Blind, Visually Impaired and other Reading Disabled, proposed by Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Paraguay is THE proposal which addresses the needs of persons with disabilities in developing countries. We urge member states to support the treaty proposed by Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Paraguay if any meaningful change is to be made to the lives of millions of persons with disabilities around the world and especially in developing countries including India.

To read more about the other treaties, see Comparison of the four proposals on disabilities at WIPO SCCR.

For those of us who are particularly concerned about ensuring that web applications fit the needs of an audience with different faculties, there are a set of standards that are laid out that presumably will tell us how to do this. The question often comes up – is it worth the effort following standards like the W3C WCAG standard? There is a profusion of articles on the web that detail how standards compliance can be achieved and there are organizations who will help you, the web asset owner, get to standards compliance. What is often not that clear is the question of – what will WCAG compliance do for my users? How will my web asset benefit from this exercise? Does WCAG compliance mean that ALL users can use my web site ‘equitably’?

Focusing on the WCAG standard as an example, the standards body has stated that the goal of defining “how to make Web content more accessible to people with disabilities”. The standards body has decided, I believe consciously, to not precisely define accessibility. Also note the comparative term “more accessible” is chosen instead of a more absolute or superlative term. There is an air of tentativeness, which again, I would think, is a conscious choice.

There are a few more factors to consider:

1. Standards, in its final form often represent less than the state of the art in technology due to the long life cycle of the standards process itself. This is also clear from the facts that often even as a particular standard is in the stages of approval, work on the next standards commences.
2. Standards bodies often need to come up with a least common denominator in its specification and in the interest of expediency, generally have to choose to ignore complicated or controversial issues.
3. Some of the issues related to accessibility, are so entwined in issues of usability and design, that it is difficult to make concrete standards without making assumptions about the nature of use of the system, the faculty set of the user and other environmental factors. In the continuum of accessibility-usability-design, the standards are only able to address the safe generalities than the highly variable specifics.

The points above should not be read as criticisms of standards, but merely as an observation of the facts.

Now, switching over to the practice side, take the classic cases where a web or digital asset owner takes the steps towards ensuring diversity. She is often driven by one or more of the following:

• Social and values based reasons– CSR for companies, social pressure for individuals

• I care about diversity, and want to make sure that there are no barriers in my organization for people with a non-standard set of faculties

• I have a digital asset and want to come across to others as someone who cares about diversity

• Regulatory and Legal

• I need to comply to the accessibility rules/regulations/laws of my country/state/association in relation to and if I don’t there is a possible negative consequence

• Commercial

• I or one of my customers have or will have an audience or customers that is diverse and needs accessibility

• I or one of my customers need to show some others that we are accessible so that we can get some new business

• I or one of my customers deal exclusively with a segment that have a non-standard set of faculties that have accessibility implications and our offering needs to be precisely tailored for them

Consider the various cases above. While clearly not an exhaustive treatment of all possible cases, you can see 2 significant flavors:

1. I need to convince a certain constituency that my digital asset is accessible
2. I need to make my digital asset as accessible, usable and appropriate as possible to one or more specific class of users with non-standards faculties.

In both these cases, standards compliance is a requirement. For case 2 above, however, the asset owner would be ill-advised to stop at standards compliance and should consider additional steps to put forth the best possible offering – from accessibility, usability and design standpoints for the specific audience(s) in mind.

So here goes the stake in the ground:

We believe that standards compliance is a necessary but not sufficient condition for ensuring best possible levels of accessibility.

We do believe that current standards ensure a high degree of accessibility. However, we believe that there are additional steps that can and should be taken to allow a person with a non-standard set of faculties the best possible experience with a web site or application.

The most popular, specialized software program used by people with visual impairments to consume electronic content - documents, web pages and other computer programs is a type of computer software known as a screen reader. The screen reader has two major functions – Navigation and Text-to-Speech (TTS).

A screen reader aids in navigation by guiding the user in moving from one page to the other, from one paragraph to the other and so on. It aids in TTS by converting electronic text to sound – basically it reads out text. The biggest stumbling block for screen reader software are programs and content that is difficult for navigation.
 
A large majority of computer programs and electronic content that are used by the visually impaired, are created by sighted people – programmers, content writers, editors etc. If you happen to fall into this category of very powerful people, and if you are unfamiliar with screen readers, I would definitely encourage you to try this little experiment. Now, if you don’t, you might still want to do it – because it can open your eyes a little bit into an unfamiliar world. All you need is a computer, working eyes and an old newspaper.

Here you go:

1. Turn on your computer
2. Browse to Google news or your favorite online haunt OR open a large word document
3. Now get an old newspaper – take one full sheet and open it up
4. Make a rectangular incision 3 inches long and half inch wide at the center of the paper
5. With both hands, hold this newspaper against and in front of your computer display, so that you can see the screen through the rectangular hole
6. Now start reading through the hole. Move the paper to the right to continue reading
7. Try to jump to sections that you are interested in by moving the paper around
8. Read the whole page
9. Rinse and repeat with familiar and unfamiliar pages
10. That’s it.

Hope you enjoyed the experience .. Now we need some feedback from you:

1. How easy was it to find something that you are looking to read?
2. What would have made it easier to find what you were looking for?
3. Is the experience different between familiar and unfamiliar pages?
4. How would you change the design of your document/site/application after your experience of carrying out this experiment?

After our last post on the Right to Read campaign on April 15th the copyright amendment was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on April 19^th. The bad news is that the amendment still contained the same disastrous wording which would effectively prevent NGOs, educational institutions and persons with disabilities from converting reading material including textbooks and reference material into audio, digital formats and other formats that can be used by persons with disabilities to “read” such material. The extremely cumbersome, restrictive and lengthy licensing procedure proposed by the Government for conversion to these formats would mean that students with print disabilities would be deprived of their Right to Education which has now become a fundamental right.

Now for the good news. The BJP and the Left parties have gone on record  <!–[endif]–>that they will oppose the amendment unless the concerns of the visually impaired community are addressed. Members of the National Access Alliance including Sam Taraporevala, Kanchan Pamnani, S.K Rungta, Dipendra Manocha and Ketan Kothari met senior leaders of the BJP including Shri L.K. Advani, Shri Arun Jaitely and Smt. Sushma Swaraj who understood our concerns and were extremely sympathetic. Nirmita Narasimhan from the Centre for Internet and Society <!–[if !supportFootnotes]–> and I met Smt. Brinda Karat who was extremely sympathetic and supportive. Mrs. Karat spent close to an hour understanding the issues involved and fixed up a meeting for us with Shri. Oscar Fernandes, Congress MP and head of the standing committee that will examine the copyright amendment. She also informed us that she has spoken to Mr. Arun Jaitely on this issue and that they would jointly oppose the amendment. Shri Fernandes was also extremely sympathetic and supportive and assured us that we would get an opportunity to be heard when the matter came up for discussion. We also met two members of the standing committee Mr. Biju (CPI (M) MP from Kerala) and Mr. Penumalli Madhu (CPI (M) MP from Andhra Pradesh). Mr. Biju said he would definitely help when this matter comes up for discussion since he believed it is a just cause. Mr. Madhu was even more receptive to the idea and said he would circulate the note which we had given to all the members of the Standing Committee and also write a letter strongly recommending this
case to the Prime Minister and the Standing Committee.

Mr. Javed Abidi, India’s most famous and accomplished disability rights activist, took Nirmita and me to the Prime Minister’s Office where we met Joint Secretary Mr. Sanjay Mitra who promised to put our note to the Prime Minister.

Last but not least, over the last 2 weeks this initiative has got some great press coverage from socially conscious journalists from around the country. We now have to prepare for submitting evidence to the standing committee when the hearings start. We understand that this will happen within the next 3 months. Let us keep our fingers crossed. If you would like to contribute to this effort mail me at rahul.cherian@inclusiveplanet.com

Update as on May 1, 2010

After our last post on the Right to Read campaign on April 15th the copyright amendment was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on April 19^th. The bad news is that the amendment still contained the same disastrous wording which would effectively prevent NGOs, educational institutions and persons with disabilities from converting reading material including textbooks and reference material into audio, digital formats and other formats that can be used by persons with disabilities to “read” such material. The extremely cumbersome, restrictive and lengthy licensing procedure proposed by the Government for conversion to these formats would mean that students with print disabilities would be deprived of their Right to Education which has now become a fundamental right.

Now for the good news. The BJP and the Left parties have gone on the record that they will oppose the amendment unless the concerns of the visually impaired community are addressed. Members of the National Access Alliance including Sam Taraporevala, Kanchan Pamnani, S.K Rungta, Dipendra Manocha and Ketan Kothari met senior leaders of the BJP including Shri L.K. Advani, Shri Arun Jaitely and Smt. Sushma Swaraj who understood our concerns and were extremely sympathetic.  Nirmita Narasimhan from the Centre for Internet and Society and I met Smt. Brinda Karat who extremely sympathetic and supportive. Mrs. Karat spent close to an hour understanding the issues involved and fixed up a meeting for us with Shri. Oscar Fernandes, Congress MP and head of the standing committee that will examine the copyright amendment. She also informed us that she has spoken to Mr. Arun Jaitely on this issue and that they would jointly oppose the amendment. Shri Fernandes was also extremely sympathetic and supportive and assured us that we would get an opportunity to be heard when the matter came up for discussion. We also met two members of the standing committee Mr. Biju (CPI (M) MP from Kerala) and Mr. Penumalli Madhu (CPI (M) MP from Andhra Pradesh). Mr. Biju said he would definitely help when this matter comes up for discussion since he believed it is a just cause. Mr. Madhu was even more receptive to the idea and said he would circulate the note which we had given to all the members of the Standing Committee and also write a letter strongly recommending this
case to the Prime Minister and the Standing Committee.

Mr. Javed Abidi, India’s most famous and accomplished disability rights activist, took Nirmita and me to the Prime Minister’s Office where we met Joint Secretary Mr. Sanjay Mitra who promised to put our note to the Prime Minister.

Last but not least, over the last 2 weeks this initiative got some great press coverage from socially conscious journalists from around the country. We now have to prepare for submitting evidence to the standing committee when the hearings start. We understand that this will happen within the next 3 months. Let us keep our fingers crossed. If you would like to contribute to this effort mail me at rahul.cherian@inclusiveplanet.com

Darkness at Noon
By Harold Krents

Blind from birth, I have never had the opportunity to see myself and have been completely dependent on the image I create in the eye of the observer. To date it has not been narcissistic. There are those who assume that since I can’t see, I obviously also cannot hear. Very often people will converse with me at the top of their lungs, enunciating each word very carefully. Conversely, people will also often whisper, assuming that since my eyes don’t work, my ears don’t either.

For example, when I go to the airport and ask the ticket agent for assistance to the plane, he or she will invariably pick up the phone, call a ground hostess, and whisper: “Hi, Jane, we’ve got a 76 here.” I have concluded that the word blind is not used, for one of two reasons: Either they fear that if the dread word is spoken, the ticket agent’s retina will immediately detach, or they are reluctant to inform me of my condition, of which I may not have been previously aware. On the other hand, others know that of course I can hear, but believe that I can’t talk. Often, therefore, when my wife and I go out to dinner, a waiter or waitress will ask Kit if “he would like a drink” to which I respond that “indeed he would.” This point was graphically driven home to me while we were in England. I had been given a year’s leave of absence from my Washington law firm to study for a diploma in law at Oxford University. During the year I became ill and was hospitalized. Immediately after admission, I was wheeled down to the X-ray room. Just at the door sat an elderly woman—elderly I would judge from the sound of her voice. “What is his name?” the woman asked the orderly who had been wheeling me. “What’s your name?” the orderly repeated to me. “Harold Krents,” I replied. “Harold Krents,” he repeated. “When was he born?” “When were you born?” “November 5, 1944,” I responded. “November 5, 1944,” the orderly intoned. This procedure continued for approximately five minutes, at which point even my saint like disposition deserted me. “Look,” I finally blurted out, “this is absolutely ridiculous. Okay, granted I can’t see, but it’s got to have become pretty clear to both of you that I don’t need an interpreter.” “He says he doesn’t need an interpreter,” the orderly reported to the woman.

The toughest misconception of all is the view that because I can’t see, I can’t work. I was turned down by over forty law firms because of my blindness, even though my qualifications included a cum laude3 degree from Harvard College and a good ranking in my Harvard Law School class. The attempt to find employment, the continuous frustration of being told that it was impossible for a blind person to practice law, the rejection letters, based not on my lack of ability but rather on my disability, will always remain one of the most disillusioning experiences of my life. Fortunately, this view of limitation and exclusion is beginning to change. On April 16, [1978] the Department of Labour issued regulations that mandate equal-employment opportunities for the handicapped.

By and large, the business community’s response to offering employment to the disabled has been enthusiastic. I therefore look forward to the day, with the expectation that it is certain to come, when employers will view their handicapped workers as a little child did me years ago when my family still lived in Scarsdale. I was playing basketball with my father in our back yard according to procedures we had developed. My father would stand beneath the hoop, shout, and I would shoot over his head at the basket attached to our garage. Our next-door neighbour, aged five, wandered over into our yard with a playmate. “He’s blind,” our neighbour whispered to her friend in a voice that could be heard distinctly by Dad and me. Dad shot and missed; I did the same. Dad hit the rim; I missed entirely; Dad shot and missed the garage entirely. “Which one is blind?” whispered back the little friend.

I would hope that in the near future, when a plant manager is touring the factory with the foreman and comes upon a handicapped and a non-handicapped person working together, his comment after watching them work will be, “Which one is disabled?”

This is the first step that we have taken towards redesign. In the coming weeks you will see a lot more changes to help people with low vision navigate the site with ease. We would like to thank Srini for his insights on low vision design.

As the site grows by leaps and bounds, as more content and connections are made and shared, we feel that we need to prepare for a much more exciting future. Of course, we understand the recent changes may have caused some pain as familiar landmarks have disappeared. However, some changes could not be avoided as we have tried to consolidate and add more consistency to our design and structure. Of course, we are always on standby to assist if you are having any trouble.

The site will go through some more changes in the coming months as we put into practice what we have been dreaming about, a more approachable and customized experience. Veteran users may not notice these changes, but we want to make the site easier for new users to join and improve the Inclusive Planet experience.

Check out the new design if you have not done so already. And give us your feedback, the good the bad and the ugly.

Act Now! You could help bring about a transformational change to the lives of about 70 million people in India and enable people to exercise their Right to Education and Right to Read.

With your help, we’ll harness the power of the internet to get the message to people all over the world. You can help us in many simple ways. Here are a few things you can do -

Sign the Declaration

A simple act of supporting the campaign online can make a huge difference to the cause. We intend to showcase the support the campaign receives to the concerned authorities so that a change in the copyright law can be brought about. Visit Right To Read and sign the declaration!

Connect us with more MPs (Members of Parliament)

If you know an MP, you can brief them on the issues so that the amendment can be meaningfully discussed in Parliament. All you need to do is forward this note to them, Click Here for the note.

Contact the press

If you know anyone in the press, get them to cover the issues and raise public awareness. Just send this press release attached here.

Send an email to Shri Rahul Gandhi

Communicate to Shri Rahul Gandhi your support for the change in the amendment! Just send the following email to iycnsui@gmail.com and other politicians you know.

A small act done by you can go a long way in helping the visually impaired in India!

If you would like to know more about the amendment to the copyright law and the background of this campaign, click here!

Thank you for your support!

Together, there are no barriers!

A simple conversation about her views on Inclusive Planet  lead to this wonderfully creative article. Watch out for this young woman, she is a bestseller in the making.

Inclusive planet: My home sweet home – by Yaminy

Hey Guest,

Don’t go away looking from the outside. The external appearance is such that we can only go on a quick tour around the home along with brief glance. Our home is the best, the most beautiful planet. When you come in, you can stay for as long as you want. Once you start, nothing will stop you from experiencing the hospitality all around. Welcome Home!

At the beginning of your quest, you are given a special key which is the email ID and a secret code which is the password to enter or to log in. We then enter our home, the first thing we notice is the mailbox which shows the messages received. We can either reply immediately or move further depending on the mood.

Later, we enter the lounge where we find the members engaged in different discussions. If some are reading, others would chat away!  The best part is that we have all the rights to interfere in these chats or come to know what additional furniture (posts or comments) are there at home. Another brilliant feature is that, once a member states anything, it would be displayed along with the name tag which makes it easy to know who has said what.

If you’re not in a mood for that, just by clicking the toggles (links), you can contact the new members from earth, connect with recent conversations, and find the things at home, check what’s recently shared, respond to requests made by sharing things and so on. Do you know? Our home looks simple and small.  It is our humble abode, where we learn to love and live happily. But, it’s built using modernity and so, accessible through buttons or toggles.

We have more than 50 superb Channels; each one catering to different areas of interest.If one is set for humor, another is for food.  At one stage we can play, while on the other, we may get special education through online classes.  Have a flair for the language, then surely must have a love for literature and walk into the poetry world.  Wish to conspire on anything? You can discuss in various clubs or even the computer science has advanced so much that bloggers and content writers are ready to publish the same in the websites. You must speak out either in your voice or planeteer speak out.

Do we have to watch a movie? Need not.  If we just read or better participate in the planets on goings, it becomes a movie for any amount of time we spend. Full on action packed entertainment guaranteed. So sit back, relax, bring on the popcorn my friends.

This is the place where I learnt the art of expressing and even the meaning of unity and friendship.  Be what may, the arms are there to support in any kind of crisis and need not feel shy or worried to express something. Whenever I find time, I just come home, and even many a times get the stuff necessary for my class studies.

Oh, my friends and fellow inmates are so cute, charming and lovable that we just feel like interacting either through private messages or on spot dialogues. I’ve found many friends here who have no issues and have accepted me as I am.

This is our gorgeous habitat and my home sweet home!

Tony leaves the company with the statement – My primary focus will be helping the environment by working with consumer green-tech companies,” he said. “I’m determined to tell my kids and grandkids amazing stories beyond my iPod and iPhone ones.

So long Tony and thanks for all the fish.

you can read the article about tony leaving on http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/godfather-of-ipod-severs-final-ties-with-apple/?src=twt&twt=nytimesbits and his short bio at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Fadell

Anant

Katty Gelt Meyer is a member from Belgium. As a new user, she is now familiarizing herself with Inclusive Planet. She enjoys reading folklore and also blogs about various topics.

This is her story so far …

• Tell us something about yourself…

I’m Katty, 33 years old, and have and I have been in a relationship for the last ten months. I studied History at the University of Gent (with a year at the University of Leiden). I was lucky enough to have had a teacher who gave his subject in such a way, that it seemed he had been watching what he was telling: Storytelling was his method to give history. In the past, I thought he was able to foretell the future, but now I know how I could do this: he knew the past, saw some conflicts coming, So knowing the past could help you to foresee the future (in a limited way, of course, it isn’t as logical as Maths).

I really wasn’t good at Maths, but I was lucky to have had a teacher that knew me better than I did and who motivated his pupils, even if they had difficulties with his subject. Both he and the history teacher tried to see the person behind the student, and so they gave me confidence. I’m fond of cats, fairy tales, lore & myths, reading and listening to stories.

• Where are you working now? What do you enjoy about your job?

I’m working for the “luisterpuntbibliotheek”, the Dutch Library of Belgium for people with reading disabilities. What I enjoy is helping our readers find a book they like, or helping them solve a problem with their daisy-player (if I manage it to solve the problem, I have a lucky day).

• Last book read?

A book about folk tales & legends of the region I live in – Waasland

• Which country would you like to visit?

I’d like to visit Greece, because of the fact I was fascinated by the myths my History teacher told me.

• A person who inspires you and why?

Louis Braille – He was able to collect some tidbits of knowledge, and combined them to compose the Braille-system. With this invention, he made it possible for blind people to read, write, to study and to participate in the society.

• Three of your favourite websites and why?

www.ccleaner.com : Here you can find an accessible tool for cleaning up your pc.

www.birthdayalarm.com : a website where you can compose a birthday calendar, it helped me to remember the birthdays of my loved ones, something I always forget.

www.hp-lexicon.org : one of the best websites dedicated to Harry Potter, made by a competent team.

I also own a blog (written in Dutch, my native language): http://kattykrabbelt.blogspot.com

• What would make Inclusive Planet better?

If I could give my google-account access to inclusive Planet (and others could do the same with their primary account), there’s no need for us to remember another username/password.

• Where would you like technology for the blind to head towards?

To make the internet and other aspects of our life as accessible as possible, so that everyone can participate in everything in the same way. That’s why I was so delighted when I saw the new verification method in the alpha-version of Inclusive Planet.

The Fake IPL Player is on inclusive planet!

That’s right, the FIP (fake IPL player) has started a channel exclusively on  inclusive planet where he will read out one chapter a week, for members of inclusive planet.  Sounds too good to be true? Listen to this!

If you are not a member, what are you waiting for? You can register for free at http://inclusiveplanet.com/en/register. Once you do that, then head to http://inclusiveplanet.com/en/group/495133 and subscribe to the channel.  We got two podcasts up already, read out by the one and only FIP himself!

That’s all we got to say. Hope you enjoy your weekly dose of Appams and  Naans and Chirkut Telis (Our other personal favorite )

Will keep you updated with every new podcast

Best, Anant

So, come check out the group, Solutions for the Global Print-Impaired, started by us at Changemakers. To kick things off, check out our two latest posts there.

Tech and Print Impairment – Some resources and an Intro.

&

Making Accessibility a business proposition

By the way if you really don’t want to comment there, please feel free to use our Blog’s commenting feature. However, we encourage you to sign up and join one of the most interesting, passionate and clued in communities in the world.

But whatever you do, don’t dismiss it out of hand. There is value that twitter provides, if you know how to tap it effectively.
We started actively tweeting from @inclusiveplanet recently and the response has been phenomenal! I don’t want to measure the results based on the number of followers or lists etc. What I will base it on is the solutions that we have discovered, and similar minded people & organizations that we have managed to connect with!

Now coming to the point of the blog post – You can now tweet from Inclusive Planet!

Of course we didn’t debate over the potential use of twitter. Our decision was easy to make – Our planeteers asked for it! J
Many of our members pointed out that they would like to tweet from Inclusive Planet – what they are doing on Inclusive Planet, share with other people something that they saw or read on Inclusive Planet.

This is a pretty exciting move for us. It allows all our members to let the rest of the world know what you they’re upto! Or as one of planeteers, Tomi puts it – “my vocational school blocks Twitter now Inclusive Planet to the rescue! #1P”

I suggest you join in on the fun… and don’t forget to use #1P – the official Inclusive Planet hash tag.

Tweet away….

Support Donna Jodhan, for a better Canada

Our friends in Canada are fighting for better online accessibility in Canada. Donna Jodhan and her friends are calling upon the Government of Canada to ensure that all information and services offered through Federal Government websites be made to comply with WCAG 2.0 guidelines by December 31, 2010.  Please copy and paste the <links> below into your internet browser.
Take action today by signing our online petition at:
<http://www.PetitionOnline.com/GCWAP/petition.html>

You can read more about our campaign and join us on Facebook at:
<http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=359483366688>

You can also send your support by email to:
<blind.equality@gmail.com>

Please share this with your friends, colleagues, and supporters of
e-accessibility.  Accessible websites mean stronger communities and
healthier economies!

_______________

Quick Facts:

+ Over 800,000 Canadians have seeing limitations that require accommodations.
+ If a website is not accessible, then to a blind person, it does not exist.
+ Government of Canada websites fail simple accessibility compliance tests.
+ Offenders include many major Federal departments, including Canada’s
largest employer, the Public Service Commission

Help us Support  in her Charter challenge against the
Attorney General of Canada, scheduled for May 19-21, 2010!

Three young social entrepreneurs have decided to bring about change! Holiniaina, Martin and Karin are just like you and me… the only difference is that they acted! They created The Madagascar Education and Resource Centre for the visually Impaired (MERCI) with the vision to offer support and services for visually impaired people in and around Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar.

MERCI needs your help!

MERCI has decided to maximize the power of collaboration by using the Inclusive Ideas platform. Here’s how you can help.

1. The team at MERCI has designed a computer training curriculum, but before finalising it, they wanted everybody’s views is to ensure that students of MERCI get access to the best possible curriculum. Click here to review MERCI’s computer training curriculum. Moreover, if you already have some material which can be used for developing this curriculum, then feel free to share it.
2. To achieve their vision, they need funds to run MERCI. You may not be able to help 600,000 people overnight… but what you can do, in your own small way, is contribute to this cause, and pass the word on to people in your network. If you are interested in funding their venture or helping them in any other way, then do write to us on contact at inclusiveplanet dot com

Join hands with Holiniaina, Martin, Karin & Inclusive Planet to give this gift to the visually impaired people of Madagascar! Armed with the knowledge of computers, the opportunities are innumerable. They can start a business, write stories, create music, join groups, campaign for causes, try online dating, make friends around the world and be on Inclusive Planet.  A gift that they can use throughout their lives… a gift that will enrich their life!

I  met George at Techshare, and we had a great chat where he shared his experiences in advertising and his passion for cricket.  A visit to Dehradun’s National Institute for the Visually Handicapped led George to experience the blind playing cricket.  He realized that cricket would instill confidence amongst the blind, and also enable society to see a non-stereotypical image of blind people which is positive and action oriented.

In March 1990 Abraham wrote to noted cricketer Sunil Gavaskar informing of his plan to hold the first national cricket tournament for the blind. Gavaskar responded immediately saying that he would help in anyway he could. By December 1990, George launched the first cricket tournament for the blind,  which then became an annual event. And in 1998, under his leadership, the inaugural Blind Cricket World Cup was held in New Delhi!

I was just amazed about his passion and enthusiasm for the game. Our conversation then moved to IPL 3, and I told him about the tell all audio book on cricket, which is due to hit Inclusive Planet during IPL. George will be helping us spread the word about the book to blind cricketing fraternity across the world. To make the IPL even merrier for the planeteers, George had an idea, he volunteered to take time out from his busy schedule and write a guest column about the IPL matches.  Now thats a double treat this IPL season!

You can catch George’s reviews of the IPL matches on the channel ” On the Front Foot” on Inclusive Planet.  You can also read them on his blog http://georgebhai.blogspot.com