Centre for Internet and Society

Enabling Elections

nirmita — 2014-05-10T00:12:00Z

For making the 2014 General Elections in India participatory and accessible for voters with disabilities the Centre for Law and Policy Research and the Centre for Internet and Society have come up with a report. The report addresses the barriers that people with disabilities face during elections and recommends solutions for the same.

Executive Summary

The report examines three main areas:

The barriers that people with disabilities face at the time of elections.
The legal framework around this issue.
The measures which need to be taken to eliminate the barriers in the pre-voting phase, during voting phase and also post-voting phase, so as to enhance the participation of voters with disabilities.

Access to the public sphere and full political participation is a matter of right for persons with disabilities and the state is constitutionally mandated to enforce this right. The rights of voters with disabilities are examined under the constitutional provisions, the Representation of People’s Act 1951, the relevant directions of the Supreme Court and the international conventions. This report also considers international best practices while making recommendations, to the extent that they are suitable and practical in the Indian context.

This report looks at Electoral Participation in two dimensions:

“Pre-electoral Participation” and
“Actual Electoral Participation”

The report then goes on to make recommendations for enhancing accessibility in both these categories.

On Pre-electoral Participation, the report inter alia recommends the following:

Opportunities for people with disabilities to participate in public consultations.
Immediate outreach programs for higher voter registrations.
Making election material and candidate guides available in different formats such as large print, Braille and audio formats upon request so that voters can have full knowledge of the candidate they want to vote for.
Providing information for voters about locations which have special access, wheelchair facilities, technological assistance for visually impaired, etc.

On Actual Electoral Participation, we inter alia recommend the following:

Accessible polling sites.
Training election staff to be sensitive to diverse needs of voters.
Enabling privacy and independent voting by persons with disabilities.
Arranging for mobile polling booths.
Making EVM’s compatible and accessible such as by providing for Braille, large print.
Tactile buttons, 'sip and puff' and audio devices.

The report also recommends the need to monitor participation of voters with disabilities in the forthcoming elections.There is a need to collect data, surveys and studies in the pre-election, election and post-election phases.

Click here to download and read the full report (PDF, 4.5 MB)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/enabling-elections

Enabling Access to Education through ICT - Conference Report

praskrishna — 2013-01-28T10:14:03Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore in cooperation G3ict, UNESCO, ITU, WIPO, The Deafway Foundation, DEF and SPACE with the gracious support of The Hans Foundation and the Department of Information Technology, MICT, New Delhi organized an international conference "Enabling Access to Education through ICT" in New Delhi from 27 to 29 October 2010. The event was sponsored by Hans Foundation.

Background

Persons with disabilities in India are often left out of mainstream schools and universities due to a variety of reasons, primarily the lack of awareness amongst educational organizations and teachers, near absence of infrastructural resources and lack of training in this regard. It is believed that barely two per cent of the 70 million disabled persons have access to education in India. Unless we take special efforts to remedy this situation by equipping teachers, educational institutions and the entire social infrastructure to adopt innovative, cost effective and technology based resources such as assistive technologies, ubiquitous Web, multiple platforms, social networks, online libraries and digital resources etc, they will continue to remain excluded from social participation.

Conference


Given above is a picture of the speakers from the Edict 2010 event in Delhi.

Edict 2010 was organised by the Centre for Internet and Society, in collaboration with G3ict, UNESCO, ITU, WIPO, The Deafway Foundation, DEF and SPACE with the gracious support of The Hans Foundation and the Department of Information Technology, MICT, New Delhi. The main aim was to highlight existing policy and practical barriers for students and educational institutions in developing countries, showcase ICT based solutions which are presently being adopted around the world and point to existing knowledge resources and emerging trends in education. The conference focused on enabling education at all levels: primary, secondary, tertiary and distance education and vocational training. The success of the conference was characterised by the fact that it brought together a wide range of stakeholders, including industry, special and mainstream educators, disability organisations, policymakers from the ministries of education (MHRD) and information technology (DIT), Technology developers and researchers, librarians and persons with disabilities, from several countries like India, USA, Switzerland, Japan, Nepal and Bangladesh, who were all experts with vast experience. Consequently, the sessions were extremely interactive, with a lot of inputs from the participants and it was commonly acknowledged that the sharing of information and learning was equal for both participants and speakers. The break out sessions resulted in a lot of recommendations and insightful observations from the four groups.

The conference was inaugurated by Smt. Vibha Puri Das, Secretary, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development. Other special guests were Dr.Indrajit Banerjee, Director, Information and Communications sector, UNESCO and Mr. Andrew Tru from WIPO. Smt. Das released the first copy of the book, ‘E-Accessibility Handbook for Persons with Disabilities’, a book based on the G3ict-ITU on line e-Accessibility Toolkit for Policy makers, which was edited and published by CIS. Dr. Banerjee received the first copy. Smt. Das delivered the key note address; she outlined the situation with respect to education of persons with disabilities in India and highlighted some of the initiatives of the Ministry of Human Resource and Development. She especially drew attention to the NMEICT project of the MHRD, which is a huge fund for supporting initiatives which used ICT to promote Education through ICT. Till now, NMEICT has funded one disability related project for conversion of college level textbooks into daisy format in four languages. The project is being undertaken by IIT Calcutta. She concluded by inviting all persons and organisations present in the conference to apply to the fund for specific projects and said that the ministry would be happy to look at proposals for promoting education for persons with disabilities.

The key note address was followed by remarks from Dr. Banerjee, who gave an outline of UNESCO’s initiatives around the world on education and underscored the importance of attaining the Millennium Development Goal of Education for all for all developing countries and UNESCO’s commitment to support countries in their efforts to do so. Mr.Andrew Tru talked about WIPO’s commitment towards securing access to reading materials for persons with print disabilities in accessible formats around the world and focused on the deliberations on a treaty for the print impaired at WIPO, with special emphasis on the Stakeholders’ Platform initiative of WIPO.

The conference started off with welcome note from the organisers CIS, G3ict, UNESCO, ITU and WIPO. Smt. Vibha Puri Das, Secretary, Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource and Development gave the key note address and released the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities, brought out by CIS in collaboration with G3ict and ITU and sponsored by Hans Foundation. The handbook will help regulators around the world in their policy making. Dr. Indrajit Banerjee, Director, UNESCO gave the introductory remarks. This followed by a presentation of Axel Leblois, Executive Director G3ict, on the dispositions of the UNCRPD relating to digital accessibility.

Over the three days, there were presentations from 29 experts on a variety of topics, ranging from discussing challenges and solutions in educational institutions, to technology development and policy formulation and implementation. The profiles of the speakers are given in Annexure A. The conference was attended by 77 participants and was also attended by a large number of participants from other conferences taking place in the hotel from time to time. The list of the 77 participants is given as Annexure B.

Conclusion

The conference was highly engaging and enabled the attendees to explore the challenges and opportunities and equipped them with the tools needed to implement ICT solutions within their organizations. There was a very high level of expertise amongst educators in the conference which was apparent from the discussions, there were persons who talked about education for the blind, deaf, persons with mental disabilities etc with great authority and put forward insightful perspectives. From a technology standpoint, there was a notion that broadband which was at present not easily available was about to explode because of the huge investment that the government was putting into it and hence it was possible that all the solutions which were being discussed in the conference would be more easily available to persons with disabilities uniformly around the country. There are many opportunities to leapfrog in India. In fact, many speakers considered cloud based technologies being adopted in school systems where there was broadband infrastructure available. There was a common consensus amongst all members present in the conference that universal accessibility could only be achieved with the involvement of all stakeholders; public-private partnership is key to ensuring that all private services and technology solutions are also accessible to persons with disabilities. Participants were very impressed with the innovative teaching methods and technologies in other countries, especially in Japan.


Above is a group photo of the participants at the Edict Conference

General Recommendations

Calls for proposals for funding projects should be widely publicized: It was a common feeling of all the participants that even though there were several funds which could be tapped into for projects, there was little information about where these funds existed, how they could be applied for and used to fund different kinds of projects. Government should make some effort to ensure that information about funding opportunities should reach intended beneficiaries.
Accessibility should be integrated into existing education projects: While it is important to initiate specific accessibility related projects, it is equally necessary to integrate accessibility into existing projects such as introducing creation and distribution of accessible content in existing ICT school programmes.
Focus to be given to training students with disabilities: all the groups felt that training was a huge issue and that support for students through training was required. SSA Karnataka gave a good presentation showing how it addressed the issue of training on a large scale. The groups highlighted that the UNCRPD placed an obligation on the government to raise awareness amongst persons with disabilities.
Priority attention should be given to the development of language based tools for all Indian languages, especially minority languages. This includes development of optical character recognition (OCR) and text to speech (TTS) software in different languages. This is critical for all levels and forms of education.
Access to broadband services for persons with disabilities at affordable prices to be promoted to enable effective use of technology to access educational content.
Need to create accessible content and accessible open resources: It was stressed that all study modules used by educators, and open educational resources must be in accessible formats in order to have the widest outreach to students. Cyndi Rowland gave an example where Federal grants would not go to programmes which created non accessible content.
Public procurement should be used to promote accessibility.
Government should focus on early intervention in education because very few disabled children actually enrolled in schools and even amongst those that enrol, a very miniscule percentage go on to complete secondary and higher education.
Need to have a well developed ecosystem: All schools must be equipped with resources to teach disabled children.
Solutions and teaching methods must be innovative and highly individualised. Common approaches to teaching disabled children are less likely to be successful.
Periodic and on going trainings must be given to field practitioners with special emphasis on sharing information about solutions which have been successful or failed in the past.

Specific Recommendations

Training colleges for educators should include a course on disabilities and education for students with disabilities.
Children with disabilities in CBSE, ICSE and all state boards should get at least three years to complete class 10th and 12th examinations.
Children with disabilities should be allowed to give examinations with computers and in formats of their choice.
Each child with a disability should get compulsory training in the use of computers using appropriate assistive technology and be provided these technologies free of cost or at subsidised rates.
The government should launch a mandatory ICT training programme for all teachers in rural and urban areas to train them in the use of assistive technologies.
Course materials for all classes should be provided in CDs and accessible formats in all schools for children with disabilities.
NMEICT should fund development of text to speech software in all Indian languages so that the vast majority of Indian children who cannot read or understand English can continue to study in their native language; it is strongly recommended that such development projects also be entrusted to companies and organisations directly who have expertise in this area and should not be conditional on working with an IIT, IISC or other similar institution. The NMEICT should also fund other projects for the disabled, such as for content creation and so on.
It is recommended that the Digital Library project, which is a praiseworthy and extremely important project for creating open resources to all existing regional and English books should be made accessible since it has the potential to benefit a very large number of persons with disabilities. At the moment, the project involves all the steps which are required to create accessible books, i.e., scanning and OCRing, however, despite the fact that OCR is done, the books are still uploaded as image files and not as accessible word or text or html files which can be read using screen readers. If this was done and we had access to TTS in Indian languages, we would have access to all the traditional Indian literature and manuscripts, which are invaluable to a researcher.
It is strongly recommended that the web sites of all educational institutions, both public and private should be made accessible so that persons using screen readers can access information about the courses, admissions, read about the organisations and apply on line for admissions. It is also recommended that persons with disabilities should be given the flexibility to take on line examinations and that these should be designed in an accessible manner.
It is recommended that all educational institutions and libraries should be made physically accessible for persons using wheelchairs.

What our Speakers and Partners Had to Say

"G3ict was most pleased to organize this very effective workshop with CIS: all stakeholders required to implement the dispositions of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in matters of accessible and assistive technologies in Education actively participated. Disabled Persons Organizations, governments, industry, schools, universities administrators and educators engaged in a very dynamic and practical exchange of experience which created a great learning opportunity for all participants. It also demonstrated that solutions, funding and expertise can be leveraged in India to leapfrog current implementation methods for accessible and assistive technologies. Many participants look forward to build on the momentum of the workshop to develop an ongoing national forum on accessible and assistive ICTs in education. It was clear from the discussions held with government officials that private-public cooperation including industry, education institutions and government agencies are likely to emerge as a result of this dialogue. A most inspiring workshop, among the most successful that G3ict has been involved with in terms of engaging key ICT accessibility stakeholders at a national level."

Axel Leblois

"There is an urgent need to teach disability studies in India across all levels of school and university. Ignorance and discrimination are so high that even the media does not attempt to mask its poor and misinformed portrayal of disabled people. This conference has started a welcome conversation in that direction."

Joyojit

"This meeting brought together an amazing array of individuals that included those with disabilities, those in education, those in Ministry positions, and experts from India and abroad. The energy was palpable and the work that began at this meeting will be felt throughout India for years to come. It is clear that this will be the first of many transformative meetings sponsored by CIS."

For the presentations, click here

Download the agenda and bios here [Word, 609 kb]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/edict-report

Enabling Access to Education through ICT - A Conference in Delhi

praskrishna — 2013-02-04T09:24:20Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore in cooperation with the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICT (G3ICT), a flagship advocacy organization of the UN Global Alliance on ICT and Development (UN-GAID), the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), UNESCO, Digital Empowerment Foundation, Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment and the Deafway Foundation is organizing an international conference "Enabling Access to Education through ICT" in New Delhi from 27 to 29 October 2010. The event is sponsored by Hans Foundation.

How can accessible information and communication and assistive technologies for persons with disabilities be best deployed in schools and universities?

Background

Education is a fundamental right for all persons. In the information society, access to knowledge and information is of vital importance to ensure that all persons are able to participate as creative and productive members of the society. The UNCRPD recognizes that persons with disabilities also have a right to education and life long learning. Countries around the world have recognized the importance of education and have identified universal primary education as one of the millennium goals to be achieved by them within 2015. While definitive steps are being taken to achieve and promote universal inclusive education, there are still some grey areas remaining with respect to addressing the special needs of some groups like disabled children. The World Health Organisation estimates that 70 per cent of the world’s disabled live in developing countries like India. The advancement of persons with disabilities is impeded by several factors such as an inadequate legal framework for protecting their rights, lack of financial and skilled human resource to carry on their activities, high cost of assistive technologies, lack of training and capacity building activities, the absence of large networks of disability groups to share resources with each other and above all the lack of awareness and a collective intent on the part of educational institutions to enable the right to education for persons with disabilities. India alone is a large country with 18 official languages and many more regional variances and for any technology and content to reach the masses it has to be made available in several Indian languages. All these factors combined together make it difficult for persons with disabilities to exercise their right to education in developing countries.

The specific focus of the conference will be to look at various technologies, tools and practices which are necessary to bring education, especially distance and online education within the reach of all children with disabilities.

Children with disabilities in India are often left out of mainstream schools due to a variety of reasons, primarily the lack of awareness amongst educational organizations and teachers, near absence of infrastructural resources and lack of training in this regard. It is believed that barely two per cent of the 70 million disabled persons have access to education in India. Technological advancement in the form of assistive technologies, ubiquitous Web, multiple platforms, social networks, online libraries and digital resources, etc., have now made it possible for disabled persons to access information in accessible formats. It is therefore, important that students, teachers and educational institutions are adequately equipped to leverage the power of the Internet and ICTs to enable inclusion for persons with disabilities.

The present conference will focus on highlighting existing problems and challenges for students and educational institutions in developing countries, showcase ICT based solutions which are presently being adopted in different countries, point to existing knowledge resources and emerging trends in education. This conference is unique in so far as it is probably the first one of its kind on such a large scale in India and involves participation of various UN organizations such as the WIPO, UNESCO, ITU and the G3ICT. Amongst the various deliverables of the conference is also to document some best practice case studies on the use of ICTs in education for the disabled in neighbouring countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Thailand, evolve a set of recommendations for educators on best practices, as well as to evolve a draft for a White paper on education and ICTs for persons with disabilities for governments and educators in different countries.

A print version of the E-accessibility toolkit for policymakers which was jointly brought out by the G3ICT and ITU earlier this year will be launched for the first time at the conference.

Dates: October 27, 28 and 29
Venue: Magnolia Hall, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

Download the agenda

For further reading

Videos

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/education-through-ict

Enabling Access to Education through ICT

praskrishna — 2011-08-31T10:41:15Z

ICT workshop in Delhi...starts from Wednesday, 27 October 2010...ends on Friday, 29 October 2010.

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore in cooperation with the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICT (G3ICT), a flagship advocacy organization of the UN Global Alliance on ICT and Development (UN-GAID), the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), UNESCO, Digital Empowerment Foundation, Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment and the Deafway Foundation is organizing an international conference, Enabling Access to Education through ICT in New Delhi from 27 to 29 October 2010. The event is sponsored by Hans Foundation.

Agenda

EDICT2010: Enabling Access to Education through ICT

How can accessible information and communication and assistive technologies for persons with disabilities be best deployed in schools and universities?

October 27-29, 2010

India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, India

Co-organized by:

Event Sponsor:

Media Partners

Enabling Access to Education through ICTs: How Can Accessible Information and Communication and Assistive Technologies for Persons with Disabilities be Best Deployed in Schools and Universities?

An international inquiry organized by the Centre for Internet and Society in cooperation with G3ict, an advocacy initiative of the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development with the support of UNESCO, the International Telecommunication Union, the DAISY Consortium and the World Intellectual Property Organization

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

08.30 – 09.30 Registration opens

09.30 – 11.00 Opening session

Welcome note from the organizers, CIS, G3ict, UNESCO, ITU and WIPO

Key note address by Smt Vibha Puri Das, Secretary, Higher Education, Ministry for Human Resource and Development

Introductory remarks by Dr.Indrajit Banerjee, Director, UNESCO

– 11.15 Tea break

11.15 – 13.00 Axel Leblois, Executive Director, G3ict: ICT Accessibility and Reasonable Accommodation in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Implications of Article 9 and 24 for State Parties and Education Ministries

Why Accessible and Assistive Technologies Matter? – An Overview of ICT Barriers to Access and Solutions

Live examples and case studies of ICT accessibility issues and solutions in education. The topics – (access to websites), (published works and libraries),(classroom materials and tests), (hardware and software) and (K to 12 and university perspectives)

Speakers

Cyndi Rowland, Associate Director, Center for Persons with Disabilities: Visible and Hidden Barriers for Students and Faculty

Dr. Sushmita Mitra, Director, Student Support Services, National Institute of Open Schooling: School Textbooks and Educational Resources – Making Distance Education Work

Dr.Hemalata, Deputy Director, NCDS, IGNOU: Information Communication Technology (ICT) for Inclusion
Mr.S.C.Kunthiya, Joint Secretary Elementary Education, Ministry of HRD: Barriers and Initiatives of the HRD Ministry

James Thurston, Senior Strategist for Global Policy and Standards, Microsoft: Accessibility Guide for Educators

Q & A discussion
Moderator- Ambassador Swashpawan Singh

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch break

14.00 – 15.30 Beyond Accessibility: Implementing Assistive Technologies for Students with Disabilities

Live examples and demos. Topics - (input / output devices), (screen readers), (text to speech and voice recognition), (language support) and)

The need for individual solutions and
Training and support essentials

Speakers

Srinivasu Chakravartula, Accessibility Manager, Yahoo India: World of Assistive Technologies

Prof S R Mittal, Professor in Education, Department of Education, University of Delhi: Challenges faced by Students with Disabilities in Higher Education

Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society: Open Educational Resources
Arun Rao, CEO, The Deaf Way Foundation: ICT Applications in Deaf Education

Prof Tanmoy Bhattacharya, Coordinator, Equal Opportunities Cell, Delhi University: Education of Students with Disabilities: An Evaluation of the Indian Educational Policies

Moderator: Mrs. Mala Ramadurai

15.30 – 16.00 Tea break

16.00 – 17.30 Shifting Paradigms for Accessible and Assistive Solutions: Can India Schools Leapfrog Current Solutions?

Speakers

Prabir Purkayastha, President, Centre for Technology and Development, Chairperson of Knowledge Commons, Vice President, Delhi Science Forum and Chairperson of Program Review Committee on Perception and Control, ASTeC Programme, Ministry of Information Technology
Mandar Naik, Director - Platform Strategy with Microsoft India: Open Source Software and Proprietary Software, The Need for Interoperability

Susan Schorr, Regulatory Officer of the Regulatory and Market Environment Division of the Telecommunication Development Bureau, ITU: Connecting Schools: Global Challenges and Solutions

Claudio Giugliemma, President, Dominic Foundation (Switzerland): Accessible e-learning

Professor Kenryu Nakamura, Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Tokyo: 99 Tips in My Pocket In-Class Use of Mobile Phones for Students with Disabilities

Moderator: Noopur Jhunjhunwala

17.30 Adjournment, Announcements for Next Day Program

Thursday, October 28, 2010

09.30 – 11.00 Morning Session – UNESCO-CIS Case Studies Overview Education in ICTs Initiatives in the Asia Pacific Region: Success Stories

Speakers

Nirmita Narasimhan, Programme Manager, Centre for Internet and Society: Presentation on UNESCO case study

James Mathew- Insite, Project Coordinator of Insight: Insight ICT for the Differently abled

Professor Mamoru Iwabuchi, Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology University of Tokyo: Development of ICT based Assistive Technology for Minority Languages

Sachin Malhan, CEO and Co-founder, Inclusive Planet: The Global Social Library for the Visually Impaired

Moderator: Dr.Indrajit Banerjee

11.00 – 11.20 Tea break

11.20 – 13.00 Plenary Session with DAISY Speakers - The New Frontier for Access to Published Works: Success Stories and Roadblocks

Speakers

Hiroshi Kawamura, President, DAISY Consortium: Daisy Consortium Presentation
Viji Dilip, International Program Manager, Bookshare: The Bookshare Success Story

Mr.Andrew Tu, Senior Advisor to Assistant Director General of WIPO: Facilitating Access to Copyright Works for Visually Impaired Persons – The WPO VIP Initiative

Mr. Vivek, Mehra, MD and CEO Sage publications
Dr. Sam Taraporevala, Associate Professor and Head of Department of Sociology, St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai: India’s situation

Discussion and Q & As

Moderator: TBC

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch break

14.00 – 15.30 DAISY Best Practices for Educators

Speakers

George Kerscher, Secretary General of the DAISY Consortium and President of the International Digital Publishing Forum: Latest Technical Developments and Sample Implementations such as in DAISY Mathematics

Prashant Ranjan Verma, Consultant, DAISY Consortium: Over view of Hardware and Software Tools for Authoring and Playback of DAISY Books

Birendra Raj Pokharel, President, National Federation of the Disabled-Nepal, Convener, DAISY Nepal Foundation, Vice Chair, DPI Asia Pacific and Chair, DPI South Asia: Sharing of Experiences on Implementation of DAISY Book Production and Distribution in Developing Countries

Michael Katzmann, Chief of the Materials Development Division, National Library Services for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, USA: Best Practices in Providing Accessible Materials to Persons with Disabilities

Moderator: George Abraham, CEO, Score Foundation

15.30 – 16.00 Tea break

16.00 – 17.30 Break-out Sessions:
Group 1: Primary education

Group 2: Secondary education
Group 3: Tertiary education
Group 4: Vocational and lifelong learning

Each group covers

Covers 2 to 3 case studies presented by field practitioners with Q&As
Discuss key challenges and success factors as described by field practitioners

Agreed on key policy recommendations to be presented in plenary session

Facilitator: Sunil Abraham

Moderators and rapporteurs to be identified for each group

17.30 Adjournment

19.30 Conference Dinne at Gymkhana Club being coorganised by Daisy Forum of India, Bookshare and CIS

Friday, October 29, 2010

09.30 – 11.00 Developing an ICT Accessibility and Assistive Technology Support Eco-system for Educators

The topics – (centers of excellence and peer support), (training the trainers), (employing disabled persons as trainers), (resources for field practitioners), (role of universities), (standards), (public procurement), (international examples), (discussion with selected case studies leaders and participants and India’s Ministry of Education officials)

Speakers

Cyndi Rowland, Associate Director, Center for Persons with Disabilities: Impact of Lack of Accessible ICTs for Students with Disabilities – An International Perspective

Arun Mehta, President, Bidirectional Access Promotion Society: Opportunities and Challenges for Education in a Neuro-Diverse World
Joyojeet Pal, Visiting Assistant Professor, Polytechnic Institute of New York University and a Computing Innovation fellow at University of Colorado Boulder: Developing a curriculum in Disability Studies and Assistive Technology for higher education
Shanti Raghavan, Founder and Managing Trustee, Enable India: Centres of Excellence, Train the Trainers, Employing Disabled Persons as Trainers

Moderator: Geet Oberoy

11.00 - 11.20 Tea break
11.20 – 13.00 Wrap-up session presentation of group work, feedback and action points. On site web based survey of participants on policy priorities. Will be used to edit white paper.

Facilitator: Axel Leblois

13.00 – 14.00 Closing lunch

14.00 – 15.30 Afternoon Organizer’s Private Session

Summarizing key findings
Looking at on-line survey results
Drafting key points of white paper
Drafting table of contents

Next steps

15.30 – 16.00 Tea break
16.00 Adjournment

Download the agenda

For details on the event in the digital LEARNING newsletter

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/education-through-ICT

eAccessibility Workshop 2013

praskrishna — 2013-12-26T10:47:22Z

Directorate of Information Technology (DIT), in association with Mahaonline Limited (MoL) and NIXI has organized a workshop on eAccessibility on November 19-20, 2013 at Mumbai and Pune. The Centre for Internet and Society is one of the trainer organisations for the event.

See the original published by the Directorate of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra. Link to the event page.

For this workshop, DIT is inviting developer communities and Software companies primarily working on Government of Maharashtra websites (which are citizen-centric, high-traffic, high impact and important ones), to teach them about accessibility and try to make their websites/application compliant to WCAG 2.0 Level A. It may be noted that Maharashtra’s egovernance policy 2011 specifies that websites/applications should be WCAG 2.0 Level A compliant.

The primary aim of this workshop is to demonstrate the importance of creating accessible web sites and to educate the developers of these web sites on how to incorporate accessibility features into new as well as existing web sites. The training will comprise both theory-oriented and practical (Hands-on) sessions on their own websites.

Topics for workshop:

Sensitization, what is accessible computing, how disabled interact with computer/web, WCAG, Basic principles of web accessibility, assistive tools/products

Implementation methods : HTML Markup validation, Treatment of Links, Page structure/Content, Menu, Images, Forms, Colour, Table, CSS, Keyboard, PDF, etc.

Managing and maintaining accessibility, Access policy design etc.

Targeted Audience for the Hands-On Training:

The participants would be experience technical professionals already involved in developing high traffic/high impact important web sites for Mahatrashtra government clients, with good knowledge of HTML, XML, CSS, etc. The sessions would give hands-on training to the participants, to make the applications / websites they are working on, “Accessible”.Participants can be:

Web designers, Software Developers, Business Analyst & System Analysts working on Government of Maharashtra Projects

Developers nominated by NIC DIOs for District specific sites

About Trainer Organisations

he trainers will be specialists in web accessibility. We have coordinated with Three Front-Runner organizations in India working on Accessibility, namely The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Barrierbreak and Advanced Blind Student LearningCentre, Univ. Of Pune, to participate in this workshop as CO- TRAINERS.

Please read more about these three organizations.

Workshop Schedule

The schedule of the workshop (to be conducted simultaneously in Mumbai and Pune Locations:

Workshop	Schedule	Highlights
Main Workshop	19-20 Nov 2013	Theory and Hands-on sessions by trainers
Follow up workshop	Second week of December 2013 (Date to be finalized during main workshop)	Review of compliance work done by participating companies and certification of websites for e-Accessibility, followed by Concluding session.

Parallel Tracks and Participant Groups

This workshop will be conducted jointly in Mumbai & Pune and would be achieved by associating with co-trainer organizations with participant-grouping as described below:

Co-Trainer	Group to be alloted	Seat Capacity
The Centre for Internet and Society	Mumbai: Group A	20
Barrierbreak Ltd.	Mumbai: Group B	20
Advanced Technology Blind Student's Learning Centre, University of Pune	Pune: Group C	20

Group A and B: Participants from Mumbai, Nashik, Nagpur etc.
Group C : Participants from Pune and adjoining cities.

Location preference of the participants shall be asked at the time of registrations. It will be confirmed depending upon seat-availability, on first-come-first-serve basis.

Follow-up Workshop / Concluding session

There will be a followup workshop (1 day), which shall be important milestone for the entire initiative. During this, First half shall be devoted for compliance-check and actual certification of Websites by Trainer/faculty members. In second half of the day, DIT and MoL would invite larger group of stake-holders, namely concerned Secretaries / HoD of client Organizations.

Expected Outcome of the workshop

At the end of the workshop, as tangible output, it is expected that the sites taken up during the workshop shall be made more accessible, to have larger compliance factor for WCAG 2.0 level A. As part of one of the outcome of the workshop, it is expected that 25 to 30 inaccessible government web sites shall be retrofitting with accessibility features, to make them compliance to WCAG 2.0 Level A.

Cost of participation

Registered participants can attend this workshop free-of-cost.

All Other Costs (Travelling, Lodging, Boarding etc.) are to be borne by the participants/attendees.

Venue Details

Location	Groups	Seat Capacity
Mumbai : Mahaonline Sion Office	A and B	40 (20+20)
Pune: Mahaonline Training Academy Premises	Group C	20

Registrations

The companies working for govt. clients have to register their staff (who are working on a set of websites) for this workshop using following link:

URL: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/eAccessibility_workshop

Maximum 4 staff member can be nominated by a company. For a website, maximum 2 persons can be nominated. The decision of DIT/MoL about selection of a website/participant for this workshop shall be final and binding.

Contact Details

Email: payal.bulani@mahaonline.gov.in
Phone: (022) 6707 7000 Ext 103
Fax: (022) 2402 0507

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/e-accessibility-workshop-2013

e-Accessibility: A Wiki Project

rebecca — 2011-08-23T04:51:08Z

Envisaged and funded by the National Internet Exchange of India, and executed by the Centre for Internet and Society, a Wiki site pertaining to issues of disability and e-accessibility has recently been launched.

Such a project is most timely as India has a large percentage of disabled persons in its population— estimated to be over seven per cent as per the Census of 2001. Taken in figures, this amounts to roughly 70-100 million persons with disabilities in the territory of India. Out of this number, a mere two per cent of persons with disabilities residing in urban areas have access to information and assistive technologies.

Regrettably, there still remains a lack of awareness on how information and services can be best delivered to persons with disabilities. Parents, teachers, government authorities and society at large remain equally unaware of the options technology today presents to enable persons with disabilities live independent and productive lives. Therefore, the wiki aims foremost to serve as a resource for persons with disabilities and their families, NGO’s, as well as the members of education and legal communities--providing valuable information surrounding disability and electronic accessibility.

Covered in 125 article wiki project includes a broad collection of articles pertaining to topics of accessibility for users, developers, organizations, developments in India, and accessibility for nations. With hopes of expansion, wikipage can be accessed and edited collaboratively at http://accessibility.cis-india.org.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/e-accessibility-a-wiki-project

e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities - Daisy

praskrishna — 2011-08-22T12:46:42Z

the daisy zip file

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/e-accessibility-daisy

e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities (Russian Version)

praskrishna — 2012-04-26T10:04:08Z

The e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities is based upon the online ITU-G3ict e-Accessibility Policy Toolkit for Persons with Disabilities (www.e-accessibilitytoolkit.org) which was released in February 2010. This is the Russian translation of the same.

The Toolkit and its companion handbook have contributions from more than 60 experts around the world on ICT accessibility and is a most valuable addition to policy makers and regulators, advocacy and research organisations and persons with disabilities on the implementation of the ICT dispositions of the CRPD.

The handbook is a joint publication of ITU, G3ict and the Centre for Internet and Society, in cooperation with The Hans Foundation. The book is compiled and edited by Nirmita Narasimhan. Preface by Dr. Hamadoun I. Toure, Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union. Introduction by Dr. Sami Al-Basheer, Director, ITU-D. Foreword by Axel Leblois, Executive Director, G3ict.

UNIC Moscow (United Nations Information Centre - Moscow) has translated the English version of the kit to Russian. For more information on the translation initiative by UNIC Moscow, click here.

Download the Russian version here (PDF, 1045 kb)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/e-accessibility-kit-in-russian

e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities

nirmita — 2013-07-30T08:29:06Z

The Centre for Internet and Society is proud to announce the launch of its first publication, the “e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities" in collaboration with the G3ict (Global Initiative for Inclusive Information Communication Technologies) and ITU (International Telecommunications Union), and sponsored by the Hans Foundation. The handbook is compiled and edited by Nirmita Narasimhan. Dr. Hamadoun I. Toure, Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union has written the preface, Dr. Sami Al-Basheer, Director, ITU-D has written the introduction and Axel Leblois, Executive Director, G3ict has written the foreword.

The book is based on the online e-accessibility toolkit for policy makers (www.e-accessibilitytoolkit.org) which was released by G3ict and ITU in February 2010. The book has contributions from over 60 experts around the world on ICT accessibility and is a most valuable addition to policy makers and regulators, advocacy and research organisations and persons with disabilities on the implementation of the ICT dispositions of the UNCRPD. We wish to express our sincere appreciation to all the contributors, G3ict and the ITU for making this possible.

The handbook was released by Smt.Vibha Puri Das, Secretary, Dept of Higher Education, Ministry of HRD at the International Conference on Enabling Access to Education through ICT held from 27 to 30 October 2010 in New Delhi. The printed book comes with a CD containing its daisy version. It is divided into four chapters:

The Accessibility Imperative
Policies and Programs
Solutions that Work
Accessibility Policy Making: An International Perspective
Appendix A: Accessibility Policy Comparison Grid

Also there are two appendices:

Appendix A: Accessibility Policy Comparison Grid
Appendix B: Online Toolkit Site Map

The topics mainly focus on:

What is ICT accessibility?
What the CRPD says about ICT accessibility
How to best assess disability demographics and the impact of ICT barriers
Identifying ICT accessibility legislative, regulatory, policy and programs gaps versus CRPD guidelines and mandates
Engaging Disabled Persons Organizations and other key stakeholders in policy making
Policy development by area
Setting standards
Public procurement
Promoting assistive technologies
Promoting accessible product development & Universal Design
International cooperation
Wireless phones
Radios
Television
Remote consoles
Landline phones
Websites
Personal computers
Software
Electronic kiosks
Broadband services
Country analysis:
United States of America
United Kingdom
Australia
Germany
Portugal
New Zealand
Canada
Ireland
Italy
Sweden
European Union
Japan
Korea
Developing countries
Summary

The publication of this book would not have been possible without the generous support of The Hans Foundation, to whom we would like to express our sincere thanks. We trust that readers will find this book most useful in their accessibility work.

The complete version of the book is available in pdf and daisy formats. These can be downloaded by clicking on the links below:

e-Accessibility Policy Handbook: PDF
e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities: Daisy Format

Note: Daisy users can read the book in Amis or Emerson

e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities: Braille File

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/e-accessibility-handbook

e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities

praskrishna — 2011-08-22T12:46:29Z

PDF

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/e-accessibility

e-Accessibility Policy Handbook (Daisy)

praskrishna — 2011-08-22T12:46:16Z

Daisy format of e-accessibility policy handbook

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/daisy-format

Draft Comments

sachia — 2011-08-22T12:52:14Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/Draft%20Comments.doc

Dot Bharat domain to roll out on August 21

praskrishna — 2014-09-08T07:08:32Z

Web addresses are set to get multilingual in India. Soon you will be able to type in addresses in a web browser in the Devnagri script – with “dot bharat” standing in for the currently common “dot in” domain to begin with. The roll-out of the same begins on August 21.

This was originally published by IANS and mirrored in Firstpost on August 19, 2014. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

In the 90-day “sunrise period” of the roll-out those with registered trademarks will be able to register domain names in languages that use the Devnagri script, such as Hindi, Marathi, Boro, Dogri etc. After the sunrise period, it will be thrown open to regular users of the internet.

The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), an autonomous non-profit organisation, is responsible for peering of ISPs and routing the domestic traffic within the country. The NIXI and the government’s Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) have worked on enabling this country code top level domain (ccTLD) of dot bharat. They say more such domains in different scripts and languages will eventually follow.

Currently, one can find content in various languages online. However, the URLs or web addresses are in English. With this rollout, even URLs would be in Hindi or Marathi. “Once the sunrise period runs smoothly, we will introduce other languages in other scripts such as Bengali, Punjabi, Kannada, Telugu etc. There is no timeline set for it yet, but we hope there will be enough pressure with the adoption of the Devnagri domains to implement it soon,” says Mahesh Kulkarni, program coordinator at the C-DAC, heading the language technology group.

A few government websites too will be a part of the launch next week by the union minister of communications and information technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad. “For example, the pmindia dot gov dot in will be pradhanmantri dot sarkar dot bharat,” says Dr Govind, CEO of NIXI.

While some quarters have welcomed the introduction of the new domain, others are doubtful of its success given the low internet penetration and low literacy rate in the country. A June 2014 report from research firm eMarketer, India had the third largest online user-base globally after China and the US but had the lowest internet penetration growth in Asia Pacific at 17.4%. Osama Manzar, who heads the Digital Empowerment Foundation, suggests getting more people and public institutions online rolling out local language domain names.

“This is not a bad move, but I doubt and wonder if it will encourage people to buy domain names in Indian languages. Is it in sync with the national digital infrastructure? It is important that the government encourage every department and village panchayat to get online with a website along with this,” says Manzar.

Sahitya Akademi-winning Hindi writer Uday Prakash finds the Devnagri domain a welcome move, but stresses on the importance of making quality content in regional languages available online. “It’s a good step and will help those who are not comfortable with English. However, the problem remains that most of the content online is in English. If I search for Robin Williams in English, I will find hundreds of webpages. But if I google the same name in Devnagri, I’ll hardly find anything,” says Prakash.

On the other hand, there is also the view that the move towards a multilingual web need not follow a set path. “If a poor person buys a mobile phone before he build a toilet, who are we to judge? It is a market phenomenon. Like a jigsaw, some pieces of the puzzle may be worked out in advance. There are things like Indic input keyboards, text to speech and speech to text that need to be in place before an Indic language speaker can have the same experience as an English language user of the internet,” says Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bangalore-based research organization Center for Internet and Society.

In October 2013, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) delegated generic top level domains in Arabic, Chinese and Cyrillic scripts. This was under the Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) fast track process of the ICANN, which began in 2009, inviting requests from countries for territory names in scripts other than Latin. Meanwhile domestically, the union government has made a push for the use of local languages.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/tech-first-post-dot-bharat-domain-to-roll-out-on-august-21

Disabled kid? sorry, no admission!

praskrishna — 2016-11-30T15:28:17Z

Mita Sarkar, a mother of a six-year-old girl who has cerebral palsy (CP) had to approach around ten private schools for her daughter's admission. She heard the same response from every school she approached: “Education is for all and we accept all children, but we are not equipped to school your child”.

The article by Akhila Damodaran was published in the New Indian Express on November 28, 2016. Nirmita Narasimhan was quoted.

Mita says, “When Monali was seven months old, she had a traumatic brain injury. She lost more than half of her brain cells. Now her condition is similar to kids with cerebral palsy.” She has right side hemiparesis – a weakness in the right side of the body. She has difficulties with motor coordination, walking, speech and attention span.

“But according to her doctors, psychologist and therapists, her intelligence level is good and she can continue a regular school curriculum with some facilitation and acceptance from the schools, teachers and peers,” says the mother. With her tireless pursuit to seek admission for her daughter, Mita finally struck gold with a private school. Monali is currently in LKG.

Inclusive Education

Though the Persons with Disabilities (PWD) Act 1995 and Right to Education states that children with disabilities have equal rights to education and can be admitted in a normal schools, many schools seem to make an excuse that they do not have enough manpower and resources for admitting children with special needs. The PWD Act recognises CP as a disability.

The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan, a programme started by the government for universalisation of elementary education also states that equity, to mean not only equal opportunity, but also creation of conditions in which the disadvantaged sections of the society - children of SC, ST, Muslim minority, landless agricultural workers and children with special needs, etc. - can avail of the opportunity. Access, not to be confined to ensuring that a school becomes accessible to all children within specified distance but implies an understanding of the educational needs and predicament of the traditionally excluded categories - the SC, ST and others sections of the most disadvantaged groups, the Muslim minority, girls in general, and children with special needs.

Nirmita Narasimhan, Policy Director of the Disability Access vertical of Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), says, “Inclusive education is a good model, provided there are good staffs and resources available. The staff should get equal pay as that of other teachers. It is a good method to sensitise normal children about the disability issue as well.”

Rights not being Implemented

G N Nagaraj, President, The Karnataka State Disabled and Caregivers Federation says there are no proper facilities available for special children. “There are no sufficient special educators for such children. The attendance is poor. How many disabled children are passing SSLC? If the government is spending so much, what is finally happening? We filed an RTI three years ago to find the number of disabled students who passed SSLC and we learned that it is only around thousand from all over Karnataka who have passed SSLC,” asks Nagaraj.

Separate Wing for Disabled Children

But the advocate C V Sudhindra believes the Act that allows inclusive education may not be a practical proposition. He explains, “Children with disability will find it difficult to adjust in a classroom with abled children. It could be demoralising for them. They would mingle with abled children and understand what skills they are deprived of. It is a burden on the institution to have facilities for special children. The needs for every disability vary. You need have not just a trained teacher but also other facilities like toilets. It affects the normal functioning of a school.”

He adds a separate school is ideal for them. He cites an example, “You cannot accommodate people with disabilities in the Olympic competition. That is why we have Paralympic competition. The Act should be in tune with reality and should not affect the regular affairs of the people.”

Ruby Singh, an activist who is the founder of ALFAA, agrees with the advocate. She says the Bill can encourage parents to get their children educated and get employed. “When the government can allocate land and subsidy to schools, it can also allocate funds for a special wing with good resources and where more courses and opportunities are created for special children. The services should switch from charity mode to rights mode,” she says.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/new-indian-express-november-28-2016-akhila-damodaran-disabled-kid

Disabled demand rollback of GST on aids

praskrishna — 2017-07-09T02:21:46Z

It has been eight years since Mansoor Ahmed changed his caliper. The one he owns was bought for Rs 20,000. Now, they cost more than double. “It is a challenge to buy a caliper when the cost of living has gone up so much. I know really poor people who haven't changed calipers in 15-20 years. After a point, it could cause the disability to worsen,“ says Ahmed, a senior manager with a Bengaluru-based non-profit.

The article by Sandhya Soman was published in the Economic Times on July 7, 2017.

For disabled people like Ahmed, the 5% GST on basic aids and appliances like calipers, Braille writers and cochlear implants is an additional load. “We are already burdened by other costs -illnesses and medicines. It's quite unfair if I must pay more if I have to walk,“ says Ahmed.

The decision to tax aids and appliances for the disabled continues to draw flak despite a hastily put together statement last week reducing GST and capping it at 5% for 22 categories of products. Cars will continue to have 18% GST even if they are retrofitted for a disabled driver. The disabled find it hard to reconcile that they will have to shell out more while items such as sindoor and bangles got a waiver. This is the government that launched the Ac cessible India campaign and Inclusive India campaign. I don't understand why they should charge people to walk with a cane,“ says Nirmita Narasimhan, policy director, The Centre for Internet and Society.

The economic burden is accentuated by a lack of institutional support, whether in terms of accessibility to public transport or provision of affordable aids. “There is close correlation between poverty and disability . Most of us can't step out of our houses as roads, pavements and public transport are inaccessible,“ asks Javed Abidi, director, National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People.

Narasimhan notes in her submission to the government that the 21 million disabled record low literacy level (59%, below national average of 74.4%) and low work participation (36.3%).

To reduce the financial burden, Abidi and others fought to do away with taxes on aids since 2000. “We could bring down tax rates, sometimes as high as 20%, on various items to 5%. In 2006, it became zero and the last decade was the most important one for disability rights. Instead of making aids more affordable, we are now going back 10 years and charging 5% again,“ says Abidi, a wheelchair user.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/economic-times-july-7-2017-sandhya-soman-disabled-demand-rollback-of-gst-on-aids