Centre for Internet and Society

NVDA & eSpeak Team Members

praskrishna — 2015-01-22T01:13:57Z

Listed below are profiles of the team members working on the NVDA and eSpeak project.

NVDA Team Members

Dipendra Manocha

Dipendra Manocha is working with the DAISY Consortium which is working in the area of providing publications in accessible formats to persons who cannot read normal print. He is the lead of training and technical support and coordinates DAISY Consortium’s projects in developing countries. He is member of the Executive Committee of the World Blind Union and is managing trustee of Saksham. He is the president of the DAISY Forum of India which is a network of 92 organisations in India serving the persons with blindness and low vision. .

Since 1993, he has been working for the mission of providing technology solutions to limit the limitations of persons with blindness. Key areas of his contribution include computer training to open new areas in education and employment, Indian Language braille translation and screen reading software, DAISY standards for production and distribution of digital talking, braille and e-text books in South Asian Countries.

Awards

National Award by Government of India
Lakshmipat Singhania National Leadership award by IIM Lucknow
IBN-7 Super Idal award
Sitaram Jindal Foundation award

Manish Aggarwal

Manish has over 14 years of extensive software industry experience successfully leading large teams to design and implement complex business-critical information technology solutions. In his last 12 years at Sapient, Manish has worked for various clients in the Automotive, Healthcare, finance and Insurance industries. Manish also works with CIS on the open source NVDA screen reader project. The purpose of this project is to improve the free NVDA screen reader considering the specific requirements of Indian users and Indian language speaking blind users.

Siddharth Gupta

Siddharth strives to make a difference to the lives of the Visually Impaired persons by making data and information accessible to them. In NVDA, he has made contribution towards Indian Language Phonetics , Unicode Symbols like Mathematical Symbols, Symbols used in Physics, Chemistry, Emoticons and other frequently used Symbols. He has also tried to improve the accessibility of MS Excel. Siddhartha hails from Uttarakhand. He is a graduate in Computer Science Engg. Currently, he is a Project Associate at IIT Delhi. Prior to this, he was SAP ABAP developer at Infosys.

Dinesh Kaushal

Dinesh is currently working for the development of NVDA, an open source screen reader. He has more than 10 year’s experience in assistive technology development and accessibility implementation. Dinesh pioneered development of Hindi screen reader in India allowing persons with blindness to read / write in Hindi independently. He also spearheaded Braille development for Mobile devices for Code Factory and helped many people with blindness all over the world to communicate with other people without significant barriers. Dinesh successfully lead more than 100 accessibility projects in Wipro and helped Wipro win many awards including National Award for the best accessible website.

Suman Dogra

Suman Dogra has experience in accessibility testing on various accessibility products such as screen reader, PACMate, Open Book, MAGic etc. She has involved in non-profit management working in teams to provide various facilities related to technologies and employment to the differently abled persons. In NVDA project, she is involved in testing, training and coordinating the language testing.

eSpeak Team Members

Mahesh Inder Singh Khosla

Mahesh is a resident of Punjab, heading the Digitizing Programme for the Reference Library with Punjab Government. His deep interest in language and technology made him study Masters in Punjabi and to understand the ancient language base he studied Religious scriptures and did his Masters in Religious Science too. Having lost his vision at an early age Mahesh had to struggle hard to learn computers. He has created Punjabi Unicode based Keyboard Layout for the benefit of his community. With all his acquired knowledge on languages and strong technical interest, he worked on Punjabi TTS and in the year 2013, joined as a developer in CIS to contribute in the development of other Indian languages. He is now working on Gujarati, Marathi, Kashmiri and Kannada. He is making the software named espeak for Indian languages for the whole team and its users. Apart from language development and building the programme, he is giving technical support to the language team and is also involved in managing the bug tracking system.

Mahesh is an active Social Worker. He is the Secretary of Navchetna Institute for the Blind which is working to support visually challenged children providing free boarding and lodging along with free education. He is also the Chief Organising Secretary of Welfare Association for the Visually Challenged Employees giving technical support for the benefit of the visually challenged employees so that they are able to perform well in their workplace. He has been honoured by a lot of local Societies for his contribution in different fields. (Lions Club, Dedicated Brothers, Rainbow Club, Triveni, Sahitya kalash, Bharat Netraheen Samaj, Welfare Association for the Visually Challenged Employees).

Prasenjit Sen

Prasenjit is associated with Mahiti. He has 20 years of experience. He manages many projects. Mahiti has worked with numerous organisations since 1998 making a social impact from local to global level. To support them, Mahiti has produced websites, web portals, mobile applications, management information systems, print and online communication material including appeals and short films. Mahiti.org is integrated with Mahiti Infotech that's known to provide end-to-end IT solutions to businesses around the world. Together Mahiti a group of 50+ technocrats and sociologists committed to support social change through imaginative use of technology and creative communication.

Mahiti is strong advocate of principles for free and open source and it actively contributes to the FOSS movement.

Dr. Homiyar Mobedji

Dr. Homiyar is the CEO of National Association for the Blind, New Delhi. He is the training coordinator for NVDA project. He has extensive experience in the non government social work sector. He has worked for Enable India Bangalore, Technical Training Institute of the Pune and Blind Men’s Association, Gujarat. He also worked for physiotherapy college for the blind, Mumbai.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/nvda-e-speak-team-profiles

Training of Malayalam eSpeak with NVDA

nirmita — 2015-07-20T15:19:35Z

NVDA team conducted a two days training on January 24 and 25, 2015 in Tiruvananthapuram. The programme was inaugurated by Dr. Veeramanikandan, Pro Vice Chancellor of the Kerala University and the eSpeak new version was launched by Suresh S, PSC member, who is an advocate for the blind in getting jobs in Kerala government.

Felicitation speeches were delivered by Prof. L. Unnikrishnan, Head of Department, Economics Department, SB College and Dr. Sindhu Nair, Professor at St. Michales College. Both colleges were running a DAISY resource centre for their students. The programme was chaired Er. N.T.Nair, vice chairman of Chakshumathi.

Chakshumathi’s main trainer Akhil M. took espeak Malayalam classes and Dr. Homiyar took classes on NVDA and accessible equipment. The participants were first given a round of training on reading with espeak and then given a through training on Malayalam keyboard layout and combinations.

Naufal T N, trainer of Chakshumathi gave an orientation to all participants on using mobile phones to read Malayalam newspapers and reading contents.

Closing ceremony on 25th was attended by Chakshumathi’s Chairman Prof. V.K. Damodaran, along with representatives IEEE SIGHT (Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technologies) who are the partners of Chakshumathi’s accessible eyes free science projects. IEEE was represented by their Humanitarian technologies former global chair Dr. Amarnath Raja and Ms. Holly Schneider Brown, SIGHT staff lead from New York headquarters. She was on a journey to Tiruvananthapuram and provided an update on the SIGHT program, as well as SIGHT group activities from around the world. Ms. Holy Brown distributed the certificates to participants.

Chakshumathi is now planning to conduct regional workshops on espeak and NVDA at their resource centres at Calicut University and Kochi office for local participants.

List of Participants

Ali Mon
Sudheer S
Sreehari Narayanan
Ajith Kumar
Subhin H
Abin H
Rajith Kumar
Nandhu C S
Kannan C S
Reshma S
Divya S
Marina Damiyan
Mariyumma C P
Nabeela M
Meharuniza S
Sreeja V.K.
Vineesh Kumar
Chandra Babu
Raghavan
Albert
Safi Saif
Santhosh
Robinraj
Mubina M
Sabeena M
Anil Kumar
Lijin A
Ashok Kumar
Prof. L. Unnikrishnan
Akhil M (Chief Trainer)
Noufal T N (Asst. Trainer)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-e-speak-malayalam-with-nvda

January 2015 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2015-02-26T17:02:23Z

Our newsletter for the month of January can be accessed below.

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the first issue of the newsletter (January 2015). Archives of our newsletters can be accessed at: http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

Highlights

Forbes India in an article titled “Minds that (should) matter” names Sunil Abraham as one of the Thinkers who best explain a rapidly-changing India to the world (and the world to India).

Subhashish Panigrahi won the 2015 Opensource.com Community Awards under the category 'People's Choice Awards'.
Sumandro Chattapadhyay has joined CIS team as Research Director. Sumandro has replaces Nishant Shah who stepped down from the position.
Rishika on behalf of CIS prepared an analysis of the disability exceptions in Copyright Legislations . The blog post provides in detail the country-wise exceptions in copyright legislations.
NVDA team conducted a training programme on Malayalam eSpeak with NVDA in Thiruvananthapuram on January 24 and 25, 2015. Chakshumathi's main trainer Akhil M. took eSpeak Malayalam classes and Dr. Homiyar took classes on NVDA and accessible equipment.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Government of India invited comments on the First Draft of India's National IPR Policy. CIS made its submission.
As part of the Pervasive Technologies project, Nehaa Chaudhari has produced a research methodology document which maps the existing literature around questions of competition law intersecting with intellectual property law on the specific issue of enabling access to sub hundred dollar mobile devices .
Maggie Huang, an intern at CIS as part of the Pervasive Technologies project has written a blog entry which documents, synthesizes, and analyses learnings from attending various music industry trade conferences.

CIS-A2K team on December 28, 2014 organized a MediaWiki hackathon event for Telugu Wikimedia community members to enhance their skills and understanding of technical matters related to MediaWiki usage. The theme of the workshop was “Mediawiki, its extensions and tools to work around” and it aimed at allowing Wikipedians to use MediaWiki tools more effectively.

Subhashish Panigrahi authored an op-ed that highlights the need for taking Odia language to the international fora instead of keeping it confined in the books. The op-ed was published in the Samaja on January 30, 2015.

A journal article by Subbiah Arunachalam, Perumal Ramamoorthi and Subbiah Gunasekaran the steps taken by scientists and librarians in the West to reclaim ease of access to research findings with what is happening in India along with a few suggestions was published by the Indian National Science Academy Journals.
The Supreme Court, in Sabu George v. Union of India and Ors. (WP (C) 341/2008), is looking into the presence of material regarding pre-natal sex determination on search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo that has been falling foul of section 22 of the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 as amended in 2002. Geeta Hariharan and Balaji Subramanian analyse this in their blog post.
As part of its Making Methods for Digital Humanities project, CIS-RAW organized two consultations on new figures of learning in the digital context. For a proposed journal issue on the theme of 'bodies of knowledge' which draws upon these conversations, participants were invited to write short sketches on these figures of learning. Tejas Pande wrote an abstract which examines the figure of the visual designer, and emerging practices of mapmaking.

Accessibility and Inclusion

Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. CIS in partnership with CLPR (Centre for Law and Policy Research) compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). The publication has been finalised and is being printed. The draft chapters and the quarterly reports can be accessed on the project page. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Update

January 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; January 31, 2015).

Event Organized

Training of Malayalam eSpeak with NVDA (Co-organized by CIS, DAISY Forum of India and Chakshumathi Assistive Technology Centre; Thiruvananthapuram; January 24-25, 2015).

Other

Blog Entries

Disability Exceptions in Copyright Legislations (Rishika; January 12, 2015).
Response to RTI Applications from Different States on Accessibility (Anandhi Viswanathan; January 31, 2015).

Access to Knowledge

As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

Pervasive Technologies

As part of the Pervasive Technologies project, Maggie Huang conducted interviews with fabless semiconductor industry professionals in Taiwan. The findings from the samples are highlighted in four part series. The third and fourth parts have been published:

Blog Entries

Pervasive Technologies Project Working Document Series: Document 2 Literature Review on Competition Law + IPR + Access to < $100 Mobile Devices (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 1, 2015).
Relationship between App Developers and App Platforms: An Intellectual Property Perspective (Anubha Sinha; January 7, 2015).
Beyond Alcohol and Angel Investors: Building Business Models in an Age of Mobile Music Streaming (Conference Learnings) (Maggie Huang; January 20, 2015).
National IPR Policy Series: The Development of the National IPR Policy (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 22, 2015).
RTI Responses - MHRD IP Chairs: Details of Funding & Expenditure (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 31, 2015).
National IPR Policy Series: CIS Comments to the First Draft of the National IP Policy (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 31, 2015).

Participation in Events

Global Intellectual Property Convention (Organized by ITAG Solutions; Mumbai; January 15 - 17, 2015). Rohini Lakshané attended the event.
Library and Information Professionals Summit (LIPS) 2015 (Organized by Society for Library Professionals, National Law University Delhi with UN Information Centre for India & Bhutan and Special Library Association (USA), Asian Chapter; January 23 - 24, 2015; New Delhi). Nehaa Chaudhari was on a panel discussing Internet Technology and Challenges for Libraries in IPR Regime. She made a presentation on Technology (Internet?), Libraries and the Law (?).

Upcoming Event

Announcing the Institutional Partner for the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest 2015 (Organized by the National Law School of India University; New Delhi; December 2015).

Wikipedia

As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).

Op-ed

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଅନ୍ତର୍ଜାତୀୟ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ (Subhashish Panigrahi; The Samaja, January 31, 2015).

Blog Entries

Telugu Wikimedia Hackathon 2014 (Rahmanuddin Shaik; January 31, 2015).

Telugu Wikimedia Hackathon 2014 (Rahmanuddin Shaik; January 31, 2015). The event was conducted on December 28, 2014. However, the blog post was published in January 2015.

News and Media Coverage

CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Works of Veerasalingam Pantulu on web (Hans India; January 1, 2015).
Centre should partner local communities in 'Digital India': Expert (IANS and mirrored in Zee News; January 9, 2015).
Musician donates Gwalior Gharana songs to free e-library (Times of India; January 20, 2015).

Announcement

2015 Opensource.com Community Awards : Every year, Opensource.com awards people from our community who have excelled in contributing and sharing stories about open source. Subhashish Panigrahi from the CIS-A2K team won the award under the category 'People's Choice Awards'.
CIS-A2K team also published the Telugu Wikipedia Stats tables. Most metrics have been collected from a partial dump (aka stub dump), which contains all revisions of every article, meta data, but no page content.

Participation in Event

Citizen Media Summit 2015 (Organized by Global Voices; January 24 - 25, 2015). Subhashish Panigrahi was a speaker.

Openness

Journal Article

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: The Intransigenc of STM Publishers (Subbiah Arunachalam, Perumal Ramamoorthi and Subbiah Gunasekaran; Indian National Science Academy Journals, Proc Indian Natn SciAcad 80 No. 5 December 2014 pp. 919-929).

Internet Governance

Articles and Blog Entries

Indians Plead for #NetNeutrality as Airtel Raises Data Charges (Subhashish Panigrahi; Global Voices; December 30, 2014). The article was published in the month of December but mirrored on CIS website in January.
Indian Netizens Criticize Online Censorship of 'Jihadi' Content (Subhashish Panigrahi; Global Voices; January 6, 2015).
Security and Surveillance - Optimizing Security while Safeguarding Human Rights (Elonnai Hickok; January 19, 2015).
Search Engine and Prenatal Sex Determination: Walking the Tight Rope of the Law (Geetha Hariharan and Balaji Subramanian; January 29, 2015).

Event Co-organized

Security, Governments, and Data: Technology and Policy (Organized by CIS and Observer Research Foundation; January 8, 2015, New Delhi). Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash, Elonnai Hickok, Bhairav Acharya and Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this event.

Participation in Events

Symposium on Human Rights and the Internet in India (Organized by the Center for Communication Governance at National Law University, Delhi in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Communication and Information at the University of Hamburg; New Delhi; January 17, 2015). Bhairav Acharya was a panelist.
Winter School on Privacy, Surveillance and Data Protection (Organized by the Centre for Communication Governance (CCG) in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Communication and Information at the University of Hamburg and the Hans Bredow; Delhi; January 19 - 23, 2015). Bhairav Acharya was a facilitator.
ASSOCHAM National Council on IT / ITes (Organized by ASSOCHAM; New Delhi; January 30, 2015). Geetha Hariharan participated in the event.

Blog Entries

Overview of the Constitutional Challenges to the IT Act (Pranesh Prakash; December 15, 2014).
Reply to RTI filed with BSNL regarding Network Neutrality and Throttling (Tarun Krishnakumar; December 22, 2014).

News & Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Government blocks 32 websites to check ISIS propaganda (Kim Arora; The Times of India; January 1, 2015).
Internet users fume as govt blocks 32 sites (Jaison Lewis; Mumbai Mirror; January 1, 2015).
India 'jihadi' web blocking causes anger (BBC; January 2, 2015). This was also mirrored in Puffington Post.
Govt cracks down on cyber jehad network, blocks access to 32 websites (India Today, January 1, 2015).
Indian Government still blocks 20+ websites - Indian Censorship on Internet (Times of Assam; January 2, 2015).
350% surge in Cyber crimes in last 3 years (Devanik Saha & Indiaspend.org; Hindustan Times; January 20, 2015).
TOI literary festival kicks off today (The Times of India; January 31, 2015).

Digital Humanities

CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

Staff Movement

Sumandro Chattapadhyay has joined CIS as Research Director. His academic interests span over topics of history and politics of informatics in India, new media and technology studies, and data infrastructures and economies. He is also keenly interested in questions and techniques of digital humanities. Recently, Sumandro has completed a study on policy and practices of open data in India as part of the Open Data Research Network managed by the World Wide Web Foundation. He is an involved member of DataMeet, a leading community of open data and data science enthusiasts from India. Sumandro studied economics in Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan, and in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has variously worked on topics of urban development, information technology in governance, data visualisation, and early electronic governance in India with MOD Institute, Azim Premji University and the Sarai Programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

Blog Entry

Figures of Learning: The Visual Designer (Tejas Pande; January 30, 2015).

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► Support Us

Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.

► Request for Collaboration:

We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2015-bulletin

Joint Report on Training of the Use of eSpeak in Hindi with NVDA

nirmita — 2015-03-19T01:24:34Z

The training programmes were conducted at the National Association for the Blind, New Delhi on February 5 and 6, 2015 and Blind Relief Association, Delhi on February 13 and 14, 2015. Fifteen participants attended the first training programme at National Association for the Blind. Seventeen participants attended the second training programme held at Blind Relief Association.

The training at National Association for the Blind, Delhi had representations from organizations serving the blind and visually impaired from all across Delhi. Those who took part were either heads of IT Department or computer instructors. The aim of inviting the IT heads and computer instructors was to promote the use of NVDA in their training programmes and also facilitate reading and writing in Hindi.

The training programme at Blind Relief Association was mainly attended by special educators for the blind. The aim of promoting use of NVDA and knowledge of reading and writing in Hindi using eSpeak amongst these special educators was that these special educators would be working closely with the blind community. If the special educators are sensetized, the use of regional languages can be maximized.

List of Participants at National Association for the Blind

1	Bharti Kalra	bhartikalra56@gmail.com	Computer Instructor, National Association for the Blind
2	Jaikaran	dhaiajaikaran@gmail.com	Gail India Pvt. Ltd.
3	Shivani	shivaniharit@redifmail.com	Student, National Association for the Blind
4	Shabnam	shabnamdumh@gmail.com	Research Assistant, National Association for the Blind
5	Neetu	ng.neetugoyal@gmail.com	Computer Instructor, National Association for the Blind
6	Dr. R.S. Chauhan	chauhan.ddn@gmail.com	Freelancer
7	Varsha singh	varshactet@gmail.com	Volunteer, National Association for the Blind
8	Neelu Suneja	sunejaneelu@gmail.com	Head, IT Department, Blind Relief Association
9	Rajpal	rajpal007@gmail.com	Senior Computer Instructor, Blind Relief Association
10	Ganesh Bhatt	bhattg526@gmail.com	Student, National Association for the Blind
11	Maneesh sharma	sharma.manish445@gmail.com	Student, National Association for the Blind
12	Mohammad Sajid	mdsajidsdp11@gmail.com	Student
13	Sanjeev Luthra	sanjeevluthra737@gmail.com	Student
14	Nilesh varma	nileshvarma940@gmail.com	Student
15	Irfan Mir	meererfan@gmail.com	Student

List of Participants at Blind Relief Association

1	Rajpal	E-1/11B, Om Vihar Extn, Uttam Nagar	rajpal007@gmail.com
2	Arun Tiwari	Village Poterganj, Post Pathwali, Dist Gaunda	Mrtiwari1982@gmail.com
3	Rishoo Singh	House No.44, Meethapur, Badarpur	mr.rsingh2908@gmail.com
4	Vijay Tiwari	House No.62, Gokhle Nagar, Konch, Dist Jalaun	tiwarivijay322@gmail.com
5	Shiv Kumar	Village Post Padri, Distt Rewa	shivkumarrawat144@gmail.com
6	Sonia Setia	742/3, Ward No-14, GuruNanak Pura, Rohtak	soniasetia1986@gmail.com
7	Sandeep Kumar	Satyara ganj, Behind Bus stand, Dist. Rewa	sandeepkumarj61@gmail.com
8	Rini Singh	village post Jhanjhara, Pasraha, Dist. Khagriya	rinisingh2792@gmail.com
9	Rajbhan Saket	Gram Atarala Kala, Tehsil Hanmana, Dist. Rewa	rajbhan591@gmail.com
10	Rajbala Bhagel	Dubey Gas Agency, Dayalbagh, Agra	rajbalabhagel@gmail.com
11	Priyanka Devi	Town jhinjhana, Dist. Shamli	kashyappriyanka250@gmail.com
12	Pramod Kumar	Gram Atroley,Post Lakhua, Dist. Ghaziabad	pkpramodpk9@gmail.com
13	Mritunjay Kumar	Hingua, Miyatala, Dist. Chappra	mritunjay1942@gmail.com
14	Mary Mini	AICB, Braille Bhawan, sector-5, Rohini	minimary1994@gmail.com
15	Avnish Kumar	N166/122, J.J. Camp, Badli	avnishk910@gmail.com
16	Hidayat Husen	House No.311, Zakir Hussain Ward, Gohalpur, Jabalpur	Hidayatansari420@gmail.com
17	Biranchi Sahoo	Japharapur, G.P Khairabad, Dist. Jajpur	Biranchi.caviodisha@gmail.com

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/training-on-use-of-espeak-hindi-nvda

Report on the Progress in Assamese Language Testing

nirmita — 2015-04-05T16:16:05Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is doing a project on developing a text-to-speech software in 15 Indian languages. This blog post captures the key updates of the work done by CIS team for Assamese language.

Assamese was added to eSpeak by the Indian team. Rules for the language were introduced and after testing and review, modifications were carried out to ensure basic support. The present document lists issues which were addressed under this project.

Pronunciation rule changes for - 40 - 49. 52 - 56 57 - 59 61 - 64 66 - 69 72 - 75 78 - 80 82 - 86 88 - 89 92 – 99 were corrected.
Pronunciation rule for Hundreds _0C rule were also added and improved.
Conjunctives in asamese were added.
Simple Assamese words following general rules of pronunciation were reviewed.
Finalized pronunciation of joint words.
Modification of rules for (sO) becoming (hO) when in the beginning of the word was done.
Modification of rules for /Ja falaa was done.
Revised the rules for /khio.
Fixed the pronunciation of individual alphabets.
Fixed the pronunciations of "ব" when a vowel is suffixed.
Fixed the pronunciation of "ূ" suffixed to a consonant.
Fixed the pronunciations of "ৱ" in words.
Fixed the pronunciation of a few words with combination of three consonants.
Fixed the pronunciation of "চ" and "ছ" in a word.
Fixed the pronunciations of "ষ" in a word.
Words end with "ত" has an additional sound of "ো" were removed.
The pronunciations of "স", "শ" and "ষ" when it is contracted with another consonant (juktakhor) in a word was made similar to Bengali pronunciation (utcharon).
Pronunciations of "প্ৰ", "ক্ৰ", "শ্ৰ", "ত্ৰ", "গ্ৰ", etc in a word without any suffix of vowel was made clear.
Pronunciation of words ending with "jophola (য)" were rectified.
Pronunciations of Words with "jophola" in the middle were corrected.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-progress-in-assamese-language-testing

Report on the Progress in Bengali Language Testing

nirmita — 2015-04-05T16:23:35Z

Indian Bengali was added to eSpeak by the Indian team. The language was added and improved based on user testing and review.

Conjunct consonant pronunciation when (ba) is conjunct was corrected.
INHERENT vowel PRONUNCIEATION SOME TIMES NEED TO BE SUPPRESSED. It was made possible programmatically.
Changed phoneme rules for য dZV modified to ্) যা :&
sissue with য়/ Oj eg; desired pronunciation /Poi'sa but was being pronounced as 'payosa'
Modified the [phoneme to jV and phone,me rules C)য় (C j
Issue with 'ja'fala, that should double the pronunciation of the preceeding consonant, was rectified. Eg; Onnay was pronounced as 'onyai' as against the desired pronunciation
The Bengali files sent by the developer on 20th December and Third January had been updated in the version.
71 Bengali Exception words had been included with their pronunciation rules - where inherent vowel even being between two consonant is not pronounced.
Changed phoneme rules for য dZV modified to ্) যা :&
issue with য়/ Oj was corrected. eg; desired pronunciation /Poi'sa but was being pronounced as 'payosa'
Issue with 'ja'fala, that should double the pronunciation of the preceeding consonant was rectified. Eg; Onnay was pronounced as 'onyai' as against the desired pronunciation, The Bengali files sent by the developer on, 20th December and Third January had been updated in the version.
4/Auguest/2014Few exception words had been added দশটা , তিরিশটা, চল্লিশটা, পঞ্চাশটা, ষাটটা, সত্তরটা, করবে, বলবে, চলবে, শুনবে, শুনব, মানকচু, ওলকপি, ফটকিরি, চরণপদ্ম.
In eSpeak Indian test build 1.11, the following exception words were added:

অমরসঙ্গী O:mor'SongI
চুপচাপ cup'c,ap
পাগলা pa',g'la
পাগলামো pa',g'la'mo
মর্যাদা mO:rJ,ada
আমপাতা 'ampa,ta
আকাশবানী akaS'banI
বিদঘুটে bi,dg#Ut.e
দেবদেবী deb'debI
অথচ O:t#oco
আমরাই am,rai
খেলা k#&'la
খেলবো k#el'bo
চারটি car,t.i
একটি ekt.i
একটা &kt.a:
দরকার dO:r'kar'
দেখছি dek#'c#i
বলছি bo,lc#i
করছি ko'rc#i
শুনছি Sun'c#i
ভাবছি b#a'bc#i
ঘুরছি g#U,rc#i
দিনরাত din'rat.
সবরকম SO:b,rO:kom
কাজকর্ম kaJ,kO:'rmo
দুঃখ duk#'k#o
তিনটে tin't.e
চারটে car't.e
পাঁচটা p~ac't.a
সাতটা Sat't.a
আটটা a:t.'t.a
দশটা dOS't.:a
একুশটা ekuS't.:a
বাইশটা ba:iS't.:a
তেইশটা tei'St.:a
চব্বিশটা co'b'biS't.:a
পঁচিশটা p~o'ciS't.:a
ছাব্বিশটা ch:a'b'biS't.:a
সাতাশটা Sat.aS't.:a
আঠাশটা a:t.#a:S't.:a
উনত্রিশটা un'triS't.:a
তিরিশটা tiriS't.:a
একত্রিশটা ek'triS't.:a
বত্রিশটা bot:riS't.:a
তেত্রিশটা tetriS't.:a
চৌঁত্রিশটা c~ou:triS't.:a
পঁয়ত্রিশটা p~oj'triS't.:a
ছত্রিশটা chot:riS't.:a
সাঁইত্রিশটা S~ai'triS't.:a
আটত্রিশটা a:t.triS't.:a
উনচল্লিশটা uno'col'l:iS't.:a
চল্লিশটা col'l:iS't.:a

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-the-progress-in-bengali-language-testing

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

Popular apps are inaccessible to millions of disabled: Study

praskrishna — 2016-11-30T15:52:13Z

The article by Arpita Raj was published by the Times of India on November 21, 2016 and also mirrored in ET Brand Equity.

Booking cabs, buying food and making payments online seem like they're just a swipe and a tap away, but for millions of disabled Indians, these apps are not designed for them to use.

The 2011 census puts the number of disabled in the country at 26 million, while advocacy groups say the real figure is closer to 150 million.Last year, India recorded nearly nine billion downloads of mobile-based applications last year.

“The national policy for universal electronic accessibility says that all IT products and services should be accessible. However, the government is still unable to implement it. Several government apps are inaccessible,“ said Nirmita Narasimhan, policy director at CIS. CIS's survey of some key government mobile based applications like My Gov, E Pathshala and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official app found them to be severely lacking. The illiterate, aged and those not proficient in English would also struggle with the apps, the study found. The guidelines for government websites laid out accessibility standards in 2009. The 2013 national policy on universal electronic accessibility clearly upholds equal rights “ensuring that accessibility standards and guidelines and universal design concepts are adopted and adhered to.“

However, most commonly-used apps fail to follow this. All 22 of the apps studied were privately owned but not all were fully compliant with universal standards. Of taxi-hailing apps Meru, Ola and Uber, only Uber was completely accessible to the disabled. The others had mis-labelled or unlabeled buttons and graphics.

When it came to food delivery, Zomato was the best at replicating the user experience for disabled people. Swiggy and Foodpanda were difficult for new users, and Fresh menu was completely inaccessible.

Of the marketplace apps, Amazon and Snapdeal were the only accessible ones. Myntra and Flipkart had incorrectly labelled buttons and misleading graphic tags, which made them impossible for the disabled to use. For instance, customers would be able to select the product they wanted to buy but had no way of choosing the quantity, the study said. Online grocery delivery apps Grofers and Zop Now were hard for the disabled to use, while Big Basket was relatively better though pages change during orders. Online payment portals Paytm, Oxigen and FreeCharge were relatively accessible, the study found.

“Designers, developers and industries need to realize that there are more people out there who use this technology .The market is much bigger and they should work towards being inclusive,“ said Narasimhan of CIS.

Albinder Dhinda, co founder of grocery delivery service Grofers, said their app meets all accessibility requirements. “However, the disability tools provided by Google Play Store or the App Store often don't benefit the user and are hard for them to use. We are trying to make it better. Things like online payments won't be accessible to the disabled as those apps are supported by third party sites, and don't fall within our settings. We're trying to make it better.We're three years behind the US, in the playground they made. It'll be a while before we reach their level,“ he said.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/economic-times-arpita-raj-november-21-2016-popular-apps-are-inaccessible-to-millions-of-disabled

No country for the disabled

praskrishna — 2016-12-01T14:29:30Z

A 26-year-old electrical engineer is forced to hide his disability, for fear of losing his job. His current employer is unaware that he uses an artificial limb.

The article was published in New Indian Express on December 1, 2016. Nirmita Narasimhan was quoted.

‘I hide my disability to keep my job’

Sameer (name changed) had applied for a job in a well-known company about four months ago. He had informed the HR of the company that he had lost his left leg, in a road accident, and wears an artificial limb. The company did not have a problem with it, at least not until they sent him an offer letter with a joining date.

“I was called for interviews and they selected me for the job,” he says. “I got the offer letter with a joining date and resigned from my previous company after getting the letter. But when the doctor gave my medical certificate for company insurance, they changed their mind. The certificate mentioned that I am physically fit and capable of doing the job but added that I wear an artificial limb. After that, they simply refused to proceed with the offer.”

He also received a written explanation that he is not being considered for the job because he uses an artificial limb. “I have five years of experience. When I contacted them again saying that they cannot deny the job after offering me the letter, they said they have ‘sympathy’ for me. When I insisted that the job will be great for my career, they said they will get back to me in two to three days but I didn’t hear from them again,” he says.

Sameer had to request his previous company to ignore his resignation letter and keep him. Fortunately, they agreed. He adds, “I kept looking for better job opportunities. I even thought of starting a business of my own but did not have enough funds. I am the only earning member in my family. My father passed away sometime ago. My mother and two younger brothers are dependent on me.”

Except for a few of his seniors, no one in his current organisation knows of his disability. He says, “Only a few seniors know because I told them about it. It is not easy to make out that I am using an artificial limb. I can walk fine, do all the chores like an able person. Even when someone comes asking what’s wrong with my leg as I limp a little, I tell them that I had an injury.”

Sameer has completed B Tech and did a diploma in electrical engineering. He adds, “None of my friends whom I lived with, during my graduation and diploma course, know that I use an artificial limb. Until I detach the limb in front of someone, no one gets to know.”

He lost his left leg in an accident when he was three. He says, “I can walk on any terrain, ride bikes and also play badminton for two to three hours without any problem. I am on no medication or therapy. I tried to convince the employers saying all this, but it came to naught.”

Provisions for disabled in law
The Persons with Disability Act 1995 states that the appropriate governments and local authorities shall by notification formulate schemes for ensuring employment of persons with disabilities, and such schemes may provide for the training and welfare of persons with disabilities; the relaxation of upper age limit; regulating the employment; health and safety measures and creation of a non-handicapping environment in places where persons with disabilities are employed; the manner in which and the person by whom the cost of operating the schemes is to be defrayed; and constituting the authority responsible for the administration of the scheme.

Inclusive workplace
The non-discrimination chapter of the Act also states that no promotion shall be denied to a person merely on the grounds of his disability.

Disabled kid? No admission

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”.

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.

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.

Separate Wing for Disabled Children
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.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/new-indian-express-december-1-2016-no-country-for-disabled

A world apart

praskrishna — 2016-12-01T15:24:12Z

On the eve of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we look at their legal rights relating to financial matters.

The article by Meera Siva was published in the Hindu Businessline on November 27, 2016.

Be it the right to education, rights in the work place, legal entitlements or fair compensation, people with disabilities are often left holding the short end of the stick. Sometimes, there are no specific rules or policies as in the case of providing insurance coverage. But more often, even though guidelines are laid out, they remain only in theory.

Take the case of Nagarjuna Akula, a Chartered Accountant working in a public sector company in Maharashtra. “I applied for a home loan in 2014 and it was approved. They wanted me to take a standard insurance with a one-time premium of about ₹38,000. But it was rejected by SBI Life Insurance. I did not protest this issue, but often think about the repercussions to the family in the long term, in case of an eventuality,” he says.

Akula also had to battle to get special conveyance allowance given to disabled people. “I have been working here for nearly four years but was not given the higher rate of conveyance allowance. The reason given was that I do not require physical assistance,” he says. The issue is finally sorted out now, but he lost the allowance for earlier periods.

Akula says that in some cases rules may need to be changed to accommodate persons with disabilities. “The CA Institute exempts members with disabilities from meeting continuing education credit requirements. But I wish the ICWA Institute would also consider the issue, as classes may be held in higher floors without lift facility in some places,” he says. He notes, happily, that the Institute heeded his request to give additional time during exams for persons with disability.

Compensation, an uphill battle

Fighting cases in courts, not easy for anyone, is particularly daunting for those with disabilities. And often, due to lack of rules, they end up having to fight long legal battles to get any form of compensation to cover their huge medical expenses. Ketna Mehta, Management editor, educationalist and Founder Trustee of Nina Foundation, Mumbai, gives many examples. “Many spinal injuries happen due to accidents. One young person we helped was having food after college at a small eatery under a tree. The tree branch broke and hit his head and he suffered spinal cord injury. There is no way for the victim to get any payment from the Brihanmumbai Metropolitan Corporation for the surgery and rehabilitation,” she laments.

Likewise with Martin Tharail, a 25-year old from Kerala who worked at a BPO in Mumbai. He met with a bike accident and become a quadriplegic; his parents were retired and the family was unable to get the ₹15-20 lakh compensation from the truck owner. “The case is still pending, though he is no more,” says Mehta. She also narrates the woes of a 26-year old paraplegic girl who lost her parents and lives with her younger brother who is in college. She is fighting a court battle to inherit her parent’s property. “She goes to the court for the hearings with support from our volunteers. There are no proper wash-rooms for the disabled and it costs money to make travel arrangements, get a helper to be with her in the court,” says Mehta.

Triple whammy

The state of women with disability needs special attention as they suffer from discrimination due to three reasons — gender, disability and poverty. Abha Khetarpal, President, Cross the Hurdles, a non-profit that works for rights of persons with disabilities, notes that most Indians consider disability as “karma of past life.” She says that women with disabilities need provisions with regard

to their rights over their own bodies. “They are at much greater risk of violence, often by their caregivers; provisions are needed to ensure ways to seek redressal without fear,” she says.

“Sometimes women are cheated in marriages — an already married man marries a woman with disability. He abandons her due to fear of punishment for bigamy and adultery when the truth comes to light,” she explains. Since the second marriage is considered null and void by law, the woman is left all alone and faces society’s stigma; she has to survive without much support. Khetarpal suggests that the law should consider the whole scenario before giving any judgement.

Mehta notes that persons with disabilities, mainly women, are divorced after an accident that leads to a permanent disability. “The reason is not stated explicitly and the disabled person often accepts the fate without fighting. The sad part is that they are not given fair financial compensation, given the extra expenses they have to incur throughout their life,” she notes.

Need changes

Initiatives such as the “Accessible India” campaign do not deliver impactful results. The “Persons with Disability Act” of 1995 does not have punitive measures if there is failure in compliance. The National Trust Act of 1999 and The Mental Health Act of 1987 have not been able to bring about meaningful sensitisation. A new Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill has been pending for many years now.

A study conducted by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bengaluru based non-profit think tank, found that 97 per cent of over 5,800 government websites tested have at least one known accessibility issue and can be said to be inaccessible. Government schemes, even when they exist, are for name-sake only, says Mehta. “The government provides a disability pension of ₹800 per month, which is not given in a timely way. In Mumbai, what can you cover with this amount?” she asks.

Mehta suggests that there must be a separate department to handle all aspects — education, scholarship, loans, insurance and availing benefits — rather than having to run helter-skelter to many departments. “There must be one agency and one file for a person with disability,” she insists. Also, the disabled are not aware of what they are entitled to. “Why not give information in a simple format when someone gets a disability certificate?” she suggests.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/hindu-businessline-november-27-2016-meera-siva-a-world-apart

June 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2013-07-27T09:48:16Z

Our newsletter for the month of June 2013 can be accessed below.

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the sixth issue of its newsletter for 2013. Hivos published a White Paper by Nishant Shah titled Whose Change is it Anyway?, which attempts to reflect critically on existing patterns of making change and its implications for the future of citizen action in information and network societies. The Access to Knowledge team carried out a quantitative analysis to identify trends and growth patterns in Indian Language Wikipedias from September 2012 to April 2013. CIS drafted the Privacy Protection Bill and amended it as per feedback gained from the New Delhi, Bangalore, and Chennai Privacy Roundtable Events. CIS made closing statement on the Treaty for the Blind at the WIPO Diplomatic Conference which was concluded with the adoption of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or otherwise Print Disabled. In a research paper Nehaa Chaudhari gives an analysis of patent pools, Sameer Boray gives an analysis of video piracy and Pranav Menon gives an analysis of India-EU FTA and issues surrounding data protection and security. In this period we organised the Institute on Internet and Society with support from the Ford Foundation at Golden Palms, Bangalore from June 8 to 14, 2013.

Celebrating 5 Years of CIS
CIS is now 5 years old and we just celebrated this by holding an open exhibition in our offices in Bangalore and Delhi from May 20 to 23, showcasing our work and accomplishments over the period. We had about 170 visitors from the general public coming in to our office. Videos of the event are here.

Google Policy Fellowship
CIS has initiated processing of applications for the Google Policy Fellowship programme. Shortlisted candidates would be informed about their interview. However, as of now there will be a 20 days delay in announcing the list for the interview.

Jobs
CIS is inviting applications for the posts of Developer (NVDA Screen Reader Project) and Editor/Content Developer. To apply for these posts, send in your resume to Nirmita Narasimhan (nirmita@cis-india.org). CIS is also seeking applications for the post of Programme Officer (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org) and Pranesh Prakash (pranesh@cis-india.org).

Accessibility

CIS is doing two projects in partnership with the Hans Foundation. One is to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India and another for developing a screen reader and text-to- speech synthesizer for Indian languages:

National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities
CIS and the Centre for Law and Policy Research (CLPR) are working in this project. Draft chapters have been published. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the chapter on Jharkhand:

The Jharkhand Chapter (by CLPR, June 30, 2013).

Note: All the chapters published on the website are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated.

Award

Girls in ICT Day 2013 (organized by ITU-APT Foundation of India with support from CMAI - Association of India Communication and Infrastructure, FICCI Auditorium, Tansen Marg, New Delhi, May 7, 2013). Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan got a felicitation for her contribution and achievements in the field of Information and Communication Technology. The honour was conferred during the celebration of this event.

Media Coverage

A Treat for the Blind (by Chitra Narayanan, Business World, June 26, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

Access to Knowledge and Openness

The Wikimedia Foundation has given a grant to CIS to support and develop the growth of Indic language communities and projects by community collaborations and partnerships. This is being carried out by the Access to Knowledge team based in Delhi. CIS is also doing a project (Pervasive Technologies) on examining the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property. CIS also promotes openness including open government data, open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software through its Openness programme.

Access to Knowledge (Previously IP Reforms)

WIPO
Pranesh Prakash participated in the WIPO Diplomatic Conference to Conclude a Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities in Marrakesh, Morocco, June 17 to 28, 2013. The conference concluded with the adoption of the Marrakesh Treaty to facilitate access to published works by blind persons, persons with visual impairment, and other print disabled persons, by requiring mandatory exceptions in copyright law to enable conversions of books into accessible formats, and by enabling cross-border transfer of accessible format books. Click for:

CIS's Closing Statement at Marrakesh on the Treaty for the Blind (by Pranesh Prakash, June 28, 2013).
India's Closing Statement at Marrakesh on the Treaty for the Blind (June 29, 2013).

Pervasive Technologies

Pervasive Technologies: Patent Pools (by Nehaa Chaudhari, June 27, 2013).

Other (FTA, Piracy)

The Right Way to Fight Video Piracy? (by Sameer Boray, June 6, 2013).
India-EU Proposed Free Trade Agreement: Issues Surrounding Data Protection and Security (by Pranav Menon, June 8, 2013).
India- EU FTA: A Note on the Copyright Issues (by Nehaa Chaudhari, June 18, 2013).

Event Participated

Governance in the Age of the Internet and Free Trade Agreements (organized by Thai Netizen Network and co-hosted by the Ministry of Information and Communication and the National Science and Technology Development Agency, Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, June 8, 2013). Sunil Abraham was a speaker.

Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia)

The A2K team consists of three members based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja and Subhashish Panigrahi and one team member Nitika Tandon who is working from Delhi office.

Statistical Report

Indian Language Wikipedia Statistics (by Nitika Tandon, June 30, September 2012 – April 2013).

Event Organised

A 'Kannada' Wikipedia Workshop for Bloggers (Suchitra, Bengaluru, June 23, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop.

Event Co-organised

Telugu Wikipedia Training Workshop (co-organised by A2K team and Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad, Golden Threshold, Nampally, Hyderabad, March 8, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan conducted the workshop.

Upcoming Event

Digital Humanities for Indian Higher Education (co-organised by HEIRA-CSCS, Tumkur University, CILHE-TISS and CCS, Indian Institute of Science, July 13, 2013).

Blog Entries

My First Wikipedia Training Workshop – Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad (by T. Vishnu Vardhan, June 26, 2013). The workshop was conducted in March but the report was published only in June.
Wikipedia Visual Editor (by Nitika Tandon, June 27, 2013).

Press Coverage (including videos)

A Feature on Wikipedia and Telegu Wikipedians (HMTV, May 30-31, 2013). Watch the video.
Wikipedia Live Phone-in Programme (HMTV, June 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan took part in a one hour live phone-in programme on Wikipedia.
Wiki donors (by Akhila Seetharaman, TimeOut Bengaluru, June 21, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Dr. U.B. Pavanaja are quoted.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Hasan (Prajavani, June 5, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop on June 4, 2013.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Hasan (Samyukta Karnataka, June 5, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop on June 4, 2013.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Hasan (Vijaya Karnataka, June 5, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop on June 4, 2013.
Wiki Rahasya: Panel Discussion (Suvarna News, June 13, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja participated in a panel discussion around Wikipedia in general and about Kannada Wikipedia in specific.

Openness

Column

Big Data, People's Lives, and the Importance of Openness (by Nishant Shah, DML Central, June 24, 2013).

Event Hosted

RHoK Global Event (Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, June 1 – 2, 2013). Yogesh Londhe shares with you a post-event report.

Internet Governance

CIS began two projects earlier this year. The first one on facilitating research and events on surveillance and freedom of expression is with Privacy International and support from the International Development Research Centre, Canada. The second one on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia is with the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and support from the International Development Research Centre, Canada:

Cyber Stewards Project
Laird Brown, a strategic planner and writer with core competencies on brand analysis, public relations and resource management and Purba Sarkar who in the past worked as a strategic advisor in the field of SAP Retail are working in this project.

Video Interview

An Interview with Ram Mohan (June 30, 2013)

Event Organized

The Geopolitics of Information Controls: A Presentation by Masashi Crete-Nishihata (TERI, Bangalore, June 19, 2013). About 20 people participated in the event.

Privacy Research

Privacy Protection Bill, 2013 (With Amendments based on Public Feedback) (by Elonnai Hickok, June 30, 2013): CIS drafted the Bill. Based on feedback received from the New Delhi, Bangalore, and Chennai Roundtables the Bill was amended.

Interviews

Interview with the Citizen Lab on Internet Filtering in India (June 24, 2013). Maria Xynou interviewed Masashi Crete-Nishihata and Jakub Dalek from the Citizen Lab on internet filtering in India.
Interview with Billy Hawkes (June 20, 2014). Maria Xynou interviewed Billy Hawkes, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner on recommendations for data protection in India.

Columns

Indian Surveillance Laws & Practices Far Worse than US (by Pranesh Prakash, Economic Times, June 13, 2013).
World Wide Rule (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, June 14, 2013). Nishant Shah reviews Schmidt and Cohen's book “The New Digital Age”.
Way to Watch (by Chinmayi Arun, Indian Express, June 26, 2013).
The State is Snooping: Can You Escape? (by Snehashish Ghosh, India Together, June 26, 2013).

Blog Entries

India Subject to NSA Dragnet Surveillance! No Longer a Hypothesis — It is Now Officially Confirmed (by Maria Xynou, June 13, 2013).
SEBI and Communication Surveillance: New Rules, New Responsibilities? (by Kovey Coles, June 27, 2013).
Open Letter to "Not" Recognize India as Data Secure Nation till Enactment of Privacy Legislation (by Elonnai Hickok, June 19, 2013).
Open Letter to Prevent the Installation of RFID tags in Vehicles (by Maria Xynou, June 27, 2013).

Events Organised

Technology, Power, and Revolutions in the Arab Spring (CIS, July 2, 2013). Prof. Ramesh Srinivasan gave a talk.
Learn to Secure Your Online Communication! (CIS, Bangalore, June 30, 2013). A Crypto Party was organised.
Learn to Secure Your Online Communication! (IIC, Delhi University, South Campus, New Delhi, July 6, 2013). A Crypto Party was organised.

Event Co-organised

4^th Privacy Round Table Meeting (co-organised with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Data Security Council of India, Mumbai, June 15, 2013).

Upcoming / Ongoing Events

Digital Activism in Europe (The Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, July 8, 2013). Bernadette Längle will give a talk.
Privacy Round Table, Kolkata (co-organised with the Federation for Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and the Data Security Council of India, Lytton Hotel, Sudder Street, Kolkata, July 13, 2013).

Event Participated In

Biometrics or bust? India's Identity Crisis (organized by the Oxford Internet Institute, July 2, 2013). Malavika Jayaram was a speaker.

Video

Pranesh Prakash on the US snooping into Indian cyber space (by Tehelka, June 2013).

Media Coverage

Indian student in Cornell University hacks into ICSE, ISC database (by Kim Arora, Times of India, June 6, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
‘Hacking’ sparks row over exam evaluation (by Vasudha Venugopal and Karthik Subramanian, Hindu, June 7, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Internet firms deny existence of PRISM (by Javed Anwer and Ishan Srivastava, Times of India, June 8, 2013). Sunil Abraham and Pranesh Prakash are quoted.
Indian Government Quietly Brings In Its 'Central Monitoring System': Total Surveillance Of All Telecommunications (Tech Dirt, June 8, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Facebook, Google deny spying access (by Javed Anwer, Times of India, June 9, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Govt mulls advisory on privacy issues related to Google, Facebook (by Thomas K Thomas, Hindu Business Line, June 10, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Cyber experts suggest using open source software to protect privacy (by Kim Arora, Times of India, June 22, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Govt goes after porn, makes ISPs ban sites (by Javed Anwer, Times of India, June 26, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Indian govt blocks 40 smut sites, forgets to give reason (by Phil Muncaster, The Register, June 27, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Concerns over central snoop (by Aloke Tikku, Hindustan Times, June 28, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Internet users enraged over US online spying (by Maitreyee Boruah, Times of India, June 29, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Issue of duplication of identities of users under control: Nilekani (by Anirban Sen, Livemint, June 29, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
In India, Prism-like Surveillance Slips Under the Radar (by Anjan Trivedi, Time World, June 30, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Knowledge Repository on Internet Access

CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project on Internet Access. It covers the history of the internet, technologies involved, principle and values of internet access, broadband market and universal access. It will also touch upon various policies and regulations which has an impact on internet access and bodies and mechanism which are responsible for formulation of policies related to internet access. The blog posts and modules are being published in the Internet Institute website:

Event Organised

Institute on Internet and Society (supported by Ford Foundation, Golden Palms Resort, Bangalore, June 8 – 14, 2013). Pranesh Prakash, Bernadette Längle, Vir Kamal Chopra, AK Bhargava, Ananth Guruswamy, Archana Gulati, Chakshu Roy, Elonnai Hickok, Gaurab Raj Upadhaya, Helani Galpaya, Michael Ginguld, Dr. Nadeem Akhtar, C. Nandini, Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan, Dr. Nishant Shah, Parminder Jeet Singh, Ravikiran Annaswamy, Dr. Ravina Aggarwal, Satyen Gupta, Dr. Subbiah Arunachalam, Sunil Abraham, Tulika Pandey and T. Vishnu Vardhan were speakers at the event. The presentations can be accessed here.

Telecom

CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Newspaper Column

Law & Order through Traffic Systems (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, June 5, 2013 and cross-posted in Organizing India Blogspot).

Digital Natives

Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:

White Paper

Whose Change is it Anyway? (by Nishant Shah, Hivos, June 18, 2013).

Digital Humanities

We are building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia.

Blog Entries

Mapping the Field of Digital Humanities (by Sara Morais, June 11, 2013).
A Suggested Set of Values for the Digital Humanities (by Sara Morais, June 12, 2013).
Archive Practice and Digital Humanities (by Sara Morais, June 24, 2013).

About CIS

Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://cis-india.org

Support Us
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

Request for Collaboration

We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/june-2013-bulletin

Most popular apps inaccessible to millions of disabled, says study

praskrishna — 2016-11-21T02:47:43Z

Booking cabs, buying food and making payments online seem like they're just a swipe and a tap away, but for millions of disabled Indians, these apps are not designed for them to use.

The article by Arpita Raji was published in the Times of India on November 21, 2016. Nirmita Narasimhan was quoted.

According to a study conducted by Centre for Internet and Society last month, many of the most-commonly used mobile apps for food delivery, online payments, grocery shopping and transportation were not accessible to the visually challenged. The study covered 22 apps.

The 2011 census puts the number of disabled in the country at 26 million, while advocacy groups say the real figure is closer to 150 million.Last year, India recorded nearly nine billion downloads of mobile-based applications last year.

"The national policy for universal electronic accessibility says that all IT products and services should be accessible. However, the government is still unable to implement it. Several government apps are inaccessible," said Nirmita Narasimhan, policy director at CIS. CIS's survey of some key government mobile based applications like My Gov, E Pathshala and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official app found them to be severely lacking. The illiterate, aged and those not proficient in English would also struggle with the apps, the study found. The guidelines for government websites laid out accessibility standards in 2009. The 2013 national policy on universal electronic accessibility clearly upholds equal rights "ensuring that accessibility standards and guidelines and universal design concepts are adopted and adhered to."

However, most commonly-used apps fail to follow this. All 22 of the apps studied were privately owned but not all were fully compliant with universal standards. Of taxi-hailing apps Meru, Ola and Uber, only Uber was completely accessible to the disabled. The others had mis-labelled or unlabeled buttons and graphics.

"Designers, developers and industries need to realize that there are more people out there who use this technology .The market is much bigger and they should work towards being inclusive," said Narasimhan of CIS.

Albinder Dhinda, co founder of grocery delivery service Grofers, said their app meets all accessibility requirements. "However, the disability tools provided by Google Play Store or the App Store often don't benefit the user and are hard for them to use. We are trying to make it better. Things like online payments won't be accessible to the disabled as those apps are supported by third party sites, and don't fall within our settings. We're trying to make it better.We're three years behind the US, in the playground they made. It'll be a while before we reach their level," he said.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/times-of-india-november-21-2016-most-popular-apps-inaccessible-to-millions-of-disabled

The Quest for Education – Persons with Disabilities, Severely Challenged

nirmita — 2016-11-30T15:38:55Z

Education is the fundamental building block of development; it leads to an improved quality of life, employment, social acceptance and inclusion, national development and intellectual growth.

Published in Your Story on November 24, 2016

The right to education and the current census figures

Over the past decade, multiple efforts and initiatives associated with policy and programme towards achieving the goal of education have taken place. However, there are still millions of children with disabilities and students who are struggling to access basic and higher education and for whom economic independence appears to be an elusive dream.

The 2011 census figures show that the literacy rates for persons with disabilities are much lower than that of the non-disabled population of the country and even within that, certain disabilities and women across disabilities have a lower percentage. The overall literacy rate for persons with disabilities is 59 percent compared to 74 percent for the general population. The literacy level of women with disabilities in urban areas is 61 percent, which is 9 percent lower than their male counterparts. While women with disabilities in rural areas are worse with a literacy rate of 38 percent, 20 percent lower than disabled males. And people with multiple disabilities fare the worst, with a 35.8 percent literacy rate. Their education needs in terms of content, technology, training and support remain unfulfilled.

Challenges faced by the disabled

The issues faced by children with different disabilities vary. For instance, in the case of children with print impairment, there is need for aggressive implementation of schemes to provide assistive technology since most disabled students do not have access to technologies in most states. Students who are blind are dependent upon Braille materials, which often do not reach them before half the school term is over. And this only supports the bare minimum need in terms of reading and not any extra knowledge building requirements. In some states, laptops are being distributed; however, these are unaccompanied by any training requirements, so it is unclear how many students are really able to use their devices. In places where these devices are available, they are mostly provided to students from the ninth standard.

Thus, in some states, laptops are being distributed; however, these are unaccompanied by any training requirements, so it is unclear how many students are really able to use their devices. In places where these devices are available, they are mostly provided to students from the ninth standard. Thus, transition becomes difficult and they find it hard to write their own exams. So while their sighted counterparts are experimenting with technology from a much earlier age, they are introduced to it at a much later stage, by which time their colleagues are far ahead of them.

Children with hearing impairments also face many challenges. They are isolated from mainstream communication as well; there are only around 250 sign language interpreters in India and sometimes one person has to cater to the requirements of an entire state. Hence, they grow and are educated in isolation without proper means of integration in inclusive schools. The physical environments in most schools also tend to be inaccessible for those with mobility impairments.

It is a rather dismal scenario content wise too. The course content put out by different boards is not in accessible formats, so organisations serving the blind have to convert them into an accessible format. There is a strain on resources. In the case of regional language content, the expense of typing out Telugu or Tamil is high and often increases the cost of the book 10-fold. Just converting the basic course syllabus for any one subject for a BA course can run into lakhs. Hence, there is very limited access to books.

The third challenge is the lack of trained manpower and resources to provide an enriching reading experience for a child with a disability. Children not only have to deal with restrictive resource conditions, but also difficult social conditions and stigma at school. Attitudinal changes need to occur and a lot of this begins at home and school. Consider this, in a rural setting; students in a class have access to a teacher full time during school hours. But there may be only one special needs teacher catering to students with multiple disabilities across several schools. So instead of having more support, a student with disability has to actually deal with severely limited support.

Often these teachers are ironically paid much lesser than other teachers, considering that they actually need more skills and patience to teach children with disabilities. Only in the field of disability does one encounter a situation where a specialisation is undervalued and under paid, whereas in all other genre of professions like medicines, one has to do a generalisation before a specialisation. What sort of prospects then do we offer children with disabilities? What we need is resource centres at each college and school, or if that is not possible, then at least resource centres at district level coordinating support in an appropriate manner with adequately paid and skilled teachers.

Promoting technology

Promoting use of technology and open source software and imparting training at an early age will go a long way in making students with disabilities self-sufficient and independent. And of course, the issue of content is of primary importance. All boards must embrace accessible standards such as EPUB 3.0 for publications and WCAG 2.0 for their websites and make course content available in accessible formats. Exemption of certain topics should be replaced by facilitating learning using innovative methods and tools. Importantly, there also needs to be focus on providing education targeted towards profession and gainful employment.

Clearly, there is a long way to go before we can talk of inclusive education for children with disabilities; there is a severe shortage of even exclusive or special education. To improve the situation, individual piecemeal efforts alone will not make a difference. It is essential to have a systemic approach to inclusive education, with sufficient implementation and infrastructural support, if we are to progress to a point where every child with disability is encouraged to learn and be prepared for a world of employment, independence and dignity.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/your-story-nirmita-narasimhan-november-24-2016-quest-for-education-persons-with-disabilities-severely-challenged

English gottila,job illa

praskrishna — 2016-12-10T04:47:11Z

Quoted as the ‘golden boy of Karnataka’, after winning two gold medals for India in Special Olympics in 2003 in Dublin, once Aslam Pasha quit his last job as a night watchman a week back.

The article by Regina Gurung was published in the Indian Express on December 7, 2016. Nirmita Narasimhan was quoted.

Even as government services allow disability and sports quota, guess what is keeping this man from being employed? The Queen’s language.

Born and brought up in Bengaluru, Aslam was conceived at home to a home maker mother and a fish stall owner father. Hindi is the only language he can speak and read. Despite being born without functional legs, his love for sports was not hindered. He started participating in wheelchair racing competitions and became fond of shot put.

Tracing and reminiscing his past glories, he tells City Express the beginning and abrupt end of his golden career.

While in his teens, he says, he went to Hubli to participate in a wheelchair racing and shot put competition. After his win there, he was taken to Delhi and introduced to the Special Olympics Committee. He made it to the Special Olympics in Dublin in 2003 and secured two gold medals as a part of the eight-member team.

On his return to the country, he was welcomed with great warmth and was felicitated. He says he even met APJ Abdul Kalam, the then President of India, and received `2 lakh as a reward. He gave the entire sum to his parents. They live in a slum near Soda Factory. His popularity was short lived. Sooner than he realized, people forgot him. He wondered what more could he do with his life. The calls from the committee stopped, he was clueless on what to do next.

In his late 20s, he started applying for various jobs but was rejected for having ‘no communication skill’.“I have been looking for a job from over three years now. I even did a one-year course on data entry at Intel, but everything is useless as I don’t know English,” says Aslam.

‘’Do you mention that you are a gold medalist?” asked City Express.

“Yes I do but I always get the same reply… “You don’t know English, so what is the use?” Aslam replies.

Aslam did not complete his education since he was always keen on sports, says Neel Lama, Aslam’s school’s friend.

“Following Olympics training, most athletes drop out of educational institutions,” says Nirmita Narasimhan, Policy Director of Centre for Internet and Society, who heads the accessibilty and inclusion programme.

Aslam used to go for his night watchman duty in hiding, after his parents fell asleep.

“They tell me it is okay, but I know the difficulties they face,” says Aslam. G N Nagaraj, founder of Karnataka State Disabled and Care Giver’s Federation questions that when cricketers and other Olympians are showered with sponsors, why is the Paralympian who is “five times more deserving”, not offered a job?

On Saturday, Aslam Pasha, had gone to an institution to enroll himself in an English language speaking course.

He was told that he needs to pay `24,000 for the course that also includes the auto fare of the tutor. “How can I pay so much to learn English and then look for a job?” questions Aslam. “But still I desperately want to learn the language,” adds the 30 something Aslam.

“A wheel chair accessy (person who uses wheel chair) is considered 75 per cent disabled and those who are more than 75 per cent disabled can avail for a government pension of `1,200 per month,” says Nagaraj who is working towards the passage of the Rights of Persons with Disability bill.

“The procedure is tiring. A disabled person is expected to travel some 40-50 km and the office stays open from 10am to 12 noon only, so many don’t claim it,” Nirmita adds, who is also visually challenged herself.

“I had approached other institutions, but for reasons unknown they don’t approve of my enrollment, probably because of looks. I had to lie to the English instituition that I would be going to England, and only they they agreed,” Aslam says.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/new-indian-express-december-7-2016-regina-gurung-english-gottila-job-illa

Most popular smartphone apps inaccessible to disabled: Study

praskrishna — 2016-12-10T05:12:25Z

Booking cabs, buying food and making payments online seem like they're just a swipe and a tap away, but for millions of disabled Indians, these apps are not designed for them to use.

The article was published by ET Telecom on December 7, 2016. Nirmita Narasimhan was quoted.

Booking cabs, buying food and making payments online seem like they're just a swipe and a tap away, but for millions of disabled Indians, these apps are not designed for them to use.

"The national policy for universal electronic accessibility says that all IT products and services should be accessible. However, the government is still unable to implement it. Several government apps are inaccessible," said Nirmita Narasimhan, policy director at CIS. CIS's survey of some key government mobile-based applications like MyGov, EPathshala and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official app found them to be severely lacking. The illiterate, aged and those not proficient in English would also struggle with the apps, the study found. The guidelines for government websites laid out accessibility standards in 2009. The 2013 national policy on universal electronic accessibility clearly upholds equal rights "ensuring that accessibility standards and guidelines and universal design concepts are adopted and adhered to."

However, most commonly-used app fail to follow this. All 22 of the apps studied were privately-owned but not all were fully compliant with universal standards. Of taxi-hailing apps Meru, Ola and Uber, only Uber was completely accessible to the disabled. The others had mis-labelled or unlabeled buttons and graphics.

Online grocery delivery apps Grofers and Zop Now were hard for the disabled to use, while Big Basket was relatively better though pages change during orders. Online payment portals Paytm, Oxigen and FreeCharge were relatively accessible, the study found.

"Designers, developers and industries need to realize that there are more people out there who use this technology. The market is much bigger and they should work towards being inclusive," said Narasimhan of CIS.

Albinder Dhinda, co-founder of grocery delivery service Grofers, said their app meets all accessibility requirements. "However, the disability tools provided by Google Play Store or the App Store often don't benefit the user and are hard for them to use. We are trying to make it better. Things like online payments won't be accessible to the disabled as those apps are supported by third-party sites, and don't fall within our settings. We're trying to make it better. We're three years behind the US, in the playground they made. It'll be a while before we reach their level," he said.

The national policy for universal electronic accessibility says that all IT products and services should be accessible. However, the government is still unable to implement it. Several government apps are inaccessible

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/et-telecom-december-7-2016-most-popular-smartphone-apps-inaccessible-to-disabled-study