Centre for Internet and Society

Applications to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment under the Right to Information Act

nirmita — 2011-08-17T08:50:22Z

The Centre for Internet and Society filed two applications to the MSJE under the Right to Information Act seeking certain information relating to the implementation of the National Policy for Electronic Accessibility and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

In January 2009, The Centre for Internet and Society filed two separate Right to Information (RTI) applications with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MSJE), New Delhi. The first application was addressed to Shri K. S. Sawhney, Director, MSJE, seeking information on

The utilization of 3% funds of each department of the Central Government towards welfare of disabled persons, as specified under the eleventh five year plan from January 2008
The detailed rules and guidelines and the monitoring mechanisms set up under each ministry as per this plan
Other RTI applications which had been previously filed in this regard

The second application was also to the MSJE enquiring about measures taken to ensure that government web sites were made accessible to persons with disabilities. Information was requested regarding

The nature and outcome of surveys on government web sites for checking accessibility
The criteria used for measuring accessibility
Details of the circulars issued to different departments and ministries in this regard.

With regard to the first application, MSJE responded broadly that information pertaining to the allocation of funds should be obtained from the concerned ministries/departments, the Planning Commission and the Ministry of Finance directly and not from them. The Ministry mentioned that the process of formulating guidelines was still underway and that the Chief Commissioner of Persons with Disabilities (CCPD), the Central and State Governments were empowered to monitor the progress of the same. The Ministry was silent on the enquiry about previous RTI applications filed in relation to the above matter by other persons.

In response to the second application the Ministry wrote that communication regarding the provisions of the UNCRPD had been circulated to all Ministries for implementation. The Ministry also admitted that no efforts had been made in this direction and since the CCPD was the body which was responsible for checking the accessibility of some government web sites, the application from CIS had been forwarded to CCPD for relevant action.

To read the application on allotment of funds, click here; to read the department's response, click here.

To read the application on steps taken to ensure accessibility of government websites, click here; to read the department's response, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/rti-applications-to-the-ministry-of-social-justice-and-empowerment

First Meeting of the Core Group on Communication and Information Technology

nirmita — 2011-08-17T08:50:29Z

This is a report on the first meeting of the Core Group on Communication and Information Technology, which was held in New Delhi on 5 March 2009.

Following talks with various organisations on collaborating to bring about a policy change for electronic accessibility, the National Centre for Promotion and Employment of Disabled Persons (NCPEDP) constituted a core group on Communication and Information Technology. The first meeting of this group was held in New Delhi on 5 March 2009, between 10.00 am and 1.00 pm. The members of the group include:

Mr. Dipendra Manocha
Mr. Nilesh Singit
Mr. Rahul Gonsalves
Dr. Sam Taraporevala
Mr. Sunil Abraham
Mr. Vijay Krishnamani
Mr. Zamir Dhale

The meeting was convened by Mr. Javed Abidi and co-convened by Ms. Shilpi Kapoor.
The meeting began with a round of introductions and preliminary remarks by all the members. This was followed by a discussion around the issue of web accessibility. Mr. Abidi reaffirmed that the government had issued guidelines making it mandatory for all government web sites to conform to WCAG standards 2.0. The announcement had been made at the E-governance forum meeting at Goa on 12 February. Following this announcement, the first accessible portal of the Government of India, http://www.india.gov.in, had been launched on 17 February. The group felt that in the light of this development, there was no longer a need to take this up as a major issue with the government and it could actively identify and pursue other areas of intervention.

The core group decided that it was best to list issues affecting the disabled in all spheres in great detail and later decide on how best to take these issues up with different government departments. Other than electronic accessibility, there are many areas where accessibility could be improved for persons with disabilities. Mr. Dipendra Manocha and Dr. Sam Taraporevala voiced their concern about the need for amending copyright laws and for having a specific policy governing content from publishers. Dr. Taraporevala explained that there were two ways in which content could be made accessible for the visually challenged; (1) the organisation itself produces the content, and (2) the organisation gets content from outside. Under Section 3 of the Delivery of Books and Newspapers (Public Libraries) Act 1954, all publishers of books and newspapers within the territory of India to which this Act applies have to give a copy of the book to the National Library of Calcutta and three other public libraries identified by the Central Government, within thirty days of publication of the book.

This was seen as a possible point of intervention; the scope of the Act could be expanded to include submission by the publishers of books in an accessible format that could be used by organisations involved in book production for the visually impaired. The organisations could then approach the library concerned instead of individual publishers. Mr. Manocha also raised the issue of the lack of standards for the formats in which these books were produced and lack of clarity as to the identification of a deciding authority for this.

Another critical area for intervention identified by Mr. Manocha is the government’s procurement policy for schools and other institutions. He pointed out that it was very important to ensure that hardware and software procured by schools and educational institutions should be usable with assistive technologies. This mandate should be embedded within the procurement policy itself. There was consensus on the view that the policy is one which should address all disabilities and not relate to persons of specific disabilities. Mr. Manocha further drew attention to the fact that the Solution Exchange Forum was a fruitful space for discussion and action on matters relating for ICT for development, and it has been actively engaging in the past year with issues of accessibility for the blind in the use of emerging technologies.

The next issue which was addressed was the concern that there was no transparency in the government with respect to the total budget allocated to research and development (R&D) in the field of disability. Both Mr. Manocha and Mr. Abidi furnished examples of pointless and wasted efforts on R&D. According to Mr. Manocha Rs. 1.5 crores was spent in designing a keyboard especially for the blind, which was later realised to be unnecessary since blind people everywhere were perfectly capable of and were in fact using normal keyboards. Mr. Abidi also said that lots of money has been spent in inventing the electric wheelchair many times over. It is hence of utmost importance that the Government and the Disability sector should work in tandem to ensure that enough money is being spent on R&D which is relevant to the disability sector. It was felt that there should be a committee set up for this purpose and a clear policy or guidelines set out for the disbursement of funds for constructive R&D.

Mr. Abidi stressed that the group is no longer looking at dealing with just the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment for addressing its needs. With the presence of documents such as the UNCRPD, The National Policy, and the Eleventh Five Year Plan, we are in a position to approach any and all of the concerned departments. Overall there were several areas identified for policy/guideline intervention, and the members were divided into sub groups to take up activities in their areas of expertise. Each sub group decided on a time line for itself, within which it would work on and present to the rest of the group guidelines or a draft policy on its chosen area. After a period during which the rest of the group has had time to give inputs, these would be consolidated and taken up for action.

Areas for which groups were formed for policy formulation are

Publishing and public documents
Procurement policy
Monitoring mechanisms for commissioning R&D
Software accessibility guidelines
Accessibility for the white goods sector
TV and broadcasting standards
Assistive technologies (OCRs, TTS, Speech to text, screen readers, Daisy players and other assistive aids)

It was agreed that the implementation and monitoring of these policies was just as crucial a task as the planning stage. The meeting finally concluded with a vote of thanks to all the members and a commitment to revert on tasks set out within the stipulated time frames.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/first-meeting-of-the-core-group-on-communication-and-information-technology

Copyright Challenges for Print Impaired Persons in India

nirmita — 2011-08-17T08:51:33Z

Print impaired persons in India face several hurdles in accessing reading materials- the biggest one being the Indian Copyright Act 1957

Background

The Indian Constitution guarantees citizens fundamental rights to dignity, to read, to education, to information and to expression.
India has approximately 70 million disabled persons who are unable to participate in the social, cultural and political life of the country because they cannot access materials in the printed form. These include persons with visual disabilities, persons whose physical impairments prevent them from holding or turning pages of a book and persons who have a learning disability like dyslexia. These groups can access reading materials if they are converted into formats which can be accessed by them in an alternate manner using assistive technologies.
Recent developments in technologies such as screen reading and OCR technology, electronic tactile devices, evolution of multiple audio, audio-video and electronic formats, DAISY etc which can be adapted for use in a multiplicity of platforms have opened up innumerable possibilities for persons with different abilities to access information independently and participate in society.
The process of conversion of a printed book into an alternate accessible format such as large print, audio, Braille and electronic formats involves special effort in terms of obtaining permissions from copyright holders, possessing manpower, infrastructure and monitory resources, concerted involvement of intermediary agencies undertaking conversion and the presence of an effective distribution model.

Challenges in India

Today, print impaired persons in India are faced with several problems that hamper their participation in society-

Lack of availability of affordable technological solutions in English as well as local languages
Lack of availability of printed materials in formats that can be accessed using these technologies
Failure on the part of technology and web developers to adhere to principles of universal design which ensure that web sites are accessible to persons with disabilities
Lack of accessible or compatible mainstream technologies to work with special technologies
Lack of an enabling legal regime.

Disability Awareness around the world

The United Nations declared the decade of 1983-1992 as the decade of Persons with Disabilities and the decade of 1993-2002 as the Asian and Pacific decade of persons with disabilities. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities came into force from 2008.
International bodies like the World Wide Consortium (W3C) and the Daisy Consortium have come out with standards and guidelines which will make the web and publications on the web universally accessible.
The World Blind Union (WBU) has recently proposed a Treaty for the Blind, Visually Impaired and other Reading Disabled, (referred to as the “VIP initiative”) which seeks to harmonise limitations and exceptions at a global level so that countries around the world can freely share knowledge in accessible formats for print impaired persons. This Treaty is now being proposed by three Latin American countries and is presently tabled before the WIPO and is under discussion.

Position in India

The Indian Copyright Act 1957 does not make any provision for the conversion and distribution of books in accessible formats for print impaired persons. Hence organisations serving the print impaired have to get permissions from copyright holders to undertake conversions. Further, Indian organisations are not able to borrow accessible materials from libraries in other countries since the absence of such a provision in our fair dealing clause prevents countries from lending books to print impaired persons in India.
In the case of books published in India, there are no accessible copies readily available in the market and while many publishers in principle are not averse to giving permission, the unwanted fear of piracy and lack of awareness prevents them from allowing organisations to undertake conversions. Consequently print impaired persons are denied the freedom to choose and read any book which is freely available to the public.
In the light of increasing global attention in this matter and in the interests of the large print impaired community in India, we need to have a clear position in our law with regard to converting materials into accessible formats for print challenged persons. It is important to understand this as not merely a legal issue, but also as a social and economic cause. We need to work at various levels to solve this problem:

We need to work towards legally binding norms both at a national as well as international level. We can achieve this by supporting the proposed treaty for improved access for the visually impaired at the WIPO, and by ensuring that necessary amendments are immediately incorporated into the Copyright Act, which afford flexibilities for conversion into accessible formats for print Impaired person.
Publishers, copyright holders, organisations and print impaired persons should work collaboratively towards conversion and distribution of published works in accessible formats. Publishers should give digitised copies of books in an accessible format to recognised organisations serving the print Impaired and in return these organisations should set up a distribution mechanism which will ensure that these accessible books get circulated only within the print impaired community and do not find their way into the mainstream market.
Publishers should explore the large market in India for selling books in electronic, audio and other accessible formats along with the print copy. These copies should be available in the market at the same time and at the same price that the print copy becomes available. In the case of electronic copies, publishers may also consider selling the books at a price which is lesser than the price of the print version since this will not involve cost of paper publication.
Publishers should adopt a standard format for creating digital masters of their publications so that all distribution formats including hard copy print, braille, talking book and digital publications can be derived out of it without wastage of resources on conversions and reproduction of books in accessible formats.
The government should frame incentive schemes for publishers and other persons developing technologies to encourage them to create accessible versions of their content and technologies.
We need to work towards ensuring at least the minimum basic study and reference materials which are required for children with print disabilities to complete their school and college level education in all subjects and languages.
We need to encourage peer to peer models amongst disabled persons and organisations for sharing and generating more accessible content.
We need to work towards establishing public libraries and repositories of accessible content with a healthy system of exchange amongst them.
Work towards generating more Indian language content and developing technologies such as text to speech synthesisers which support regional Indian language content.
We need to work towards facilitating cross-border exchange of books so that persons in India get exposure to foreign authors and also ensure that persons abroad are able to read Indian literature. Libraries in India should be able to freely exchange books with libraries in other countries.
We need to spread awareness about the importance of building in accessibility right at the start so that not much time, effort and money is wasted at a later stage in converting materials into accessible formats.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/copyright-challenges-for-print-impaired-persons-in-india

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

The Business Case for Web Accessibility

nirmita — 2011-12-07T09:56:47Z

NASSCOM Foundation has published a handbook on web accessibility titled "Understanding WebAccessibility — A Guide to create Accessible Work Environments". Nirmita Narasimhan authored a chapter "The Business Case for Web Accessibility".

The Internet is perhaps one of the most revolutionary things that happened for persons with disabilities. It has transformed their lives from one of ignorance and dependence to one of inclusion and participation. Using assistive technologies, blind persons can now read newspapers and information on websites, deaf persons can understand video content through captioning and persons with different disabilities can access computers in a variety of ways. However, despite these exciting developments in assistive technologies, the relative inaccessi-bility of websites remains a severe impediment to disability access to the internet.

There may be several reasons for complying with web accessibility. These may be:

Social (i.e. acknowledging the right of persons with disabilities to have equal access to information and opportunities offered by the internet);
Legal reasons (i.e. complying with national guidelines, policies or laws);
Technical (i.e. ensuring increased interoperability, reducing server load, time taken in website maintenance and better quality websites); and
Business (i.e. realizing that having an accessible website makes good business sense).

This article focuses on the last reason, i.e. business drivers for web accessibility.

Web accessibility means that a website can be accessed completely by all users, regardless of disability or any disabling factor such as illiteracy, old age or limited bandwidth. Compliance with the Web Content Access Guidelines (WCAG) will ensure that a website will be equally accessible to all disabled users, irrespective of the type of disability (visual, motor, auditory, cognitive or persons who are prone to seizures). Contrary to common belief, an accessible website is not necessarily a boring one. In fact, often times, the difference between an accessible and an inaccessible website may not be evident visually, but only upon use.

It is important for business houses to bear in mind that making websites accessible not only benefits persons with disabilities, but is helpful to every user. For instance, captioning of videos for the deaf will also benefit illiterate persons and persons having limited bandwidth, who constitute a sizeable percentage of the Indian population. Furthermore, nearly everyone benefits from clearly structured content, easy navigation and illustrated graphics. There are over a billion persons with disabilities living around the world, over 70 million in India alone and some surveys also estimate that one fifth of internet users have some form of disability or disabling condition. Hence companies which ensure that their web sites are accessible will be assured of a much wider reach than companies whose websites are not accessible.

An important aspect of creating an accessible website is that if a website is designed and developed in an accessible manner from the very beginning, its cost would exceed the cost of creating an inaccessible web site by perhaps merely 2%. However, on the other hand, if one were to have to retrofit accessibility features into a website, the cost and effort would be the same as that of creating an entirely new site. Furthermore, while the website would become accessible, the maintenance and day to day activities on it would also need to continue to be accessible. An accessible web site enhances ease of maintenance and scalability. Companies must also ensure that the developers maintaining the website must have a good understanding of WCAG.

Perhaps one of the biggest advantages of having an accessible web site is that it also increases its chances of ranking and visibility amongst search engines. There is a significant overlap between guidelines for accessibility and SEO. For instance, both of them require alternative text for graphics, clearly defined heading structures, identification of language of pages and page content, descriptive links etc. Having an accessible website will ensure that it can be accessed on new browsing technologies and platforms, like mobile phones and PDAs. Not only is navigation and usability enhanced, but the separation of content from presentation drastically reduces the download time of accessible web sites, rendering it a pleasurable experience for users to visit the web site.

There is a clear business case in creating products and web sites which are accessible. This is evident in the fact that some of the largest and most successful companies in the world have incorporated accessibility and universal design in their products and services. For instance,

Apple has been committed to accessibility since 1985 and its accessibility website3 features all its accessibility technologies for persons with disabilities as well as other third party products. Apple has integrated universal access into its operating system so that they are usable with Apple and other products.

The accessibility statement on the web site of General Electric4 gives details of its ongoing work on the accessibility of its website and a disabled user can track the company's progress by reading this page. It also provides a help facility for persons who are unable to use the site due to access problems.

A stunning example of a company which has made huge business profits through application of universal design principles in its products is that of NTT DoCoMo which came out with its accessible line of mobile phones called the “Raku-Raku” phone and rapidly captured the majority market share of mobile phones in Japan. The company has sold up to 20 million5 handsets as of July 2011 since its inception and released 18 models.

Some further examples of companies which are committed to accessibility are Cisco Systems Inc.6, AT&T Services Inc.7, France Telecom8, Google9, Hewlett-Packard10, IBM11, Microsoft Corporation12, Nokia13 and Vodafone14. The web sites of these companies have detailed information on the key areas of their accessibility work.

It is therefore clear that companies are increasingly recognizing the wisdom of unlocking their content to a larger audience. Not only do they increase their customer base, but also are able to garner loyalty from their customers as well as bolster their image by showing consideration towards customers with different needs.

The publicity that can be leveraged by business houses on account of their commitment to accessibility and inclusion will go a long way in building a good and lasting relationship with their customers. Hence, companies are strongly urged to make a concerted effort to promote web accessibility through awareness, internal policies and providing requisite training and support. In a world where policy makers are also increasingly becoming aware of the need for web accessibility and mandating it through policies, it will become inevitable for both public and private organizations to have websites which are universally accessible.

Read the original published by NASSCOM Foundation here

Download the entire book here (PDF, 1570 kb)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/business-case-for-web-accessibility

Comments on Mobile Accessibility Guidelines

nirmita — 2018-01-03T02:37:10Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) submitted its comments on mobile accessibility guidelines to the Ministry of Electronics & IT, Govt. of India.

Consolidated comments on mobile application guidelines:

Overall, this document is very difficult to review and comprehend. It needs to be more structured. If the mobile accessibility practices had provided earlier can be directly adopted that adds more value
Avoid adopting WCAG POUR structure. If it is used use it wisely.
Certain checkpoints do not have appropriate headings. E.g. D, E, G, H must be under perceivable but currently are under Operable. Similarly, I must be under Understandable but currently under Operable.
Some checkpoints are difficult to understand. E.g. Grouping operable elements that perform the same action.
Provide WCAG 2.0 reference with techniques and tools to test wherever appropriate
If any of the checkpoints are differentiated as Mandatory, advisory and voluntary specifically mention them against each checkpoint.
Section specific comments:

In section 1.A, The requirement that since screen size is small we should only use native applications does not make sense.
Section 2.d, 2.e, 2.g and 2.i should go in first section i.e. perceivable.
Section 2.F suggests that buttons should be placed where they are easy to access. But there is no criteria to decide what is easy to access? For example, in iOS, back button is at top left and often important buttons such as end call, ok etc. are placed at the bottom of the screen. Similarly, there are conventions for Android. Please check Android conventions and refer to the same in this document. We could require that app developers should follow conventions for the platform that they are building for
Section 3.a would go in part 2 i.e. operability
Section 4.a and 4.b would go in operability.
Section 4d onwards do not belong in robust, they should be in additional section
Include Mobile Practice 10 from Mobile practices v1.0 that deals with custom actions. Custom actions behave like context menus and help screen reader users.
We also recommend that Mobile Practice 2,3,4 and 5 from Mobile practices v1.0 could be included under principle 4 i.e. robust.

A lot of reflection and deliberations happened during development of Mobile Practices so taking those practices would improve the guidelines. For example, practice 2 has a lot more details about why it is important and how to add labels.

Download the full submission here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/cis-comments-on-mobile-accessibility-guidelines

Report of the Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2017

nirmita — 2017-06-19T15:07:28Z

Aditya Tejas attended the Global Accessibility Awareness Day event organized at NIMHANS Convention Centre in Bengaluru. The event had multiple panels and presentations, including a talk on coding for accessibility, a panel on why accessibility is necessary and how India is lagging behind in implementing it, and a presentation on how accessibility principles are integrated into the product life cycle at Cisco.

Logo of Shuttleworth Foundation below:

Global Accessibility Awareness Day is celebrated across the world on May 3 every year. The objective of the event is to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital access/inclusion and people with different disabilities.

This year the Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2017 (GAAD 2017) organized by Prakat Solutions and co-hosted by CIS and Mitra Jyoti, was held on May 18 at NIMHANS Convention Centre in Bengaluru. The event was designed to raise awareness around digital accessibility issues for persons with disabilities. The Shuttleworth Foundation also supported this event. Approximately 250 people were in attendance. The URL for the event is here. A detailed agenda can be found here. Video recordings of the event will be made available shortly.

The event ran from 2:30-7:30 PM and featured various discussions and events, including dance ceremonies, skits, and talks by various figures.

The first event was an extended presentation on coding for accessibility by Nawaz Khan of PayPal, in which he discussed how developers can integrate accessibility principles into their software from the design phase, and how persons with disabilities can productively make their issues known to developers. He encouraged developers to adopt international standards such as WAI-ARIA, and also encouraged developers to use accessible open source libraries and testing tools. He took questions about standards for other types of disabilities beyond visual impairment, joining the global conversation around accessibility standards, and accessibility design for mobile platforms.

The main event was a panel on the awareness of accessibility issues in India and how they could be improved, both in the public and private spheres. In attendance were Abhik Biswas of Prakat Solutions, Pranay Gadodia of Deutsche Bank HR, Shalini Subramaniam of PayPal, Balachandra Shetty of Intuit, Sandeep Sabat of ZingUp Life, Kameshwari from Wipro, Mahabala Shetty from NIC, and Srinivasu from Informatica. The panel was moderated by Giri Prakash of Hindu Business Line. They discussed issues including how to promote a stronger government response to accessibility issues, initiatives that can be taken from the private or civil society sector in order to address accessibility issues, the lack of awareness around accessibility in the Indian context, and the responsibilities that developers have to make accessible apps and products. Shalini from PayPal talked about the potential for government initiatives such as Make in India could be used to further the availability of accessible consumer products and services in India.

The second speaker, Kameshwari Visarapu from Wipro, talked about how persons with disabilities need to make their voices heard in society. She stressed that, while the laws are already in place, people do not demand their rights. Without this, the government and any community, even those with the necessary power, would not be able to make the changes. Mahabala Shetty from NIC pointed out that NIC is responsible for developing and updating various government websites. He said he understood that the inaccessibility of government websites and services is a serious problem, and pledged to make sure that all websites would be made accessible in the coming months.

The fifth speaker was Sandeep Sabat of ZingUp Life, also a health tech company, which seeks to help people with issues not just around physical health, but also emotional, mental and spiritual health. He drew a comparison with the beginning of the mobile revolution, when people would say that web on mobile is a small, niche space, which eventually gave way to the idea of mobile-first design. Extending this analogy, he said that design must now be accessibility-first, in order to ensure that it becomes part of the culture of product development.

The sixth speaker at the event was Balachandra Shetty from Intuit. He pointed out that design principles needed to make a product accessible and making that product easy to use for the general public are the same, and that improving the user experience for 20% of the population effectively improves it for everyone.

The seventh speaker was Pranay Gadodia from Deutsche Bank HR, who argued that accessibility was important not just for persons with disabilities, but for everyone. He gave the example of ramps on public entrances, which make access easier for everyone. He demonstrated the use of a screen reader and tried to order food through Swiggy. When he found that the app was inaccessible, he pointed out that they had just lost a customer.

The eighth speaker, Srinivasu from Informatica, talked about his work in the accessibility space for various NGOs and companies. He argued that inaccessibility was never built into a product by design, and that any problems were the result of ignorance. He also said that accessibility work was the only career with two major benefits – that of creating an immediate impact among the community and being the kind of work that not only takes advantage of a business opportunity but also directly benefits consumers.

The ninth speaker, Abhik Biswas, said that he believes that accessibility is a nonissue, because if everyone wrote good code and followed best practices, all products would be accessible anyway. He said this was not always the case with software tools. He gave the example of work that Prakat did with a provider of legal software. In large corporate lawsuits, parties would usually share terabytes of data with each other, and legal e-discovery software is used to discover patterns for evidence. An inaccessible document would be useless to such software so, of course accessibility isn’t an issue only for a certain set of people. If you’re in the innovation space and trying to solve problems, he stressed, then accessibility is an issue.

The moderator then raised the issue of the lack of progress for persons with disabilities in the past five years. He asked what progress has been made in the legal area, and whether there are any solutions that users can come up with themselves rather than waiting for government action. Shalini pointed out the inaccessibility of the Swiggy app, and added that there are automated accessibility checkers for apps, both Apple and Android. She demonstrated this for the audience.

Kameshwari said that part of the problem is that a single person may not be able or willing to make much noise. There are a lot of communities that have been formed on a corporate/state/national level, but collectively making noise is important for major changes. One process that her own company tried was creating a repository of pre-tested accessible components, which has two advantages; the developer can pick the component from a standardized repository, and the component would have been pre-tested for accessibility and responsiveness. This is another possible solution – which people collectively come up with standardized repositories of accessible components.

She then gave the example of an accessible garden in Kerala, where persons with disabilities could visit and touch different types of plants in a guided experience to help them identify and understand them. When talking about inclusivity, she asked, why create a separate garden? Integrate these features into all gardens instead, she suggested.

The third speaker said that the government drains enthusiasm from people, and insisted that it could only play the role of a facilitator. The need is to inspire the necessary passion in people to carry forward the issues themselves.

Sandeep said that the intent is already there, but the government was not capable of doing it alone. The social fabric of the country needs to change, along with the attitude of the society. To that end, they suggested making accessibility a non-issue, and looking for opportunities to integrate it into society at large. Instead of thinking of it through a usability standpoint, consider how to improve the overall user experience of a product through the lens of a user with disabilities.

Balachandra pointed out that while love is a strong emotion, fear too is very powerful. The laws in the Commonwealth are much stricter than those in the US, he pointed out, and yet apps built in those countries are far more accessible than those in Indonesia, India etc. So, he suggested that if a product proved to be inaccessible to a certain segment of the population, the employees responsible could face down the CEO, and fear would drive them to make their products accessible. In addition, he called for stricter laws and a possible amendment of the IT Act, drawing upon laws in the Commonwealth and France. Disability discrimination in the US carries a high penalty, and suggested that similar laws would enforce accessibility in local products.

The moderator asked Pranay: is it possible for app developers or mobile platform providers to make accessibility mandatory for apps that are publicly released? He answered that as a tech developer he might not be the right person to answer that, however, he know that the iOS framework is much more stringent than Android in this regard. He called on users with disabilities to call out inaccessible design wherever they saw it, in order to inform developers and to create a healthy competition to make companies disability-inclusive. He also pointed out that many corporations hold events or draft policy for persons with disabilities without involving them in the decision-making process, and that this needed to change.

Srinivasu stressed that the job of making government services accessible fell on the developers within the government, who are in-house, or the vendors, who work for NIC. There are two things the government can do, he said; when asking for a vendor, they could refuse those who make inaccessible products, thus making accessibility a requirement for procurement.

The second is to raise accessibility issues at the level of education. He gave the example of several apps like TaxiForSure and Cleartrip, all of which responded to accessibility issues raised by their users. He stressed that any user could give feedback, and not just those with disabilities, and that raising awareness is a duty for everyone. He asked the audience to share the event on WhatsApp, and to type with their non-dominant hand, as a simple way of understanding disability. The other exercise he called on the audience to do is to write a post about the event on Facebook or their blogs using only the keyboard, without touching their mouse. In this way, he drew attention to thinking about accessibility whenever one uses a website or software.

Abhik took the opportunity to add one more dimension, an area of concern for app developers in India in particular – that of linguistic accessibility. Most apps, he pointed out, are being developed in English only, and most government apps have the additional burden of considering vernacular languages, while NVDA only supports 10-12. The government can’t solve this problem by making multilingual websites, as developers also need to contribute to projects like NVDA in order to build support for other languages. Accessibility, he stressed, wasn’t anyone’s problem, but everyone’s problem.

After this, Shekhar Naik, former captain of the Indian blind cricket team, talked about his life story. He mentioned that there are over 5c0k blind cricketers in the country. He talked about his passion for cricket, how it brought him to where he was today, and thanked the government for its increased recognition and felicitation of persons with disabilities.

After that, the owner of Pothole Raja, Pratap Bhimasena Rao, spoke about the importance of the accessibility of built environments such as roads. He pointed out that 25% of vehicular accidents cause a disability, and stressed the need to address these issues to promote not just accessibility, but prevent disability.

After this, Amit Balakrishna Joshi from the state government gave a brief overview of the Karnataka government’s accessibility and e-governance initiatives. He spoke about the Karnataka Mobile One app, an initiative to consolidate and digitize several state government services. As the world’s largest Mobile One platform, it would integrate about 40 departments, with the objective of bringing equality in service delivery across socioeconomic, linguistic and literacy divides.

At 7:00, Sean Murphy from Cisco gave a talk on universal design principles. He discussed how universal design is important to maximize market access, ensuring that a company reaches 100% of its market. In Cisco, accessibility is integrated into the product lifecycle right from the design phase to testing to rollout.

He also discussed regulatory standards such as Section 508 in the US, which he stressed were critical to securing industry-wide accessibility. The event ended at 7:30 p.m.

Images:

Participants light the lamp to commemorate the start of GAAD 2017.

Prakat Solutions co-founder Abhik Biswas speaks at GAAD 2017.

Panelists discuss accessibility challenges in India.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-gaad-2017

National Compendium of Laws, Policies, Programmes for Persons with Disabilities

nirmita — 2016-02-05T02:16:36Z

This compendium was compiled by the Centre for Internet & Society in collaboration with the Office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, Department of Disability Affairs, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Government of India. Prasanna Kumar Pincha, Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, has written the Foreword.

Preface

India, one of the longest continuous civilizations in the world is also home to one of the largest populations of persons with disabilities. According to the 2011 census, around 2.21% of its population or around 26.8 million people have disabilities of some form or the other. While the country is developing rapidly, persons with disabilities are often left out of the process. Sometimes they are completely neglected from consideration and measures do not take into account their needs by virtue of being non inclusive. On other occasions, there may be special measures for some disadvantaged groups, but persons with disabilities may not be recognised as a separate group, with distinctive needs.

Overall, there is a clichéd understanding about the needs and abilities of persons with disabilities, limiting efforts made towards their progress. Even in cases where some effort has been made, information about these measures is not available to persons with disabilities and their family members, who are consequently unable to avail of them. Additionally, the insensitivity of rules/ schemes/ procedures/ persons makes it difficult for persons with disabilities to benefit from them. However, regardless of the reason, the fact remains that there is a huge gap in the communication of information from policy makers, administrators and law makers to persons with disabilities as well as their family members, organisations and other concerned groups and institutions.

It is extremely important to bridge this information gap in order to enable persons with disabilities to participate equally in development. Better access to information will enable them to avail of schemes/provisions for their benefit and will consequently enable governments to assess whether they have made adequate provision in various domains as well as identify gaps which need to be addressed.
Finally, accessibility of information will also facilitate the participation of government and persons with disabilities in implementation of measures and increase transparency and accountability

With this aim in mind, The Hans Foundation decided to engage with Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) to put together a comprehensive resource on disability related policies across India. It gives us great pleasure to publish this resource and we hope that it be of great help to the community.

Ms. Sweta Rawat
Chairperson
The Hans Foundation

Click to download the PDF version of the book here. (File size 1.72 Mb approx.)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-compendium-of-laws-policies-programmes-for-persons-with-disabilities

Accessibility of Government Websites in India

nirmita — 2012-09-25T05:54:58Z

This report summarises the key findings of a test conducted to measure the accessibility of 7800 websites of the Government of India and its affiliated agencies against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, which is the universally accepted standard for web accessibility.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/accessibility-of-govt-websites.pdf

Report on Training in Basic Computing with use of NVDA and eSpeak in Assamese

nirmita — 2015-06-03T02:44:33Z

This training was held at Monfort School in Guwahati on May 9 and 10, 2015. Laishram Lingappa was the trainer. Eleven participants attended the programme.

Situated in the backdrop of steep hills, Monfort school was the perfect location for training in use of eSpeak Assamese. The delegates came from all across Assam, and represented various organizations. The participants were extremely impressed with the quality of the eSpeak Assamese, and were able to follow the text-to-speech (TTS) very fast.

The visit to Gauhati University’s Cell for the Differently Abled was also a grand success. A presentation about the power of NVDA and eSpeak was made in front of the Chairman of Gauhati University, Registrar, Joint Registrar, Head of the Cell for the Differently-abled, Chief Librarian and the Chief of the Computer Section.

At the end of the two hour presentation, it has been decided that the Cell for the Differently-abled will take the lead in the following aspects:

Preparing a complete list of Persons with Blindness studying in various Colleges of Gauhati University

Organizing a Sensatising workshop for the identified Persons with Blindness.

Negociate with the Publishers associated with the Gauhati University, for Accessible Bookks.

Identify staff who could be trained in making books Accessible in both English and Assamese.

NAB – Delhi will provide Technical support to the Cell for the Differently Abled, as and when required.

A visit was also undertaken to the Gauhati Blind school, where in the students were presented with the different accessibility solutions. They were shown the Smart Cane along with the Plextalk Vachak. Most of the students took keen interest in knowing about the various solutions including eSpeak Assamese. Fortunately the school is supported by some very enterprising young Blind persons, who are extremely good in Technology. These volunteers have taken up upon themselves to teach computers to the students of Gauhati Blind School.

A 15 day follow up training will also be organized either at the sister organization of Monfort school in the district of Tora or the Cell for the Differently-abled in Gauhati.

Our thanks to Laishram for organizing the four day trip to Gauhati.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-basic-computing-with-use-of-nvda-espeak-assamese

Report on Training in Basic Computing with use of NVDA and eSpeak in Marathi & Konkani

nirmita — 2015-06-03T15:47:18Z

The training programme was organized at International Youth Hostel and Estrila du Mar, sponsored by Rotary Club of Goa and Estrila Du Mar from April 20 to 22, 2015. Seventy-seven delegates attended the training programme.

The Rotary club of Goa organized a RYLA for the visually challenged youth of Goa and Maharashtra. The event was sponsored by Estrila Du Mar. The event had components of career counselling, introduction to assistive technology, demonstration of assistive aids and appliances and reading and writing in Marathi and Konkani. The participants were extremely eager to learn about the different reading and writing solutions. They were given hands on demonstration of all the assistive devices.

The programme was inaugurated by the Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Ministry of Goa. This was followed by a session on "Needs Assessment" from the participants. Most of the participants expressed a strong desire to learn "How to Read and Write in Marathi and Konkani". The main sessions were conducted by Taha Haaziq, Resource Centre Coordinator, Central Library, Goa, Miss Zainab, Coordinator, Bookshare India and Dr. Homiyar.

The second day of the programme was dedicated to demonstrations of reading solutions. Participants were encouraged to listen to the eSpeak Synthesiser and understand the comprehension in Marathi. Most were comfortable listening to an e-copy of Sakal, a Marathi daily.

Many participants who had Android phones with them tried to read in Marathi using eSpeak at the end of day 2.

Day 3 was reserved for writing in Marathi. The participants who had basic knowledge of computers were encouraged to practice the in-script keyboard layout. They managed to write simple words at the end of the session.

The three day event was validated by the President of Rotary Club of Goa. The participants expressed about their learnings from the event.Most of them said that they had gained a lot of new knowledge and wanted to attend a short term basic computing workshop, for improving their skills. All the participants received a gift hamper containing CD’s loaded with set up of NVDA along with its tutorials.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-basic-computing-with-use-of-nvda-e-speak-marathi-konkani

Report on eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA Training Workshop at Tiruchirappalli

nirmita — 2015-07-21T01:32:10Z

The training workshop was held from May 4 to 8, 2015 at Centre for Differently-abled Persons, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli. Seventeen delegates attended the workshop.

Inauguration

The eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA Training workshop planned for 5 days (4th May 2015 to 8th May 2015) extensively for visually challenged college students and teachers was inaugurated on 4th May 2015 morning by respected Dr. M. Ravichandran, Registrar (In charge), Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli. Dr. R. Mangaleswaran, Syndicate Member, Bharathidasan University felicitated with august presence and speech. Mr. S. Shankar Subbiah, Assistive Technology Consultant and representative of National Association for Blind, New Delhi and The Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore, and the sponsors for workshop gave a talk on the purpose of the Workshop and need for Tamil computing among the visually challenged in the present educational and employment context. Dr. M. Prabhavathy, Asst. Professor and Centre Head gave the Welcome address and Vote of thanks, thanking the Guests for their interests on empowerment of visually challenged and the participants for their earnest efforts to get trained on new technologies.

The well-equipped and accessible ICT lab of the Centre for Differently Abled Persons, at Kajamalai Campus, Bharathidasan University served as the venue for training. In order to facilitate the participants with more concentrated and time efforts, High Tea and Lunch were also served for the Training days at the Centre. Volunteers with Computer Science background were there to assist the Trainees and served them enthusiastically. The participant trainees were from Tiruchirappalli district and nearby districts like Karur, Pudukottai and Thanjavur of Tamilnadu state.

The workshop began with Resource persons, Mr. K. Navarasan, Mr. S. Shankar Subbiah and Mr. G. Kumaresan, Assistive Technology Expert continuing with the training activities on their expertise areas. The below were the activities conducted during the training period.

Day 1 - 04/05/2015

Forenoon

The whole group of Trainees were divided into two groups based on their previous knowledge on computer.
The former group consisted of the persons who were beginners to computers and the latter consisted of the trainees who have previous knowledge on computers.
A general overview on keyboard and its layout was introduced to the trainees to ensure readiness among the beginner trainees by the Resource person.
The keyboard layout and key mapping for alphabets, numeric, special keys and functional keys were taught to the trainees.
For those with previous knowledge exercises were given for reading, writing in English using computers with newspaper content, answer to question kind of comprehensive paragraphs with the Resource persons and volunteers coordinating.

Afternoon

The beginner trainees typed the keys that were taught on the previous session and practiced simple words dictated the Resource person and volunteers assisted on difficulties.
For those with previous knowledge, the exercises were elaborated and assessed for their readiness.

Day 2 - 05/05/2015
Forenoon

Tamil keyboard layout of Microsoft Windows for default Unicode Tamil Font typing were introduced to the trainees by the Resource person.
The whole group of Trainees were trained to identify the keys for vowels and consonants of Tamil language, type and practice by themselves with the volunteers supporting them, when they had difficulties.

Afternoon

The Trainees were trained to identify the keys for combinations, type and practice by themselves with the volunteers supporting them, when they had difficulties.
A play and learn session was organized to spell out connected words for typing practice.
To make the training workshop more live, the participants also were requested and exhibited their Tamil native talents and knowledge.

Day 3 - 06/05/2015
Forenoon

The Trainees were trained by giving large sets of two letter, three letter, and four letter units of words to type and practice. The Resource persons and volunteers corrected them when they had difficulties.
It was followed up by smaller sentences to be typed by the Trainees.

Afternoon

The trainees were made to listen to the Tamil text phrases with the help of NVDA screen-reader supported by eSpeak voice
The trainees were suggested to type out the phrases listened on a separate document
The trainees were trained on file operations like folder creation, saving to required folder and retrieval of the particular file. Similarly, for navigating, opening the file saved and continuing editing

Day 4 - 07/05/2015
Forenoon

Introduction on DAISY books and knowledge sharing on the available resources to read a DAISY book was done.
Demonstration on using Android based tablets and mobile phones to access the Tamil DAISY books given to the Trainees using Bookshare.org. The Trainees were also given information to subscribe for Bookshare membership and Book search and retrieval.

Afternoon

As a reinforcement on the learning process, a Quiz Programme was conducted to the Trainees on Microsoft Tamil layout and key strokes required for different Tamil words, phrases.
Usage of Tamil in Internet, and the browsers supporting the Unicode formatted content and the NVDA development efforts to support Internet browsing was discussed.

Day 5 - 07/05/2015
Forenoon

The Trainees were provided with Tamil HTML content to use the NVDA navigation commands to read the content and practice.
Reading content received in Email, Copying content from Browsers and pasting on Word document were taught and practiced.

Afternoon

Oral as well as Typing Assessment for Tamil keyboard layout, key strokes, words and phrases typing, file and folder operations of a document were conducted for the Trainees to ensure the training and learning process have helped them.
The Resource persons and volunteers ensured that they have learned the intended content and were confident to move ahead in Tamil computing using NVDA and eSpeak

The Valedictory Function

The eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA Training workshop conducted for 5 days (4th May 2015 to 8th May 2015) had the Valedictory function presided by Prof. V.M. Muthukumar, Hon. Vice Chancellor, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli who delivered the valedictory address and got the feedback from the participants in the presence of Dr. D. Muthuramakrishnan,, Syndicate Member, Bharathidasan University who felicitated the gathering. Vote of thanks to CIS, NAB and the organizers was given by Dr. M. Prabhavathy, Asst. Professor and Centre Head and the training felt much useful ended up with the National Anthem.

Feedback
Mr. K. Nallusami, Government School Teacher, and Mr. R. Jeyaraj, Student from Bishop College gave the feedback, how the training was helpful and would be useful by implementing Tamil computing in their daily occupation. They also highlighted on the materials and useful tips by Resource persons while working with NVDA in MS Word, Internet using Tamil computing given and learned in the training workshop.

Mrs. J. Sumathi, a Teacher who was not knowing Computer previously explained how the Volunteers and Resource persons helped learn from basic Keyboard mapping to Tamil Typing and it was a kind of magic happening to her and sister. They both came 100 miles away from Tiruchirappalli and stayed with their relatives for training. But, really happy to spent these days’ worth getting trained and requested the Organizers to conduct more such trainings for other Teachers of their District too.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-espeak-tamil-computing-with-nvda-at-tiruchirappalli

Report on One day Workshop on Use of eSpeak Hindi with NVDA

nirmita — 2015-06-04T15:43:22Z

This workshop was organized on April 11, 2015 at All India Confederation of the Blind (AICB) and was attended by 19 participants

AICB conducts one year, Advanced courses for Computing for the Blind and Stenography in Hindi and English. The participants of this workshop were the students of this courses.

The workshop began with introduction to NVDA, as most of the participants were new to it. The important configuration’s of NVDA were explained to the participants, who later installed NVDA on their desk tops and selected their preferred settings.

The participants were than given a text in Hindi for comprehension, and a small quiz was conducted on the understanding of the E-speak synthesizer.

This was followed by introduction to the Hindi inscript Keyboard. The students were also taught how to configure the Hindi Keyboard.

This was followed by typing practice. The students were well versed in Godrej and Remington formats, so they were made to understand the advantages of Inscript typing.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-one-day-workshop-on-use-of-espeak-hindi-with-nvda

Report on Seven Day Training in the Use of eSpeak Malayalam with NVDA

nirmita — 2015-06-04T16:35:03Z

The NVDA team held a training for 25 delegates at the Chakshumati Assistive Technology Centre, Trivandrum in Kerala. Akhil was the trainer. The event was held from April 18 to 24, 2015.

Participants' comments on the course

No	Name and address	Position	Remarks
1	Ms. Jomol K Paul, Kollamkudi House, Ayyampuzha P.O., Uppukallu, Eranakulam District. Phone: 9400929294	Student	Even though I studied in an Integrated school, we were not having a computer teacher who know screen reading software. So this NVDA computer course specially on the vacation time really encouraged my intrest in computer and I agree that I will do enough practise in my laptop given by our panchayath and want to write my examination using computers.
2	Ms. Murshid M, Mundil House, Pullala P.O., Karuvarakunddu, Malapuram District. Phone: 9745096850	Student	I learned computers few years back, but never had chance to work. This is the first time I am using Windows and NVDA is good.
3	Mr. Reshma Dileep, Nairserry House, Natika P.O., Thrisurr District. Phone: 8086143177	Student	This year after my first exam for my Plus 2, I could not hold my tears, since the scribe given by the school was bad and even she refuse to write what I asked for. So I think this time I can't get A+ like what I got in 10th standard. When I called Ram Kamal sir, after the first exam, he told me that, this is teh last year I should use scribe and he promised me to teach computer serious, so that I can write my exams using computer. After this course in NVDA dn specially with Espeak Malayalam I am confident that I can work with computers confident.
4	Ms. Aswathy P.K., Vadakekkara House, Veleppaya P.O., Thrisurr District. Phone: 9744404060	Student	I am yet to have my own computer and I never learned computer in my school. Now I am confident that I can use computer and NVDA perfect.
5	Abbin S, Subash, Palliparambil P.O., Karunagapally, Kollam District Tel.: 9847009767	Student	I had a training in JAWS from Chakshumathi's rehabilitation centre before and now with NVDA. NVDA is easy and good.
6	Subin S, Subash, Palliparambil P.O., Karunagapally, Kollam District Tel.: 9847009767	Student	My brother and I know JAWS, now after learning NVDA complete, it is very good and easy to use.
7	Nikil E.K., Eruttukuthi House, Mundery P.O., Nilambur, Phone: 9745016142	Student	From Orca to NVDA, NVDA is easy and very friendly.
8	Manav Sujith, Uma Bhavan, Vallamkulam, Thiruvalla, Kottayam District	Student	I learned JAWS before from Chakshumathi during Eyes Free Science Camps. NVDA is better than Jaws and reading Malayalam is super.
9	Akhil Kumar V A, Valariparambil House, Poothol P.O., Thrisurr District Phone: 8281691549	Student	I am in 10th standard this time and Iwill sure practise NVDA will help me to write exams using and tryto wite
10	Naseef V K, Alunkandiyil House, Kavunkapara, Palakkadu P.O., Malapuram District. Phone: 9048049359	Student	NVDA is different and easier than Orca, which I learned earlier.
11	Ms. Riji C.R, Chittirapally House, Chittirapally P.O., Thrisurr District. Phone: 8943887188	Student	This is the first time I am learning computer and being a Malayalam post graduate student, now I am happy that we can write and read Malayalam using Espeak Malayalam.
12	Sayyid Muhammed Shafeeq, Kizhakkepurathu House, Kalpancherry P.O., Malappuram Phone: 9567499493	Student	NVDA is good and I will be here after using NVDA in my laptop.
13	Ratheesh P, Punnasery P.O., Vengalur, Malapuram District. Phone: 8089603979	Student	NVDA is good and reading Malayalam in Windows is super.
14	Saraoz S N, Saroz Manzil, Kurikkada P.O., Andoor, Attingal. Pone: 729331750	Student	I am a Mphil student in English litterature and various voices in NVDA makes it better than Jaws.
15	Jithin R, Vilayail Veedu, Edanji Mukku, Chirayinkeezhu. Phone: 9633757018	Unemployed	Training was good.
16	Sibin R, Vilayail Veedu, Edanji Mukku, Chirayinkeezhu. Phone: 9633757018	Unemployed	I learned basics of using computers and NVDA is good.
17	Ms. Mereena Damiyan, Padipura Veedu, Anjuthenghu, Kadakkavoor P.O. Phone: 9745039239	Student	I had basic lessons of NVDA earier from Chakshumathi and now I am confident in using all featuers of NVDA.
18	Ms. Devika S Murali, Malavika, Chilampil, Sasthavattom P.O., Phone: 9048719330	Student	Super teachers, super class and I love NVDA.
19	Alimon K P, Kunhikannante Purakkal, Chettipadi P.O, Parapanagadi, malapuram. Tel.: 9142444919	Unemployed	I had an advanced level (8 months) training in JAWS. After using all featuers of NVDA, I can say, now we have a product that is par excellent than JAWS.
20	Rajith R.S, Devaki Vilasam House, Arrayoor PO, Amaravilla, 695122, Tel.: 8547149503	Former Jaws Trainer with NAB	I am now confident to teach NVDA also to my personal students.
21	Sreeja V.K, NSS Working Womens Hostel, Trivandrum	DAISY editor, KFB	I was exploring the Malayalam possiblities of NVDA for text to read Daisy books. Good.
22	Naufal T.N., Thandaruparambil, Vyipin PO, Eranakulam phone:	Trainer with JAWS	I can now professionally train students in NVDA and NVDA is undoubtfully good.
23	Nandu C S, Kattuvillaputthan Veedu, Alamkode PO. Phone: 9496195929	Student	NVDA is good
24	Unni. C S, Kattuvillaputthan Veedu, Alamkode PO. Phone: 9496195929	Student	NVDA and training was also good.
25	Prof. L. Unnikrishnan, Govind, Kaladi P.o., Thiruvananthapuram,	Professor	I am a late commer to digital world. While organising this camp I too learned to use NVDA.
26	Akhil P, Parrakkal House, Nilambur, Malapuram District. Phone:9497345025	Chief Trainer for the Course	Normally it is impossible to comver all portions of basic comuting and featuers of NVDA. But almost 80% of the students were very attendive and learned very quick.
27	John Paul, Arayaserriyil, Arthungal PO, Cherthala Phone: 9744358974	Assistant Trainer of the course	While assisting Akhil, I too learned quite a lot of NVDA.

The main focus of this 7 day training was to help participants understand the power of NVDA and start reading and writing in Malayalam.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-seven-day-training-in-the-use-of-espeak-malayalam-with-nvda

Report on 30 Days Summer Course on Basic Computer Competencies and Language Proficiency

nirmita — 2015-07-12T13:55:05Z

The month long summer course was held at Karna Vidya Technology Centre, Thiru-Vi-Ka, Industrial Estate, Chennai and was attended by 20 delegates.

With the support of Centre for Internet Society (CIS), Karna Vidya Technology Centre (KVTC) has conducted 30 days Summer Course on Basic Computer Competencies and Language Proficiency to introduce, strengthen and enhance the students on Computer Operations and language proficiency.

Inauguration

On the first of May 2015, the Summer course was inaugurated by Mrs. Sumathi, a Tamil poet cum volunteer. The function started off with a melodious invocation by KVTC trainee. The manager, KVTC, welcomed the invitees and participants. The course trainers outsketched the details of the course. It was followed by the chief guest’s address. The guest emphasized on the the need for professionalism and commitment. She inaugurated the course and conveyed her best wishes to all the trainees. With the vote of Thanks by one of the trainers from KVTC, the function came to an end.

Sessions:
The sessions are designed as:
02 00 pm – 04 00 pm Computers
04 10 pm – 06 00 pm English communication Skills.
Between 04 00 pm – 04 10 pm Tea Break

Session on Computers with NVDA

The trainees are given a thorough understanding of NVDA, it’s installation process, commands, Typing Speed and Accuracy, Desktop orientation, Menu Bars, Dialogue boxes, editing and alignment in MS. Word. They were also given training on Tamil Typing using NVDA. Online Bookshare Library was also introduced to them and some have got registered in the Library.

English Language proficiency :

Students had a valuable training on English Communication Skills. They were taught basic grammar and given various practical exercises on Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. Home assignments are also given and assessed.

Evaluation: The students were assessed at regular intervals and guided for their betterment. Special focus was given to slow learners.

Benefits:
This Summer Course was very benefitial, Since it focused and enabled three different categories of students namely:
Students pursuing Secondary (10th Std),
Higher Secondary (12th Std) and
Higher education (Graduates)
All the 20 students learnt the basics of NVDA and English only from KVTC. At the end of the course, they felt happy, as they were able to breathe the air of independent learning using screen readers. They have assured us that they would minimize their visit to reading centres and make use of E texts, Audio books and Online Bookshare Library for their studies. The trainees were given a folder comprising:

Certificate
A Book on English communications both in print and audio CD.

Valedictory Function

The valedictory function was graced by Mr. Pankesh and Ms. Abhirami from Paypal. We also had a special invitee Mr. Ramakrishnan Accessibility Consultant, IBM, Bangalore. The function began with the invocation and the manager, KVTC, welcomed the gathering. Then, Mr. Ramakrishnan highlighted on the various avenues available for the visually impaired candidates. The guests congratulated every trainee and wished them the best for their future endeavours. They also handed over the Study Kit for every trainee. The function ended with National anthem.

Thanks to Supporters

Karna Vidya Technology Centre would like to submit it’s sincere gratitude to all it’s supporters for being with all the endeavours of the centre at all stages. Especially, The Summer Course on Basic Computer Competencies and Language Proficiency, conducted from 1st May 2015 to 31st May 2015 had seen best outcome from the student participants. The support and guidance of DR. Homiyar Ji, CEO, NAB Delhi, The cooperation of centre for Internet Society, Bangalore - our funding partner for this course and our parent club Rotary club of Madras Coromandel enabled us to conduct the course smoothly and effectively.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-30-days-summer-course-on-basic-computer-competencies-and-language-proficiency