Dear Prateek,
I would like to inform you that is the initiative hadbeen taken by National
Federation of the blind karnatakabranch to talk to the senior director door
darshan to do this event and he had accepted.
We are very greatful to him.
We will pursue this matter that it should continue.
Madhu Singhal.
----- Original Message -----
From: "prateek aggarwal" <prateekagarwa...@gmail.com>
To: "accessindia" <accessindia@accessindia.org.in>
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 11:34 AM
Subject: [AI] meet indian TV's first visually impaired TV ankers and
newsreaders
Bangalore, Jan 10 (IANS) Meet Manjunath V., Srinivas Murthy and Ashok.
They are all in their early 20s, undergraduate and visually
challenged. They are the first three visually challenged people to
anchor news bulletins in the history of Indian television.They
anchored Kannada news on Doordarshan Kendra's regional Channel
Chandana in Bangalore Jan 4, the second birth centenary of Louis
Braille, founder of the Braille script.
The audience response has been so enthusiastic that Chandana channel
has decided to soon start a 10-minute Kannada news bulletin once a
month to be exclusively read by visually challenged people.
Manjunath, blind from birth and a second year student of bachelor of
arts at St Joseph Arts and Science college, Bangalore, said: "I am
very happy to have read news on TV. As a visually challenged person, I
have faced many difficulties and stigmas in my life. The entire act of
anchoring a news programme was quite empowering. I am looking forward
to anchoring more news bulletins in the coming months."
Murthy, a first year bachelor of arts student at the Vijayanagar first
grade government college, Bangalore, too is elated by his new
popularity.
"Now everybody in my college recognises me and asks for my autograph.
I feel good that I too could read news like any other normal person,"
smiled Srinivas, who is also blind from birth.
Ashok, a first year student of bachelor of arts at St Joseph Arts and
Science college, Bangalore, was happy that he made quite an impact by
reading news on a leading television channel.
"I feel great that through three of us the issues relating to visually
challenged people are getting noticed. We're no less than others and
need empathy and not sympathy to succeed in life," said Ashok, who is
also blind from birth.
Officials of the TV channel said that the audience response to these
three news anchors has been very encouraging.
"We were amazed to see the reaction of the audience. Since Jan 4 we
have been flooded with congratulatory messages for taking such a huge
step in encouraging visually challenged people. Within two months we
will start a special monthly news bulletin to be anchored by the three
visually challenged newsreaders," Rajendra Katti, programme executive
of Bangalore Doordarshan, told IANS.
"They have become heroes for their community and people are calling us
to find out more about all three of them. They are very good in their
job and we hope that the three will continue doing great work in the
coming months as news anchors," added Katti.
The three read news in all the six bulletins telecast on the channel
at 7.45 a.m., 11.00 a.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m., 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Jan 4,
along with regular news anchors Prabha Karanjee and D. Rajeshwari.
Asked why he initiated this experiment, Mahesh Joshi, senior director
of the Doordarshan Kendra here, said the three of them are very
talented and had the potential to be good news anchors.
"I never doubted their talent. They are as good and talented as any
other normal news reader. That is why I have chosen them. It was a
kind of tribute to Louis Braille on his second birth centenary," Joshi
said.
Joshi trained the three of them every day for nearly 30 minutes for
almost one month in the art of news reading and anchoring.
According to People with Disabilities in India: From Commitments to
Outcomes, the latest report prepared by the World Bank in
collaboration with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, the
country has 60 million disabled people.
Out of them 10 percent are hearing and speech impaired, whereas 48
percent are visually impaired, followed by 28 percent movement
impaired and 14 percent mentally disabled.
Louis Braille was the inventor of Braille, a world wide system used by
visually impaired people for reading and writing. Braille is read by
passing the fingers over characters made up on an arrangement of one
to six embossed points. Braille has been adapted to many languages
around the world.
(Maitreyee Boruah can be contacted at m.bor...@ians.in )
cell: 09928341197
e-mail:
prateekagarwa...@gmail.com
website:
http://www.prateekagarwal.webs.com
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