Hi Avinash, I had requested you to help me to understand admission process of JNU. Did you receive my mail?
Rgds On 12/17/12, avinash shahi <[email protected]> wrote: > Chris Friend is head of the Right to Read Campaign of the World Blind Union > Monday, 17 December 2012 > > > DATELINE – This is a decisive moment for sight-impaired people like > me: men and women who are seeking to expand our minds and to > contribute to the societies in which we live. We still cannot enjoy a > book or a periodical unless it has been produced in braille or a > large-print edition, or transferred to an audible format by a human or > artificial reader. But our lives may be about to change for the > better. > > It is difficult for me and many other sight-impaired people to grasp > that, in this age of personal computing, digital information transfer, > 3D printers, and narration software, our access to publications that > we can read remains unnecessarily restricted. > > In India, for example, about 100,000 new book titles were published > during 2009; but only around 500, or 0.5%, were made accessible to the > country’s millions of sight-impaired people. In francophone Africa, > some of the places worst ravaged by river blindness and other diseases > that attack the eyes, the share of accessible publications for people > like me is less than 1%. In the United States, Australia, and the > European Union, accessible braille, large-print, and audio titles > account, at best, for 7% of the total number of publications. > > But the problem is worse than these numbers suggest. Under existing > copyright restrictions, titles accessible in the richest countries > remain inaccessible to readers in the poorest. In too many cases, a > copyright-protected audio book produced in France or Canada, for > example, cannot legally be shared with a college library in > francophone Africa for use by blind students. Argentina and Spain > cannot legally share their 165,000 accessible titles with libraries > for Spanish-speaking blind people in Chile, Columbia, Mexico, > Nicaragua, and Uruguay, which together have only 8,517 titles. > > This restriction is absurd, and it causes unnecessary hardship. In > India, sight-impaired doctoral candidates have abandoned their work > only because they lack sufficient access to the necessary texts. At > state universities in Africa, libraries have nothing to offer blind > undergraduates, or any other blind people. Noah Kabbakeh, one of my > vision-impaired colleagues in Freetown, Sierra Leone, needed four > years to complete a two-year master’s program in the social sciences, > not because he is unable to grasp the material quickly enough, but > because he had to earn money to hire someone to read aloud textbooks > and other class materials that any seeing graduate student could have > obtained from the university library. > > Given the obvious need, and the availability of technologies to meet > it cost-effectively, one would think that publishers and officials > charged with the protection of intellectual property would quickly > embrace an agreement that would give sight-impaired people broader > access. One would think that college and public libraries, and other > open depositories, would have books already being produced and made > accessible elsewhere. > > Over the past four years, in a United Nations-sponsored process, teams > of negotiators specializing in intellectual property have been > struggling to draft an agreement that would allow, for example, blind > people, organizations for the blind and other institutions to share > books for the blind across borders. The General Assembly of the World > Intellectual Property Organization is tentatively slated to conclude > this agreement next June. > > But the key moment has already arrived. On December 17-18, negotiators > are scheduled to meet in Geneva to decide whether this agreement will > take the form of a simple, workable treaty or some kind of non-binding > “soft law.” > > Sight-impaired people around the world desperately need a lucid, > workable treaty, and not a “soft law” encumbered by caveats and > riddled with loopholes that favor copyright holders rather than > balancing publishers’ rights with the needs and rights of the visually > impaired. The European Union, after years of refusal, finally agreed > in November to support a treaty; it should now press for clear, > implementable language that will allow organizations to share braille, > large-print, and audio books with each other and with people whose > disabilities make them unable to read. > > The negotiators from the US, whose backing is crucial, have yet even > to pronounce the word “treaty” during the drafting process. It is time > for President Barack Obama’s administration to see what we see and > allow its negotiators to press for adoption of a legally binding > treaty. > > Chris Friend is head of the Right to Read Campaign of the World Blind > Union. > > Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2012. > www.project-syndicate.org > Reproduced By > http://www.thenewdawnliberia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7469:let-the-blind-read&catid=1:opinion&Itemid=76 > > > > > > -- > Avinash Shahi > MPhil Research Scholar > Centre for the Study of Law and Governance > Jawaharlal Nehru University > New Delhi India > > Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of > mobile phones / Tabs on: > http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in > > > Search for old postings at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > > To unsubscribe send a message to > [email protected] > with the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please > visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in > > -- “The waves breaking on the surface draw all the attention, but it is the current beneath the water that determines your direction.” Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
