The reason i raise the cost bogey all the while is personal. I see two blind vendors on Dadar station selling bag lock chains. Will they afford a handheld - very unlikely. Who subsidises a purchase if at all. There Babu-E-Alam in the shadows again. Do they have cell phones - yes with fm ;-). I had also interacted very closely with an organisation of visually impared persons several yrs ago. 99% of the members would never have afforded a handheld given their educational and work skills.
The Situation is quite different from your several years back experience. I don't know how many years ago you are talking about. but due to my research work I have been all over India and today the computer litrecy of blind persons is ironically highest in asia and our country is amongst the highest in the world. secondly, not just the skillsets the payment capacity of these people have also n\\ increased. just looking at two lock chain venders we can't conclude. secondly for a device as important as we are talking about, let me inform the list that organisations like lions club do a lot of donations to blind people in masses for life important things. rather just 2 months back 150 seloron computers were distributed with talking software (screen reader) to 150 blind people by lions club. and I am giving only one such example. today almost every college has more than 15 blind students on an average. and at the pg level it is even more. think about their basic skillsets? Krishnakant.
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