New Delhi, Jan 30 (Inditop.com) In a move to spread awareness about the dearth of books for the blind, a string of events were organised in the capital Saturday as part of the nationwide Right to Read Campaign.
The campaign which was launched by the Centre for Internet and Society along with others seeks an amendment in the copyright law.
“The Indian government is presently in the process of amending its Copyright Act and therefore its important to keep in mind that under the present provision, the law doesn’t permit the conversion of books into accessible formats for the visually impaired,” Nirmita Narasimhan of the Centre for Internet and Society said.
According to Narasimhan, of the nearly 100,000 books that are published every year, barely 700 can be read by the blind or those who have cognitive disabilities like dyslexia, autism and learning disabilities.
“While in developed countries the World Blind Union estimates that only five percent of the published books are available to print impaired persons, in developing countries like ours the percentage is reduced to 0.5 percent when our blind population is around 70 million and is increasing,” Narasimhan said.
“Therefore keeping all this in mind, we are trying to garner support for improving the lives of the visually impaired by bringing changes at the policy level and generating more awareness,” she said.
The Right to Read campaign was launched in Chennai in September last year and has since then travelled to Kolkata and Mumbai.
