EDUCATION

Braille textbooks for 600 blind children
By Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Dec 20 — When the All-India Federation for the Blind (AICB) and Amway Opportunity Foundation (AOF) joined hands in December 1998 to provide Braille books to blind children of Classes I to VIII, they did not know how difficult things were going to be.

But two years hence, the partners in a humble cause have come a long way. They have already covered the states of Delhi and Rajasthan and today Haryana was also added to their list. As Mr Stephen Beddoe of the Amway Foundation and Mr J.L. Kaul, secretary general, AICB, today announced the completion of the national project for providing Braille books to children of Haryana, one could only wonder over the commitment with which the task was being pursued.

The partnership has resulted in the production and distribution of Braille textbooks for school-going children from Classes I to XII in Rajasthan, Delhi and now Haryana. Work is already on in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra which have a large number of blind children.

Apart from providing Braille books, the focus of this project is also on providing audio tapes for those blind students who are taking post graduate courses all over the country. Speaking to The Tribune, Mr J.L. Kaul of the AICB informed that over 600 blind students under the special and the integrated education system had been covered in Haryana. The completion was celebrated today with Mr Kaul and Mr Stephen gifting one of the published books to Sushil Yadav, a Class VIII blind student from the Behrampur school. Sushil also read out verses from the book which, he wished to treasure all his life.

It was further informed that to stress upon the significance of literacy among blind children, the World Blind Union had decided to celebrate World Braille Literacy Day every year.

Coming to the association between the industrial house of AOF and the Delhi-based NGO Federation for the Blind — their objective is to discharge a social responsibility. As Mr Stephen informed, "The project was started after the Prime Minister Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee expressed keenness that globalisation should have a social face. We, as an industry, feel committed to perform social duties, and hence the project."

Mr Kaul later talked about the various problems which the 12 million blinds in India were facing. "Out of this 12 million, two million account for children alone. We want to provide books to all children and we have no hopes from any quarters.

The state governments are not helping, as usual, but we are doing our bit. For making the project a success we are in direct touch with the 300 blind institutes in the country and we are making sure that books actually reach the students." The books are being printed at the AICB press at Delhi. The entire task of publication and distribution is being looked after by the AOF.

Interestingly, Mr G.K. Dabur, a Haryana Government representative, was also present on the occasion, and he informed that the state had a budget of Rs 15 crore for the disabled this year. He added that Haryana was providing more facilities to the blind in comparison to the other states, and assured the federation that the state would provide all the required help.

It may be mentioned here that the project was completed at a cost of Rs 5 lakh.

Workshop on teaching of spoken English
From Our Correspondent

CHANDIGARH, Dec 20 — About 50 persons of different age groups chanted “ better late than never” along with Ms Brinder Aulakh Anand, Director, Regional Institute of English, Chandigarh, while learning accent and rhythm of the English language during a workshop on ‘The teaching of spoken English’, organised by the British Library here today.

The mushrooming English speaking institutes in the city are causing more damage to the learners, said Ms Anand. Most of the institutes employ teachers who are not trained to teach spoken English, she added.

The main objective of the workshop is to motivate and train the teachers to teach correct English to the students, not only the written form but also the spoken English, said Mr Sushant Banerjee, manager of the library and the organiser of the workshop. The majority of the participants are college and school teachers, he added.

Ms Anand, who emphasised on the need of proper accent and rhythm, said that connected speech in English has its own patterns of accent. Unlike Indian languages which are syllable-timed, English is a stress-timed language. In a sentence the stressed syllables are said with greater force than other syllables and form a succession of beats coming at regular interval of time.

Besides rhythm and accent, Ms Anand also discussed strong and weak forms in sentences, gap fillers, how to start a conversation, tag question and colloquial expressions.

Meanwhile, the British Library is going to open its membership from January 1. The Library is planning to add 1500 more members. At present, the strength of members stand at about 2000 , including 91 corporate members. The entries would be selected on first-come first-serve basis.

Acting on public demand, the British Library is also planning to add new titles, including 50 video cassettes on management and classics.

More seats in PU courses likely
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Dec 20 — Panjab University is planning to have 10 more seats each in the BCA, BBA, BA, B.Sc (computer science and applications) and B.Com courses from the coming session.

The BBA, BCA and B.Sc seats will be increased to 40 each from 30 each at present. Seats in the B.Com course have been increased from 60 to 70.

The local Government Medical College will introduce six postgraduate courses soon. This includes courses in general medicine, paediatrics, the ENT, orthopaedics, and community medicine. 

COURTS

Judicial remand for SDE
From Our Correspondent

CHANDIGARH, Dec 20 — A Subdivisional Engineer with the Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh, Kuldeep Singh, was today sent to judicial remand till January 3 by the UT Chief Judicial Magistrate, Mr Sant Parkash. Kuldeep Singh was caught red handed on Tuesday by the UT Vigilance Department on the allegation of accepting money for regularising a sewerage connection.