Remembering the person who taught power of dots to visually impaired: World celebrates Braille Day today

News Bharati    04-Jan-2020 10:17:10 AM
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Mumbai, January 4: The world Braille Day is being celebrated today. The day is marked remembering the birth anniversary of Louis Braille, the inventor of Braille - for people with visual disabilities. To raise awareness of the importance of Braille, the UN took this initiative. In the world today, approximately 1.3 billion people living with some form of distance or near vision impairment.


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The day is marked remembering the birth anniversary of Louis Braille, the inventor of Braille script, for the people with visual disabilities.

Recognized from now, each 4 January, the Day was announced by the General Assembly last November, as a means of realizing fully the human rights of visually-impaired and partially-sighted people, and bringing written language to the lead as a critical qualification for promoting fundamental freedoms.

Louis Braille was born on 4th January 1809 in the town of Coupvray in northern France.

At the age of just 3, he lost both his eyes in an accident. This resulted in the invention of the language of 6 dots- which is popularly known as braille.

As a part of the World Braille Day Celebration, the Regional News Unit of All India Radio Ahmedabad has organized the special live Braille News reading by a visually impaired person. Yahaya Sapatvala - a visually impaired teacher will read the 7.10 PM evening regional news bulletin of All India Radio Ahmedabad through Braille Script.

Regional News Unit of AIR Ahmedabad is the pioneer in live Braille news reading on Radio by a visually impaired person in India. The first such news bulletin was read by Mr Ranchhod Soni- a senior teacher of a school run by Blind People's Association - in 2004, whose name was recorded in Limca Book of world records for reading first live braille news reading on Radio in India.

According to 17 years long tradition of RNU - Ahmedabad, the second half of five minutes of 10 minutes evening news bulletin is being prepared in Braille Script with a special typewriter. After some rehearsals, the visually impaired person is reading it live along with a regular news reader. The aim of this initiative is to spread awareness among society about the plight and cause of people with visual disabilities