I am indeed delighted to participate in the National Award function for the Welfare of Persons with Disabilities. I realize it is very important to recognize outstanding employees, employers, placement officers, individuals, institutions and creative disabled persons from different walks of life. My greetings to all the awardees, who have worked consistently for many years, to achieve this recognition.

Here I would like to emphasize that government institutions should respect the disability Bill which provides three percent job reservations for disabled persons. There must be a mechanism for effective monitoring of adherence to the Bill by the concerned ministries and departments, so that the disabled personnel are able to lead an economically independent normal life. Just like Government departments it is also essential that industries and service sectors to consider good human services in employing disabled persons.

Disabled population as the mission

It is estimated that in India the disabled persons constitute 5% of the total population. I would request the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to work out the statistics within a year. The holistic rehabilitation of these persons involves a multi-sectoral approach and creation of a condition in which they can fully realize their potential and live their lives as independently and work and contribute. Presently it is estimated that less than 20% of the disabled population alone are brought under the purview of rehabilitation schemes. Majority of the disabled who are not receiving any rehabilitation aid or advice belong to the rural sector and they remain only under parental care and suffer the pain all through their lives. It is necessary to have counselling for the parents and relatives of the disabled and motivate them to come forward to seek the help of specialist agencies who can assist them in getting the right supportive devices and general/vocational training for their wards. In addition to providing vocational training, it is essential for government and non-governmental agencies to give psychological training for 3 to 6 months to create a spirit of "We can do it, we will win" among the disabled persons. Combination of vocational training and the higher efforts of the disabled persons will generate the indomitable spirit. I would like to share with you some of my thoughts on this crucial human welfare mission of 'Indomitable spirit".

Indomitable spirit

I consider that the perception of disability lies in the mind. Surely a person with a pure and enlightened mind is a valuable citizen irrespective of whether he is physically disabled or not. The life of a disabled person can be enriched through creation of indomitable spirit in them. I would like to share one example of an individual who have excelled in his field with all the disabilities.

During my recent visit to Bulgaria I visited National Art Gallery. There I saw an exhibition of paintings, mostly done by Bulgarian painters which inspired and impressed me. I also saw 100th birth anniversary exposition of the famous Bulgarian artist Zlatju Bojadjiev. Hundreds of paintings were done by him using right hand as is normally done. I was told that his right hand subsequently was paralyzed. But the indomitable spirit in him, made him paint using his left hand and these more beautiful paintings were also displayed. That struck me, that constructive people cannot be hampered by a physical defect, as the power comes from inside to make one to go ahead with the mission of his life.

I would like to suggest few societal and technological support missions needed for making disabled persons to live near normal life.

Disability friendly education and working place

One of the important concerns is to provide easy accessibility to public buildings, schools, colleges, banks, transport etc. I understand Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has made proper provisions for the benefit of those who are physically challenged. We should make all efforts to provide conducive working environment with easy accessibility. A tripartite approach to handle, educate and empower the disabled has to be in place with the assistance of parents, teachers and social service/health care agencies. Technological and industrial partners in this effort should aim at providing affordable devices and dependable services.

We have to make efforts to ensure that disabled persons get equal opportunities and they do not remain isolated in the society. We have to provide "equalization of opportunity" for persons with disabilities by providing seemingly simple, basic, and obvious services as access ramps and sidewalk indentations for the convenience of the disabled people. We need to realize the fact that this society is for all, encompassing human diversity and leading to development of the human potential in each person.

Assistive devices can often minimize handicaps. While we have developed many new and useful items, we need to pay attention to quality as well as at affordable cost. Research and development in this field is vital. We must harness Information Technology to improve access to the printed word for persons with visual impairment. While text in English can be scanned, transferred to the computer and heard through voice software, this facility is not yet available for the Indian languages at the speed and sophistication of English language. While material in English can easily be transcribed into Braille, this facility is not available for many of the Indian languages. Consequently, availability of text books and other reading materials in the Indian languages in Braille is scarce and production is expensive and time consuming. I suggest the IT community to device a Braille keyboard with the necessary software to convert the Braille input into text and speech in the Indian languages.

Technology for disabled

When I was in Kolkata interacting with 9000 children at the Netaji Indoor Stadium, one boy suffering from visual impairment asked me, "Sir, what kind of education facilities are provided in the Knowledge Society, for visually handicapped children like me?" There are many like him. Let me share one thought with you. I had met many physically and mentally challenged children, visiting Rashtrapati Bhavan and also during my visits to various States and different countries. My belief all along was reconfirmed that these children like all others have an equal urge to pursue their studies and work. We have to provide solutions to their problems with the aid of Information Technology, by developing audio books, talking websites, voice assistive interfaces and other devices. We should launch programmes with IT institutions for developing aids for the visually handicapped at an affordable cost.

Internet and Disabled

I visualize a scene in which some of the disabled have to become part of the Internet culture. Lack of access to the right information at the right time is a bothering concern for the disabled. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) will provide solution to make Internet friendly towards differently challenged individuals enabling them to benefit from the awesome power of the Internet. Physical mobility of the disabled may be minimized or eliminated by the virtual office concepts in which people are allowed to work from their homes through computers and deliver their work output to their offices online.

Even while we work towards such near-futuristic possibilities, we should also try to provide existing services for the disabled. For example, why not provide mobile telephones at a lower cost to those who are disabled as they need it the most for regular work and his/her safety?

Indigenous Manufacturing of Critical Support Systems

Another area of concern is in India, we do not have Cochlear Implant manufacturing units. Cochlear implant helps the deaf and dumb individuals to regain near normal hearing/speaking capabilities. Basically it is by-passing the damaged inner ear portion by replacing its functions with an electronic system having external mike, speech processing circuit, transmitter and an receiver. The receiver is implanted below the ear. The receiver has an electrode which will be inserted into the cochlear portion of the ear. Speech processor processes the input audio signals and converts them into electrical signals in various channels. The transmitter transmits these signals to the implant's multi-channel electrode which terminates in various points of the cochlear. At a Hospital in Coimbatore, I saw children who could hear and converse after implanting and subsequent IT aided training. The cost of imported cochlear implant is around Rupees 7 lakhs which common man cannot afford. Series of development activities should be initiated to establish cochlear implant manufacturing capabilities in India with the objective of bringing down the cost of all components, surgery and post operative training to around Rupees 40 to 50 thousand.

Mentally Challenged Children Research

When I was at Anna University, I was also guiding a doctoral research project. The research is to find a software/hardware integrated solution to achieve a near normal functioning of the brain of mentally challenged children. When I saw some of the mentally challenged children performing certain activities like singing, painting in Central Institute of Mental Retardation, Thiruvananthapuram, I was convinced that one day convergence of information and communication technology, medical electronics, bio-technology and mathematical simulation can find a solution for their problem. We have been studying the mentally challenged children in various research institutions, homes for mentally retarded and hospitals. We were sure that by transforming the functions of the damaged portion of the brain to the normal portion of the brain by some triggering mechanism, or by implanting a bio chip to carry-out those functions, the retardation process can be arrested and rejuvenation of the damaged cells can take place. The problem is very complex. Can it be solved? The research still continues. We target to achieve a few milestones in this research by 2005.

Women with disabilities

In every sphere of life, women with disabilities are very high. The unemployment rate for disabled women is phenomenally high. Government and Social organisations, educational institutions and industry have to work together and evolve methods for removing the high unemployment of women having disability and bring them into main stream of life by building capacity in them to make useful contribution to nation building tasks.

Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation process should aim at enabling persons with disabilities to reach and maintain their optimal physical, sensory, intellectual, psychological and/or social functional levels, thus providing them with the tools to change their lives towards a higher level of independence. Rehabilitation process has to include measures to provide and/or restore functions, or compensate for the loss or absence of a function or for a functional limitation. It should include a wide range of measures and activities from more basic and general rehabilitation to goal-oriented activities, for instance vocational rehabilitation.

The most important need is to enlist people as support group personnel who have love and passion for serving others.

I am aware that advanced composite technologies are helping the disabled to have light weight artificial limbs or FROs (Floor Reaction Orthosis) - Calipers. I could see the happiness of the recipients in Bhuj after earthquake disaster. Composite material may also used for making Braille. These types of technologies should be adopted on a large scale. There is a need to launch projects in these areas immediately.

Conclusion:

We require an innovative and caring mind to provide productive employment to the disabled persons. To achieve this a committee of experts including representatives from corporate and voluntary sectors has identified around 120 occupations at executive/management/supervisory levels and around 946 occupations at skilled / semi-skilled / unskilled levels for employing disabled persons without compromising the quality of work. Organisations and industry should voluntarily come forward to offer some of the occupations to the disabled so that they can realize their economic independence and also have the satisfaction of contributing to the cause of removing pain. Now the call centres are becoming important business centres in the country. With the minimum hardware changes through a short training programme the call centres can employ large number of visually handicapped persons for efficient work in their establishments. I would recommend call centre institutions all over the country to facilitate conduct of such courses for the disabled persons in mission mode and provide employment.

Particularly I would request all the people who have assembled here to have the courage that you can do it and you will win. Also all of you must acquire vocational qualification in many areas which will be acceptable to the job providing agencies. This will facilitate provision of useful jobs for enriching your life.

I request the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to provide such support and encouragement necessary to promote the welfare of disabled persons to make them feel more secure, independent and be equal partners in the community. I would like to explain an incident which took place in Rashtrapati Bhavan. On 27th November 2003. I met about 1000 differently challenged children, who were taking part in the Abilympics. They were extremely enthusiastic to visit Rashtrapati Bhavan and the environment gave them happiness. To that gathering, I recited a small poem, which runs like this:

We are all God's children,

Our minds are stronger than diamond.

We will win, win, win with our mighty will.

God is with us who can be against!

On hearing this, a boy from Iran by name Mustafa came to me, who didn't have both legs and was fitted with artificial limbs. He thrust a paper in my hand. He had written a beautiful poem titled "Courage", in Persian language. It reads like this:

Courage

I don't have legs.

My mind says: Don't weep, don't weep

For, I need not bow even in front of a King.

I was really moved by the positive thinking of that boy. It shows his courage to face the life with optimism. I wish all of you to carry this message to make your life meaningful.

I wish you success and happiness in all your missions.

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