Disability in India

Overview

Design crusaders foster accessibility NCPEDP-Mphasis Universal Design Awards have spread awareness about universal design in the past 13 years. (Oct, Sunday Guardian)

Centre overhauls accessibility mandate for disabled people, but uncertainty due to overlapping rules. “As multiple ministries work on specific rules, compliance and overlaps will be a challenge.” (Jun, Scroll.in)

The daily struggles of Kashmir's Disabled Community in a World of Inaccessible Structures (May, News Click)

India Has Made Progress in Improving Accessibility, But Needs To Up the Ante. (May, The Wire)

Disability rights activist and doctor highlights unusable infrastructure in public places – “ramps made at many public properties are poorly made or inaccessible for disabled people.” (Jan, Indian Express)

Disabled-friendly buildings rendered inaccessible: “Even as the government creates infrastructure for the differently-abled, the same is not being maintained or kept accessible to them” (2022, Herald Goa)

Uncertainty over Accessible India Campaign deadline seven years of work to increase accessibility of government buildings, public transport and websites. (2022, The Hindu)

Mumbai: Living with a disability in the megacity (2022, Aljazeera)

Lessons from Chennai on accessibility for the disabled (2022, New Indian Express)

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Housing

Wheelchair User Woman In Bengaluru Struggles To Find Accessible Apartment (Oct, NDTV)

Accessible homes for disabled Indians is not a favour, it’s an obligation (2022, The Print)

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Delhi Police to visit homes of senior citizens every evening (2022, Devdiscourse)

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Maiden wheelchair insurance a step towards transforming disability sector (Aug, The Tribune)

GDI Hub, Google and AT Scale launch pioneering project to test ‘Mobile at Assistive Tech’ in Kenya, Brazil and India. (Jun, Global Disability Innovation Hub)

Who Pays the Price When Cochlear Implants Go Obsolete? “Some cochlear implant users can’t afford to keep up with compulsory technology upgrades. After becoming dependent on the devices, they’re losing their hearing and feel abandoned by manufacturers.” (Mar, Sapiens)

Food Delivery Service With A Difference: This Motorised Wheelchair “Gives Wings To People With Disabilities” (2022, NDTV)

Sensory Futures: Deafness and Cochlear Implant Infrastructures in India:

“In this book, I attend to becoming normal, specifically in relation to sensory normality. I argue that normalization leads to, and is a form of, narrowing. Becoming normal—a key promise of cochlear implant technology—constrains people’s sensory, modal, and relational engagements. Normative sensory configurations and communicative practices based on listening and spoken language are the desired outcomes after cochlear implantation. These desired outcomes are tethered to ideas and ideals about a “right way” to sense, communicate, and relate to others. The Indian state, families of deaf children, medical professionals, and educators, among other stakeholders, increasingly expect that these normative outcomes will occur. They work to foreclose other outcomes for deaf individuals, such as becoming sign language users or orienting to others through vision and touch. As cochlear implants become more ubiquitous in India, sensory, modal, and relational possibilities for deaf children and those with whom they engage diminish. Sensory normality, as a desired goal and outcome, results in a contraction rather than an expansion of ways of engaging with the world.” (2022, Manifold)

From Hoping to Expecting: Cochlear Implantation and Habilitation in India (2022, Cultural Anthropology)

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Impact

Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to healthcare among people with disabilities: evidence from six low- and middle-income countries. “Key barriers to accessing healthcare during the pandemic included changes in availability of services due to systems restructuring, difficulty affording care due to the economic impacts of the pandemic, fear of contracting coronavirus, and a lack of human support to enable care-seeking.” (Aug, International Journal for Equity in Health)

COVID-19, Persons with Disabilities and an (Un)Inclusive Healthcare System a study on access to healthcare services and vaccinations. (2022, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy)

Gasping to live again: A disabled person's account of barely surviving Covid:

“My oxygen is dipping. I have blacked out. When I wake up, the nurse is telling me I should lose weight. Am I going to survive? I must be. No one tells a dying person to lose weight, do they?” (2022, Unbias the News)

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Living with COVID-19

Covid scare keeps blind students away from school (2022, Deccan Herald)

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Disability, Diwali, Durga Puja. “The absence of wheelchair ramps at entrances to festival spaces, or judgmental stares when a child with sensory issues becomes overwhelmed at a pandal, send a clear message: Not welcome.” (Nov, ThePrint)

Disabled Persons Protest Non-Revision of Pensions Since 2011 (Jul, Peoples Democracy)

People with disabilities hold protest for release of disability pension “They raised slogans against Social Welfare Department and burnt an effigy of its director.” (Jun, Jammu Kashmir Latest News)

Manipur violence: Differently abled person stages protest demanding peace and stability in state. “During the protest, protestors held placards that read Do not kill civilians, we are disabled, We want peace, Save our life, Do not burn our house, Long live Manipur among others.” (Jun, India Today)

Disabled Persons Association Protest Merger of Disability Pension Fund with Arunodoi Scheme in Guwahati, Assam (May, G Plus)

Lakshadweep: Disability Rights Activists Hold Another Protest as Accessibility Issues Continue Protests banned during the G20 meetings in order to stop them. (May, The Wire)

Revival Disability India turns 3. “We are proud to be taking up digital space little by little, every day, and to be disrupting the able-bodied and heteronormative lines of the world. [...] We have created our very own imagined reality through our phone screens - an accessible reality where we are free to dissent, share intimate moments and experience a sense of belongingness and affirmation.” (Apr, Revival Disability India)

In Bihar, People with disabilities launch ‘satyagraha’ “Thousands of people with disabilities from all the 38 districts of the state have launched an indefinite protest at Gandhi Maidan in support of their 46-point demands for their rights and welfare.”

The Protest Toolkit: “with our existence itself being a form of rebellion, our emotions and our community become our tools of protest.” (2022, Women Enabled International) See also reflections on celebrating disability pride in India.

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Climate Change Is A Double Blow For People With Disabilities (2022, Health Policy Watch)

Interview with Alice Abraham, a young woman from Kerala “regarding the impact of climate change on her life and her disability.” (2022, The Sangyan)

An ICT4 Inclusion Challenge on mitigating the impact of climate change on people with disabilities (2022, ICT 4 Inclusion Challenge)

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Overview

An online library for blind and print disabled with a collection of nearly 700,000 books in DAISY format combining audio and text. (2022, Kashmir Images)

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Sign Languages

In A First, Deaf Lawyer Sara Sunny Argues Supreme Court Case In Sign Language “Chief Justice Chandrachud has been calling for ensuring equal access to justice. Last year, he ordered a detailed accessibility audit of the Supreme Court complex to make the justice system more accessible and to understand the challenges faced by differently abled people when they come to the court.” (Sep, NDTV) See further on the BBC.

With 260 new terms Indian Sign language enables communication on banking bonds and trade. (Sep, Times of India)

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Braille

Thirukkural and other Tamil literary works to be available in Braille script. (2022)

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Overview

Profile of queer disabled artist Ritika Gupta: on the significance of the digital medium for neurodivergent artists and why community networks for disabled artists must thrive (Jun, BehanBox)

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TV and Film

Disability and Poverty in Dosti 1964 the story of a friendship between two disabled boys. (Feb, Neurodivergent India, instagram)

Streaming apps woo differently-abled (Feb, Mint)

Making Cinema Accessible To Everyone “The Delhi High Court on January 16, directed the producers of the upcoming movie ‘Pathaan’ (Yash Raj Films), to make the movie accessible for hearing and visually-impaired persons.” (Jan, Live Law)

Will ‘Jalsa’ Improve Disability Representation in Indian Popular Culture? (2022, BBC) See more on Surya Kasibhatla, the actor with cerebral palsy that stars in the thriller.

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Media

Reframing Disability a newsletter “untangling disability-inclusive narratives” and storytelling. (Nov, Priti Salian)

How one Indian radio station is giving ‘a lifeline to people with disabilities’ around the world. “Set up in 2015, the volunteer-run station now has some 50,000 people with disabilities tuning in to its trilingual broadcasts every month”. (2022, This Week in Asia)

A 9-step plan for 'curb-cutting' disability access in India’s news and newsrooms. A paper on the experiences of journalists with disabilities and what more can be done. (2022, Reuters Institute)

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Exclusion of questions on disability data from the upcoming National Family Health Survey. “In a plea challenging the exclusion of disability-related questions from the sixth instalment of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), the Calcutta High Court has issued notice to the respondents to file an affidavit to satisfy the prayers raised by the petitioners against the exclusion.” (Jul, The Leaflet)

Lack of data is denial of rights for persons with disabilities. Disability questions dropped from upcoming National Family Health Survey (NFHS-6). (Jun, H-Leads)

Data Gaps: Undercounting Disability In India Explores issues with surveys, disability certification and the unique disability id scheme. (2022, IndiaSpend)

Factsheet: Disability In Jharkhand results from the National Family Health Survey showing less than 1% of the population having a disability. (2022, The Sangyan)

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Overview

WhatsApp leads the way in digital accessibility in India. (Feb, Deccan Chronicle)

State of digital accessibility in India (2021, Financial Express)

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Online Accessibility

Court of Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities orders a online healthcare service provider to make its application and website accessible. (2022, The Hindu)

Usability and accessibility-based quality evaluation of Indian airline websites. (2022, Universal Access in the Information Society)

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Status of Disability Inclusion in Disaster Risk Management (2022, The Sangyan)

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Social Protection

In Tamil Nadu, Unique Disability Identity Cards go missing (2022, DT Next)

Tangled In Red Tape, The Disability ID Card Process Is Steeped With Gender Barriers. As well as some of the expected implementation issues, this in-depth article discusses how "these problems multiply for women and transgender persons with disabilities." (2022, Behan Box)

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Overview

“If he has education, there will not be any problem”: Factors affecting access to education for children with disabilities in Tamil Nadu. “Despite legislative progress, significant gaps in attendance, learning and social inclusion remain for children with disabilities” (Aug, Plos One)

Could Inclusive Education for Kids With Disabilities Transform Indian Classrooms? (Jul, The Better India)

A Long Road to Inclusion: Education of Children with Disabilities in Rural Indian Government Schools:

“Our findings suggest that deficit-oriented views dominated teacher thinking, but they showed a readiness to engage with disability issues, recognising the value of education for all. However, they struggled in their classroom practices in relation to meeting diverse learner needs and exclusionary practices were further amplified for children with disabilities. Teachers were unwilling to take responsibility for the learning of children with disabilities, expressing significant concerns about their own preparedness, while highlighting the lack of effective and appropriate support structures.” (Jul, International Journal of Disability, Development and Education)

STEM education for blind kids is the need of the hour. (Jan, News Trail)

Deaf children and mental health: The challenges and how we’re tackling them. (2022, Global Partnership on Education)

Inclusive education in practice: disability, ‘special needs’ and the (Re)production of normativity in Indian childhoods. (2022, Children's Geographies)

Around 71% of govt schools across country made "disabled friendly" according to Ministry data (2022, Times of India)

For kids with disabilities, the pandemic may have been a reprieve “If not going to school has given them their first taste of learning in a safe and happy place, then schools have to be made safer and happier now that they are heading back” (2022, Indian Express) I'm sure this doesn't generalize, but great to see cases of people who had a better time.

Early detection of disability among children is important (2021)

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Higher Education

Why Disabled Students Want JNU To Walk The Talk. “If I filmed a wheelchair-view video of the Jawaharl Nehru University campus, it would depict a nightmare of inclusivity, quite ironic given JNU's progressive reputation”. (Nov, Times of India)

Inclusion should be a matter of policy Because people with disabilities should not be dependent on the kindness of others even for basic needs. An essay on adaptations needed in law school. (Jul, The Hindu)

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Supreme Court gives a welcome order with problematic observations. Judges accepted inclusion of disabled people in public services they had been excluded from, but accompanied this with “seemingly discouraging remarks”. (2022, Indian Express)

Article on employment of persons with disabilities and statistics from public and private sectors. (2022, Business Standard)

Official Data Shows Central Government Jobs for Disabled Persons Have Declined Since 2018 (2022, The Wire)

The Supreme Court bats for disabled people in police force. “Experiment it for a while and if it does not work then you may not continue with it.” (2022, Times of India)

Enabling Inclusive: Best Practices in Disability Inclusion in Manufacturing Sector (link to pdf, 2022, IBDN)

Poorly Worded Ads, Apathy Are Depriving Doctors With Disabilities of Job Opportunities (2021, The Wire)

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How Much Of A Man Is A Disabled Man? “Does patriarchy disable our ability to recognise desire?” (Oct, Agents of Ishq)

Trans Persons With Disabilities Lack Enabling Social Systems and Healthcare Support: “the medical fraternity is patronising and insensitive towards their healthcare needs. It does not help that families, already struggling to cope with their disability, find it hard to come to terms with their gender identity.” (2022, BehanBox)

Women With Disabilities Have To Constantly Negotiate Between Isolation And Intrusion

“We noted in our conversations with women with disabilities that they experience social isolation and the invasion of privacy simultaneously. Their body becomes available to other people — parents, doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, groups of medical students doing the round of wards, for example.” (2022)

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Power of touch: how blind women are helping detect breast cancer in India. (Jun, the Guardian)

‘Hell on earth’: India’s taboos around women’s pain leave endometriosis sufferers in agony. (May, the Guardian)

As Covid Flares Again, India’s Disabled, Serviced By Quacks Or Not At All, Struggle To Access Healthcare and vaccinations. (Apr, Article 14)

A disability-inclusive healthcare delivery system is the need of the hour (Mar, Times of India)

Insurers Are Denying Health Cover For Intellectual, Developmental Disabilities. “Despite clear guidelines, insurance companies in India exclude those with intellectual and developmental disabilities from coverage”. Includes insurers denying care after the non-disclosure of conditions often unrelated to the medical need. (Jan, BehanBox)

High Court rules that People with disabilities are entitled to health insurance. (2022, Times of India)

Can a Blind Doctor Become a Psychiatrist? discussion of a case that has reached the Supreme Court. (2022, The Wire)

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Considered a backup. On the Debrief: a feature on the overlooked power of disabled care. (Jul, Disability Debrief)

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Interview with Nu Misra, community leader, disability and queer rights advocate “I believe we don't just walk into revolutions, but also wheel, limp, hop, crawl into one or initiate one for ourselves. There is power in a movement with disability. A way of survival, of thinking and of doing with disability.” (Jul, UN Women)

Reclaiming Consent As A Non-Visibly Disabled Trans Survivor (Jun, Revival Disability Magazine)

There are too many barriers for persons with disabilities “Accessibility in India is often seen from the lens of the individual and the collective or societal approach is missing [...] It is not surprising that it is disabled individuals who have to take the onus on themselves and turn into activists and serial petitioners in courts.” (2022, Money Control)

Not Your Everyday Ableism a series of short videos to “to unlearn everyday ableist notions, acknowledge the need for creating disability affirmative spaces, and understand the ways for taking action, one conversation at a time.” (2022, That Sassy Thing)

Don't Mourn For Us, an advocacy poem by Aishwarya Othena (on Youtube, 2021, Rising Flame)

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Laws, Health Policy Fail To Stem India’s Tsunami Of Mental Health, As Stress Claims Victims, Cuts Productivity. (May, Article 14)

‘A lifeline’: mental health camps bring peace of mind to thousands in rural Assam. (Jan, the Guardian)

Mental justice: Addressing the mental health of de-notified tribes. (Jan, IDR)

The Long-Run Effects of Psychotherapy on Depression, Beliefs and Economic Outcomes:

“We revisit two clinical trials that randomized depressed adults in India (n=775) to a brief course of psychotherapy or a control condition. Four to five years later, the treatment group was 11 percentage points less likely to be depressed than the control group. The more effective intervention averted 9 months of depression on average over five years and cost only $66 per recipient.” (link to pdf, 2022, Bhat et al)

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Overview

The long fight for accessible buses in Chennai (Jan, Citizen Matters, Chennai)

Diary of a wheelchair traveller: 7 accessible spaces in India (2022, Money Control)

Representation to West Bengal Transport Authorities on procurement of accessible, low floor buses. (2022, Freedom of Movement Coalition)

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Air Travel

IndiGo staff 'abandons' visually impaired flyer. (Mar, Times of India)

Passengers with special needs: “A wheelchair is not what my sister needs at an airport” (2022, The Indian Express)

New disability rule for airlines from India's aviation authority. (2022, Disability Insider)

Anger after India airline IndiGo removes disabled teenager “India's aviation minister has said he is investigating a domestic airline after it allegedly refused to let a disabled teenager board its flight.” (2022, BBC)

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How Budget 2023 'neglected and condemned' persons with disabilities: “despite the rhetoric of 'Inclusive India' [...] persons with disabilities continue to be ignored by the State.” (Feb, Money Control)

Budget 2023 spend on disability: Move towards investment for social inclusion. (Jan, Times of India)

Using the Capability Approach to Review the National Legislative Frameworks for Support Services for Persons with Disabilities in Four Countries in Asia: “most countries address support services, including assistive devices, only from the perspective of a social security measure for persons with disabilities living in poverty, failing to uphold the rights of those not meeting those eligibility criteria.” (2022, Societies)

Government advisory board on disability not re-constituted since November 2020 (2022, The Hindu)

New Policy for disabled paves way for early intervention centres employment portal & national database (2022, Times of India) Concerns raised that the draft was not accessible (The Hindu)

Analysis of government budget (2022, CIP)

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25,980 elderly, disabled exercise Home Voting facility “In Rajasthan Assembly Election-2023, senior voters (80+ years) and voters with more than 40% disability will be seen voting from their homes for the first time on initiative of the Election Commission.” (Nov, First India)

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Disability, Sexuality and Consent: How Activists Are Reshaping the Narrative. Beautifully illustrated exploration of relationships, care, legal frameworks and community. (Oct, NYT)

Persons With Disabilities And The Idea Of Love “It is not uncommon for persons with disabilities to be haunted by questions of love due to the attitude of others” (Aug, Outlook)

What Pride Month Means To Queer Indians With Disabilities (Jun, Vice)

Autonomy, agency, choice: Yes these are for us. A panel discussing gender, sexuality and disability. (Feb, In Plainspeak)

Online Dating; A More Accessible Option For Queer Disabled Folks (Feb, Gaysi)

Why It Is Hard For Disabled Women, Queer Persons To Leave Abusive Partners (2022, BehanBox)

Desire, Sexuality And Choice: Disabled Indian Women And Queer Persons On Their Experiences. “I never stopped to think whether I liked them or not. I was just glad that someone liked me. I didn’t feel I had the right to say no. I thought ‘I will figure out how to like them too,’” (2022, BehanBox)

An impressive series of collaborations for Cripplentines Week 2022 "Cripplentines is rooted in the belief that all kinds of love should be celebrated". I particularly enjoyed picking out my favorite lipstick for you: "We deserve rough sex, slow sex, sex that makes us forget the ableist world for a while, sex that is loving, sex that values our disabled bodies." And the article on the space to dream of disability affirmative love:

"As single disabled young adults navigating (or trying to navigate) dating during a pandemic, there is so much despair and frustration. Yes, there are plenty of fish in the sea, but most of the fish are ableist and would rather not wear a mask because 'the omicron wave is mild, ya'."

See further in the collaborations with Feminism India and Gaysi. Featured on New India Express and Mid-Day. (2022, Revival Disability Mag)

“I am disabled, it doesn’t mean I have no dignity” (2022, The Lancet)

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Awaiting the right move. “Persons with Disabilities and activists share their grievances on inaccessibility at the ongoing Chess Olympiad and how it could have been made better” (2022, The New Indian Express)

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Disabled Muslim student leader hospitalized “evicted from his student dorm this week and knocked unconscious by Hindu extremist activists” (Sep, Middle East Monitor)

Why it is hard for disabled women, queer persons to leave abusive partners. (2022, The News Minute)

Deaf man fatally stabbed for not responding to teen’s honking say Indian Police. (2022, Limpling Chicken)

Disability, Gender, Violence, Home and the City 'Nidhi Goyal takes us beyond keywords' with interesting reflections on a range of subjects, illustrated with concrete examples, from her experience of the city, the relations between access and safety, and the home itself. (2021, Third Eye Portal)

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When nature calls, where do we go? on access to public toilets in Chennai. (2022, DT Next)

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