Need to be more vocal about The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill

Disability rights Bill: Activists hold protest at Jantar Mantar

It was an unusually quiet protest. Around 500 people gathered at Jantar Mantar on Tuesday evening, held a candle light vigil, while communicating to each other their thoughts on the disability rights Bill. There were people in wheelchairs, people who cannot hear and those who cannot speak. But that did not lead to an unenthusiastic protest. Excited hand gestures and facial expressions could be seen in every direction.

"We are protesting against the fact that even after the approval by the Cabinet of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill on December 12, the Bill wasn't even tabled in Parliament before the Houses got adjourned," Javed Abidi, the convenor of the Disabled Rights Group, an advocacy group for the rights of physically challenged people, said. "Four years went into drafting that Bill. We are scared that the government does not give this Bill any priority and given upcoming general elections, Parliament may not be re-convened early next year for any legislative business. If this happens, then all our effort since the past four years will go down the drain."

Abidi, in a wheelchair, could be seen going around the gathering accepting wishes for the new year as well as instructing a few people about the steps to be taken next. Communicating to a hearing- and speech-impaired person, he wrote on a piece of paper: "Arun Jaitley, 11.30 am." Then he outlined a house with his hands indicating that the meeting was to take place in Jaitley's house on Wednesday. He then told him that he should remember to take an interpreter along.

"We met the Vice President yesterday. He has promised us unequivocal support. So has Prakash Karat, who we have met before," he said.

Sanjeev Malhotra, a 48-year-old government official also in a wheelchair, was watching from a distance. "I have come here to express my support to the cause, but this is not enough," he says. "They have to be more vocal about it. They have to take this beyond a mere emotional display at Jantar Mantar."

Abidi agrees, saying, "This is just an attempt to be visible. We wanted to show people that when they are busy celebrating the new year, we are lamenting the fact that the 70 million disabled people of India are just not an important enough vote bank for our politicians. The politicians seem to be taking us for granted. I think it's probably because we are not very visible."

In a statement, Abidi also said Parliament's adjournment on December 18, two days ahead of schedule, was hard to understand and that the Bill could easily have been tabled in the two days.

He said the Disabled Rights Group and the National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled want the legislation taken up when Parliament is reconvened in early February. "Or else, we will take to the streets in huge numbers. Disabled people from across the country will jam the streets of Delhi," he said.

However, as the clock struck 7 in the evening, the people, who had been there for the past two hours, could be seen hugging each other and gesturing excitedly. The optimistic note they were parting with was unmistakable.

Source : http://www.indianexpress.com/news/disability-rights-bill-activists-hold-protest-at-jantar-mantar/1214038

Discrimination against disabled

Discrimination against disabled

Jeeja Ghosh, a teacher from Kolkata, has been a regular at India’s largest conference on Inclusive Education — ‘the North South Dialogue’. This year’s 4th edition in Goa was no different — Jeeja had been invited to address delegates from 22 countries for one of the sessions.

But she was in for a rude shock on February 20, 2012. She was comfortably seated after boarding SpiceJet flight SG305 when she noticed some commotion. Flight attendants requested her boarding pass and asked her to accompany them. Jeeja was deplaned, and sent back in a car to the terminal without any explanation.

There, an already anxious Jeeja learned to her further agitation that the captain of the flight was refusing to have her on the aircraft as he felt she was not fit to travel. Jeeja’s indignant assertion that she was a frequent flyer, flying alone nationally and internationally, could not convince the airline authorities who pleaded their inability to persuade pilot Captain Utprabh Tiwari who assumed that Jeeja had a mental health problem and thus could not be allowed to fly unaccompanied.

Who is Jeeja Ghosh?

Jeeja Ghosh, 42, completed her schooling from La Martiniere for Girls and graduated from Presidency College with honours in Sociology. She also has a Masters in Social Work from Delhi University and a degree in Disability Studies from Leeds University in the UK. While studying in the UK, Jeeja lived independently.

Jeeja was born with cerebral palsy but as is evident from her academic achievements has not let her disability come in the way of her work. Despite having some difficulties with speech and balance, she is the sole bread-winner of her family and with some help from her sister Anindita, Jeeja supports their mother Jayshree. Jeeja also appeared on a popular TV game show called Didi No 1 and won – all the other competitors were able-bodied.

She has worked with the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy for more than a decade and has become the face of rights advocacy in India and abroad. She is a recipient of the Late N D Diwan Memorial Award 2007 from the National Society for Equal Opportunities for the Handicapped in Mumbai.

What is cerebral palsy?

Cerebral palsy is a disabling condition that affects thousands of babies and children every year.  While some persons with CP use wheelchairs, others are able to walk with the help of crutches or braces; some people may not be able to speak at all while others may have speech which is affected. In simple terms, a person with CP has trouble controlling muscles. This is because Cerebral Palsy affects the brain which is the organ that controls the movement in our bodies, telling the body what to do and when to do it. Depending on which part of the brain is affected, a person with CP might not be able to walk, talk or eat the way persons without CP are able to.

Clipped wings

Jeeja is not the first person with a disability to be discriminated against when it comes to air travel in India.

In October 2006, actor Prithvi Raj’s 11-year-old autistic son was prevented from boarding a flight to Chennai. Security staff for Air Deccan at the Bangalore airport prevented him from boarding on the grounds that he looked “different”, “mentally unstable” and would pose a danger to other passengers. His parents argued with the staff for 30 minutes before being allowed to board with him.

Rajiv Rajan, a human rights activist who also has cerebral palsy, brought this grave injustice to light in June 2007 when Air Sahara (now Jetlite) refused to let him board a flight in Chennai on the grounds that he did not have an escort. He was also asked to produce a fit-to-fly certificate. When Rajiv refused to do so, the airline called the police and Rajiv missed his flight to Delhi. Ironically he was on his way to attend a meeting on disability at the invitation of the Government of India! The incident and action by the airline was roundly condemned and as a result the Directorate General for Civil Aviation (DGCA) framed guidelines for disabled passengers after consulting disabled persons and airlines which came into effect in May 2009. Guidelines had only covered medically ill persons.

Still in May 2010, a 37-year-old man named Rizwan with a mental disability, travelling with his mother and sister, was refused a boarding pass by IndiGo airlines. Rizwan’s sister Nusrat Fatima Jafri was told that he was a threat to other passengers, even though the family was carrying a medical certificate. Such incidents occur every year.

Reactions to Jeeja incident

Jeeja’s co-passengers supported her when she protested being made to deplane but to no avail. The next morning the airport police asked Jeeja if she wanted to lodge a complaint. Meanwhile, representatives of the disability sector and citizens in general were outraged at the airline’s move. Javed Abidi, convener of India’s oldest advocacy group Disabled Rights Group (DRG), called for an “exemplary punishment of levying a hefty fine on SpiceJet and demanded the suspension of the pilot who discriminated against Jeeja.

For its part the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment called for an immediate inquiry into the incident and asked that the person(s) found guilty be punished. The chief commissioner for persons with disabilities issued notices to the DGCA and the airline, SpiceJet, asking what action had been taken by them to compensate Ghosh. The airline claimed that the incident was “totally inadvertent” and triggered by “some miscommunication”. It says it has launched an inquiry into the conduct of the pilot and other staff involved in the incident and promised action if they were found guilty of discrimination against Jeeja. In fact a representative from the airline visited Jeeja the day after the incident with an apology and an offer to escort her to the airport for another flight to Goa but she had taken ill after the humiliation and was not able to take the flight. .

Dignity of the disabled

Jeeja had never let her disability come in the way of her achievements — she had lived and travelled alone nationally and internationally for years before this incident took place. While on Didi No 1, Jeeja said she had won because she wanted to change the way the world judged people — by their appearance instead of by their ability.

What the law says

India has four laws pertaining to persons with disability:

*Mental Health Act of 1987

* Rehabilitation Council of India Act of 1992

*The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995

* The National Trust for Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation, and Multiple Disabilities Act of 1999.

India is also a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (UNCRPD).

While progress has been made in changing attitudes in India with regards to disability, India still has some archaic laws.

In the case of air travel, the villain is Section 24A of the Aircraft Rules of 1937 which states, “No person shall knowingly carry or permit to be carried, or connive at the carriage of, a person suffering from any mental disorder or epilepsy in any aircraft.”

However activists say the UNCRPD overrides such laws. Further civil aviation laws and DGCA rules protect and aim to facilitate air travel of the disabled. The civil aviation law says airlines should not discriminate against disabled persons and “should provide them assistance so that they can travel with dignity and comfort”.

Airlines also cannot refuse seats to persons with “disability or reduced mobility and their assistive aids/devices, escorts and guide dogs, including their presence in the cabin...”

New Disability Bill Hanging Midway: Why Is India Not Talking About It?

People Hanging Midway: Why Is India Not Talking About It?

By Mayank Jain

We pride ourselves on the fact that we are a very tolerant and welcoming country for people from everywhere and there is room for everyone, but this notion of India is fast fading among our own people. Differently abled people who already lead a hard life due to their medical issues also face social stigma and prying stares from everyone around them but their determination and will to succeed is what we never fail to see and celebrate.

They are the ones who have done so much in spite of being lesser privileged than most of us and they are the ones whom we should help get up and rise to glory instead of playing them down or ignoring them as a section of people that doesn’t matter to us. Recent developments support the latter view of ignorance and apathy though.

The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2013 was finally approved by the cabinet after sustained efforts of the disabled rights groups all across the country but right before it was being tabled in Rajya Sabha, both houses were adjourned sine die. This comes as a shock to the whole disabled rights community since they have burned the midnight oil to get this done through various protests, consultations and meetings with apathetic ministers. The winter session is now over and the budget session is on its way which will have nothing to do with the bill. General elections in 2014 will happen afterwards, which will wash off any hope of getting the bill passed because the new government might just scrap it right off.

Interacting with one such differently abled activist Mr. Pradeep Raj, I discovered how important it is to them and they have lost all hope of it getting cleared by the next government so the time is now or never for them. “There are 70 million differently abled people in India and the clearance of it affects more people than Section 377 does but media constantly chooses to ignore us as non-existent and we have never been able to get our efforts through”. He is a famous activist and responsible for many corruption disclosures in Paralympic Committee of India and his dissent is not towards the LGBTQ community which but towards the mainstream media for whom a movie’s earnings or its reviews mean a lot more than the need of differently abled people among us.

In that short discussion he told his story of struggle and how he has led protests all across Delhi and outside many minister’s office but to no avail. All the community wants right now is a special session of Parliament to be called and the bill should be tabled. This is not much of a ask if we look at the number of people getting affected but the only reason it didn’t happen sooner is that the elite society doesn’t think of them as their own people and media fails to highlight such issues until they make a news through protesting or activism.

What we can all do to support Pradeep and millions of others with him is to just raise our voices and amplify this issue to the decision making authorities to give them a chance to be heard so that they also get their fair share of rights. Is that too much to ask for?

Source : http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2013/12/government-medias-continue-apathy-bill-rights-disabled-people-hanging-midway/

Just a tool in their hands (A Critical Analysis)

Just a tool in their hands

Isaac Newton famously said, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." So, as a person with disability, I should be flattered that Arvind Kejriwal and India Against Corruption (IAC) have tried to stand on the shoulders of persons with disabilities to strike at alleged corruption in the UPA government. Similarly, I should also be happy that Union Minister Salman Khurshid and his wife Louise have brought disability to the front page of every newspaper.

I do not know the truth about the allegations of forgery and the other lurid aspects of the claims made by IAC against the Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust run by the Khurshids. As a lawyer, I have been trained to rely only on facts and not allegations and therefore this article is not about the claims made by Kejriwal.

This article is primarily for me to vent my anger at the distasteful way in which both sides have used persons with disabilities to further their case. Those of you who watched the interview of Louise Khurshid on a leading English TV channel would have seen a disabled gentleman sitting on her left. This gentleman did not say a single word during the interview. In a sense, the entire story was about that gentleman, but it was so obvious that he was being used as a prop by Louise Khurshid that it became embarrassing to even watch him. The TV channel obviously thought so too and after a few minutes completely cut him out of the picture.

Similarly, Kejriwal is using persons with disabilities to push his agenda. He has gone so far as to say that he will field a disabled candidate against Salman Khurshid in the next elections.

So what impression do I get from all this coverage and what does this posturing say about persons with disabilities? To me, it seems very clear that both Kejriwal and Louise Khurshid believe that persons with disabilities have no point of view and need mouthpieces to express their opinion. It is also clear that they assume, wrongly, that persons with disabilities are waiting around for handouts whether in terms of wheelchairs or the chance to stand for elections. Persons with disabilities have been used by both of them as the opposite of "arm candy" — to generate sympathy for their respective causes simply by getting persons with disabilities sitting around.

All this points to the simple fact that persons with disabilities are still regarded as second-class citizens in this country and we cannot do anything without the charity of able-bodied persons. Yes, it is true that we need accommodation and changes to the infrastructure in many cases for us to be able to exercise our rights on an equal basis with others. But these changes and accommodation must be based on the recognition of the equal rights of persons with disabilities and not on pity. We do not need people in power being patronising towards us and providing us help because they either feel sorry for us or because they feel good that "they did something good for those helpless people". The Constitution of India has guaranteed equality to all its citizens, including its disabled ones. All legal and policy changes we have been fighting for has been on the basis that we have equal rights guaranteed under the Constitution and that changes are required to enable us to meaningfully exercise our rights. Unless this fundamental aspect is recognised, any change will only reinforce the prejudices against us, and downstream implementation of these laws would be based on the mercy of the implementers.

I would like to point out a hidden opportunity that persons with disabilities have for politicians. It is estimated that almost 10 per cent of India's population is disabled. At present, the large majority of the disabled population is not organised into any political group. This largely ignored constituency is eagerly waiting for the first political leader to understand the real concerns of persons with disabilities and take concrete steps to include them into mainstream society. The first person to do this will be able to get votes from a large percentage of its population. Clearly Kejriwal, who is looking at politicising disability, is approaching this issue from the wrong perspective.

Of course, Louise Khurshid and Arvind Kejriwal may be genuinely concerned about the welfare of persons with disabilities. But from what I saw, neither of them has understood that the real concern of a person with disability is that s/he should be treated with respect and as a person first and foremost, and not a tool.

The writer is with the Inclusive Planet Centre for Disability Law and Policy

Source : http://www.indianexpress.com/news/just-a-tool-in-their-hands/1018211

Reserve 3% Govt Jobs for Disabled, Supreme Court tells Centre in India

Reserve 3% govt jobs for disabled, Supreme Court tells Centre

A marathon legal struggle for a level-playing field brought something to cheer about for at least 4 crore people with disabilities in India as the Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled in favour of a minimum 3 percent reservation for them in all Central and state government jobs.

This, the court said, would "ensure proper implementation of the reservation policy for the disabled and to protect their right".

Regretting the denial of opportunities to differently-abled people in the country, a bench led by Chief Justice P Sathasivam quashed the Centre's 2005 office memorandum and the government's claim that the reservation policy not only had to be different for Group A, B C and D posts but the quota had to confine to "identified" posts.

The court ruled that the reservation had to be on the basis of total number of vacancies in the cadre strength and not just on posts so identified by authorities.

"For the persons with disabilities, the changing world offers more new opportunities owing to technological advancement, however, the actual limitation surfaces only when they are not provided with equal opportunities. Therefore, bringing them in the society based on their capabilities is the need of the hour," said the bench, which included Justices Ranjana P Desai and Ranjan Gogoi.

While ordering the issuance of an amended memorandum, the court directed the "appropriate government" to compute the number of vacancies available in all "establishments" and further identify posts for disabled persons within three months and implement the new policy.

Upholding the contentions of senior advocate S K Rungta, who appeared for the 'National Federation of the Blind,' the bench made it clear that the 3 per cent reservation has to be earmarked across Group A, B, C and D posts in entities established by or owned and controlled or aided by Central and state governments or by a local authority.

It will also apply to a government company as well as all its departments.

"Reservation of 3 per cent for differently-abled persons should have to be computed on the basis of total vacancies in the strength of a cadre and not just on the basis of the vacancies available in the identified posts...not less than 3 per cent of the vacancies for the persons or class of persons with disability, of which 1 per cent each shall be reserved for persons suffering from blindness or low vision, hearing impairment and locomotor disability or cerebral palsy," the court said.

It also threw out the government's argument that an overall 3 per cent reservation in the cadre strength in Group A and B could violate the rule of 50 per cent ceiling of reservation for SC, ST and OBC candidates, as laid down in the Mandal judgement. The court held there was no applicability of Mandal judgement in this case while criticising the government for its specific opposition to reservation for the disabled, particularly in Group A and B posts.

The court lamented that although the the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act was enacted way back in 1995, the disabled had failed to benefit from it.

"Employment is a key factor in the empowerment and inclusion of people with disabilities. It is an alarming reality that the disabled people are out of job not because their disability comes in the way of their functioning rather it is social and practical barriers that prevent them from joining the workforce. As a result, many disabled people live in poverty and in deplorable conditions. They are denied the right to make a useful contribution to their own lives and to the lives of their families and communities," the court said.

It reminded the Central and state governments of their obligation under the constitution and under various international treaties on human rights for protecting the rights of disabled persons.

HIGHLIGHTS:

# The 2001 census showed that 2.1 % of the population had different kinds of disabilities

# The 2011 census is yet to come out with statistics

# Estimates by UN bodies and the Planning Commission place it at about 10 %

# According to Javed Abidi, honorary director of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People and the founder of the Disability Rights Group, the most conservative estimate will put it between 5% and 6 %

Source : http://www.indianexpress.com/news/reserve-3--govt-jobs-for-disabled-supreme-court-tells-centre/1179981

UMass Boston, IBM working on tech center for disabled

UMass Boston, IBM working on tech center for disabled

Partnering to bring advancements, help create new policies

By Michael B. Farrell

Top of Form

The University of Massachusetts Boston and computer giant IBM Corp. are teaming up to devise new ways for people with disabilities and the elderly to benefit from technological advancements.

Through a partnership that will be announced Tuesday, the two will open the nonprofit Collaborative Innovation Center that will build on the research that both UMass and IBM have been doing for decades to increase accessibility in the workplace and on campus for people who have vision, hearing, and other impairments.

Much of the center’s focus will be on developing new technology, but it will also work to create new policies for government agencies, schools, and businesses in order to reduce the barriers to using computer technology.

“Access to the Web has become pretty central,” said William Kiernan, dean and research professor of the newly formed UMass School of Global Inclusion and Social Development. “All we are trying to do is level the playing field for people who want to participate in the community.”

Kiernan is one of the country’s leading researchers on workforce issues facing people with disabilities, and the collaboration with IBM builds on work he has been doing since the 1970s.

Since then, he has advised scores of government agencies, schools, and businesses on ways to increase accessibility for the disabled and seniors. What’s more, UMass was also one of the first schools in the country to provide services to disabled students.

The collaboration with IBM should help accelerate UMass’s research by tapping into the company’s trove of scientists and technologies.

“The private sector tends to move faster than universities,” Kiernan said.

The joint effort is for now a research collaboration only. IBM would not comment on whether it stands to benefit commercially from any products developed by the center.

Many disabled people cannot experience the fullness of the World Wide Web. People with hearing loss, for example, are shut out of the millions of videos posted on the Web. While the Federal Communications Commission says videos shown on TV with captions must also have those captions when aired online, that doesn’t apply to the vast majority of videos posted by individuals on services such as YouTube.

Also, the American Association of People with Disabilities reports that 54 percent of disabled adults use the Internet compared with 81 percent of those without a disability.

The Collaborative Innovation Center will borrow from experts across disciplines at IBM as well as faculty and students at UMass to staff the center and work on various projects. Its work will be conducted both at the UMass campus in Boston and at IBM's Innovation Center in Cambridge. UMass will fund much of the work through grants.

While IBM and UMass will focus on building many new technologies from scratch — especially for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets — some of the work will be honing existing projects already underway at IBM. One of its first endeavors, for instance, will be to further develop a prototype app for students with disabilities to find their way around campus by locating ramps and buildings with elevators, or where a blind student might find audio guides and other services.

“We hope that we can develop very practical applications that can be deployed on campus and then to cities,” said Frances West, director of IBM's Human Ability and Accessibility Center.

In addition to the long history of support and advocacy for people with disabilities at UMass, IBM has also been at the cutting edge of developing technologies for people with hearing and sight loss. For instance, in the 1980s, IBM created a talking typewriter and soon thereafter developed one of the first computer screen readers.

“We’ve had to innovate and develop technologies to help our own employees, so we have accumulated many best practices,” said West.

Another goal for the center is to raise awareness about the need for app developers and other technology companies to include accessibility features into all software from the get-go, said West. That way, she said, “it isn’t an afterthought.”

Michael B. Farrell can be reached at michael.farrell@globe.com.

Source : http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/12/03/umass-ibm-partner-tech-center-for-disabled/2VHnkBRZnXFU9dlNVanL0J/story.html