| BANGALORE:
To mark the bi-centenary (201) celebration of Louis Braille’s birthday, Doordarshan’s
Chandana channel had four visually impaired persons from the Samarthanam Trust
for the Disabled (Samarthanam) presenting four Kannada news bulletins in association
with the regular news readers on January 4.
The
news presenters read out the news to the visually impaired persons a couple of
hours before each bulletin, which was taken down in Braille. After
reading out two or three of the stories on air, the news presenter introduced
the visually impaired person to the viewers who then took it forward.
Manjunath read the 7.00 am, Kavya the 1.00 pm, Samarthanam founder and managing
trustee Mahantesh Kivadasannavar, the 7.00 pm and Samarthanam teacher Narasimumurthy,
the 9.00 pm news bulletins respectively.
Says DD Bangalore Sr. Director
Mahesh Joshi during a telecom with indiantelevision.com, ”We thought
that the best way to help the visually impaired is to empower them.” Joshi
revealed that visually impaired news readers had to be prompted before and after
the visuals to stop and start reading news. “We’d
like to make the impossible possible. Henceforth, I would like them to read the
complete news bulletin rather than the pieces that they have done,” Joshi
added.
Last
year also, DD Chandana had one visually impaired person read out the news bulletin
to celebrate Braille's birthday. | 
