The great majority of India’s visually challenged population whose number is estimated at 14 million nationwide, are inhabitants of the Hindi heartland states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. One of the major problems of visually challenged students of the Hindi heartland is that they aren’t able to write their school or college exams due to a perpetual shortage of Hindi fluent exam writers. To meet the needs and expectations of such students Satvir Singh (17), a class X student of JPM Senior Secondary School, Delhi, has developed a path-breaking software – Braille Face — which translates Braille commands into the Devanagri script.

Comments Satvir, who is congenitally blind, and has just written his class X CBSE exam using Braille Face: “Software which translates Braille commands into English already exists in the market. But this hardly helps Hindi-medium blind students, even if computer-literate. Without a Braille to Hindi software programme they had to be dependent on writers well-versed in Hindi, who are very few and mostly unavailable during exam time. I didn’t want these students or myself to be dependent on anyone to write exams. Hence I worked tirelessly to create Braille Face.”

Braille Face is simple and user-friendly. A student has to use only six keys on the keyboard — F, D, S, J, K, and L — which denote Braille points one to six respectively to type a word or letter on the common PC (personal computer). The software responds to a Braille command which identifies the alphabet combination and automatically translates it into the Devanagri script, used for writing Marathi, Hindi and Sanskrit languages. A supplementary screen-reading software Vaachak instantly flashes the word in Hindi.

Expectedly, the pan-India Central Board of Secondary Education (no. of affiliated schools: 8,278) which has time and again come under fire for not allowing exam writing concessions to differently abled children, didn’t allow Satvir to use his own computer to write the board exam. He was obliged to install the software into a computer provided by the examination centre.

Since it was written in 2003, Braille Face which is patented by Satvir has been tried, tested and approved by the Indian Standards Institute (ISI). Currently negotiations for mass production and marketing this revolutionary software programme are being conducted with several organi-sations including the British Council and some private school managements in Delhi, which will help iron out its wrinkles before a national rollout.

Neeta Lal (Delhi)

Preeta Krishna

Preeta Krishna (27), a Chennai-based journalist was adjudged the overall and regional winner for Asia in the 2005 Commonwealth Short Story Writing Competition conducted by the London-based Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (CBA), on February 16. Krishna’s short story titled Treason was adjudged the best among 2,500 entries from 53 countries, and won her prize money of £2,000 (Rs.1.5 lakh).

The award-winning story traces the life of an innocent young girl who is pushed into prostitution by her own father whom she trusts and adores. “I was inspired to write the story after I saw an awareness programme on television, warning impoverished families in the north-east about unscrupulous agents, who under the guise of securing jobs for poor girl children, sell them to brothels in Mumbai and Kolkata. The blatant abuse of trust and the miserable plight of these girls disturbed me,” says Krishna, a correspondent of Frozen Thoughts, a monthly life skills magazine. “This is my first award and when I sent in my essay, I was hopeful of doing well,” she says confidently.

A postgraduate in medical and psychiatric welfare of the Madras School of Social Work, Krishna’s passion for the written word compelled her to abort a plan of starting a non-government organisation (NGO). A talented wordsmith with a flair for sketching, handicrafts, reading, writing poetry and short stories, Krishna pens a regular column and does an interview slot for Frozen Thoughts. “The magazine’s emphasis is on value-based, holistic living, understanding human behaviour and maximising people’s potential. I am a firm believer in these precepts and through my column, I discuss values, attitudes and perspectives on life,” she adds.

Krishna acknowledges the help and support she received from her mother, a literature graduate and teacher, who first ignited her interest in writing which was later encouraged by her school and college teachers. “I hope to write a novel one day, and more short stories. My other interest is to volunteer with child adoption agencies,” says this budding author, married to a dental surgeon.

Her message to future short story contestants is simple: “Be positive and tell it like you see it,” a philosophy which this young writer practices as much as she preaches.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)