The visually-impaired achievers of our country have proved in the past year that no feat is impossible! 2023 saw them achieve remarkable accomplishments across various fields. Let’s take a quick stroll to revisit their incredible achievements.
Indian Women’s Cricket Team Bags Gold
The International Blind Sports Federation World Games included the first ever visually-impaired cricket match in 2023. The visually-impaired Indian women’s cricket team made history by defeating Australia by nine wickets and taking home the gold medal. After limiting Australia to 114/8 in the 20 overs that were given, India managed to chase down the amended goal of 42 in 3.3 overs.
Assam’s First Etymological Dictionary Adapted In Braille Enters Guinness World Records
The Guinness Book of World Records now lists a 10,000-page Braille version of Hemkosh, the first etymological dictionary from Assam, as the largest bilingual Braille dictionary ever. The Braille edition is the adaptation of Hemkosh’s 14th edition of the regular dictionary in the Assamese and English languages. It has 90,640 words printed in 21 volumes that are split into six sections, weighing 80.800 kg and comprising a total of 10,279 pages.
Rakshitha Won Gold At The Asian Games 2023
Rakshitha Raju, a visually-impaired runner from Karnataka qualified for the Women’s 1500m Final at the Para Athletics World Championships. Accompanied by her coach and mentor Rahul Balakrishna, the 2018 Para Asian Games gold medalist ran a time of 5:26.47 seconds in the second heat and qualified for the final in the T11 category. Rakshitha was one of the first female athletes in the nation to win the gold in her division in the 1500 metres at the Guangzhou Asian Games last year.
The Power Of Touch
A team of visually-impaired women at the National Association for The Blind (NAB), a non-profit organisation with headquarters in Delhi, are working on the ‘Discovering Hands’ breast cancer detection campaign. Frank Hoffmann, a German gynaecologist, launched the campaign to provide breast screening to all women under 50, redefining the narrative of breast cancer screening. Women who are visually-impaired are taught how to perform Tactile Breast Examinations (TBEs) using touch and intuition as part of this training.
They make use of Braille-marked documentation tapes to measure the breasts centimetre by centimetre. Every examination takes 30-40 minutes, and the results are given to a physician who determines further assessments. As per a study in 2019, comparing the diagnosis accuracy of physicians and visually-impaired Medical Tactile Examiners (MTEs), clinical breast exams performed by MTEs with impaired vision appear to have an accuracy level similar to that of examinations done by physicians, or a combination of both.
Image source: LiveMint, The Readers Time, MidDay, BBCI