India launches Web site for people with disabilities

From iGovernment in India:

NEW DELHI, India -- The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment on Tuesday launched the new look and first website for the people with disabilities.

The website provides many accessibility features like 'Screen Reader Software' which speaks the text that appears on a computer monitor and ‘Voice Recognition Software’ which enables working on the computer with verbal commands.

Launching the website the Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Prithviraj Chavan said it was a remarkable feat of the Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment.

"I am sure other Ministries and government departments will soon make their websites accessible as well", Social Justice and Empowerment Mukul Wasnik, said during the launch of the website.

To ensure equality and right to information to persons with disabilities, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment being the nodal Ministry for the empowerment of persons with disabilities, has developed the new look website through National Informatics Centre Services incorporated (NICSI) especially for persons with disabilities using assistive devices.

Mukul Wasnik further added, "It is a landmark step to ensure protection of right to information and full participation of persons with disabilities in the civil, political, economic, social and cultural spheres with equal opportunities".

National Informatics Centre Senior Director Neeta Verma said, "It took us three months to redesign this website and during the testing phase 15 persons with different kinds of disabilities helped us sail through the testing phase."

The website also provides features like Iconic learning for mentally retarded and autistic persons, keyboard support for those with visual or upper limb impairment; navigation facilitation for those with visual and learning disabilities; transcripts for audio- video content for the hearing impaired, and changes in colour.

At present only English language is supported by the website and the Voice Recognition Software’ has to be downloaded from the web as it is not currently embedded in the website.