like in many developed countries, should sign language be an official language of India, which is home to five million deaf people with 98 per cent being illiterate.
Taking up their cause to give some degree of legitimacy to sign language education as well as create healthy attitudes towards the differently-abled, Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy and MNC giant Coca-cola on Thursday co-signed a petition to make the sign language the country’s official language.
Underlining that the Prime Minister’s dream of “accessible India” could only be fulfilled if sign language became the official language of the country, the petitioners also urged the Government to it in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
The petition was released at an event to felicitate “Special People of the Year”, organised by the limca Book of Awards in India here on Thursday.
It has come close on the heels of the Government’s plan to set up a national-level institute for research and training on sign language to provide increased accessibility in education, workplace and other activities of life to the hearing-impaired people as decided by the Cabinet recently.
Given that we have lot of specially-abled people in this country, the corporate, except a few, are not doing enough. We need to ask have we provided mechanisms to make the life of the disabled persons comfortable, said Murthy exhorting the Government and India Inc to come together to accomplish the vision of an accessible India.
“This will bring millions of people to the mainstream and further enable our society to become an inclusive society,” the joint petition said.
Speaking at the annual event to felicitate “Special People of the Year”, organised by the limca Book of Awards in India, Murthy said that the government and corporates must come together to accomplish the vision of an accessible India.
On the occasion, 15 specially-abled people from various spheres of life whose names have been included in the limca Book of Records were also felicitated. This is for the first time that the Book has included disabled sector in its edition.
A first ever Braille edition of the limca Book of Records was also launched on the occasion. “It will enable the visually challenged to browse through the existing records and challenge themselves to create new records,” Kini said.