In Braille’s memory, a BHU gift for visually impaired

On Friday, as the world observes the 198th birth anniversary of Louis Braille, the father of braille language...

On Friday, as the world observes the 198th birth anniversary of Louis Braille, the father of braille language, the Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Panjab Singh, will gift 71 audio CDs to 10 visually impaired students of the varsity. While the CDs promise to make learning easy for these students, what’s interesting is the fact that 12 BHU students of Bachelor of Arts (II and III year), led by Sujit Kumar Singh, have conceptualised the project.

“The CDs contain audio of 27 papers in History, Political Science, English, Sanskrit, Hindi, Sociology and Geography,” incharge of library’s Internet section Pravin Kumar Singh said.

“My classmate Santosh Gupta faced a lot of problem studying braille-based text matter, as one normal book is equivalent to 10 books in the braille language,” said Sujit.

“Sujit came to me and asked if we could convert the entire course material in audio CDs, which could be used by the visually impaired students. The idea was promptly referred to the officials of the library, including Professor Incharge R S Dubey, who cleared the project with the consent of BHU administration. These 12 students worked hard on the project for two months,” Pravin added.

“We have put in seven hours daily at the library for two months to realise our dream,” added Sujit.

The CDs will be given to students of BA — Rakesh Verma, Shiv Shankar Tiwari, Santosh Gupta, Ganesh Keshari, Rakesh Vishwakarma, Rajesh Pandey, Manoj Pandey, Ravi Mishra and Premjeet Singh — at a function in varsity’s Central Library.

While the VC will unveil perhaps the first of its kind course material for the visually impaired on Friday, the beneficiaries are all praises for their 12 friends. “It will reduce our burden substantially. We never dreamt of such a thing, but our friends have made it possible. Preparing for exams will not be a cumbersome job anymore,” said Santosh Gupta, a BA (III year) student.

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The VC will also honour the 12 students who have worked on the CD. Besides, Sujit, others include Ajit, Satyajeet, Vivek, Nishant, Darshan, Vivekanand, Shashi Bhushan and Vikas.