Dear Harish: Throughout my reading of that awfully long speech, I was comparing mentally things as it stands in this country and things Mark has described in his speech. What I could see is that we are surely scoring high in certain aspects (of the social treatment of the blind) and require urgent progress in many other aspects. I feel our social treatment of the blind, though coloured, without perspective and sometimes abysmal in certain circumstances, is vastly better than what is found in the so-called developed countries. That our government doesn't trouble their minds so much on creating disabled friendly infrastructure may be largely true, but wherever initiatives are taken (by NGO's) they are not only sensible but certainly out-of-the-box. When I wrote about Madhu Single's Mithra Jyothi in Bangalore conducting classes for blind girls to cook and incert threads into the needles, I was overjoyed that such initiatives are indeed being taken, but while reading this address, I am proud the way we think and act in this country. Where we lag behind our blind brethrens in the U S, is in leadership and technology. We need visionary leaders and energetic and open-minded scientists to create technologies for us. If we can achieve this, We can proudly count ourselves as one of the most self-sufficient communities of blind persons in the world. Subramani To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe.
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