No photos, no colour, but for the visually challenged – a newspaper in Braille, the universal language of raised dots and dashes, literally means a new window to the world. Government and civil society initiatives have pushed out enough books in Braille, but to know about their city, nation and world the blind need TV/radio or a patient voice to explain the news to them. India’s first registered Braille newspaper in Hindi, the ‘Reliance Drishti’ is set to reach around 20,000 readers across 300 institutes – free of cost.
Readers get the blend of news and features across current affairs, politics, social issues, business, science, technology, arts, culture and health. The paper was launched by Nita Ambani, the founder and chairperson of Reliance Foundation at Mumbai’s Kamla Mehta School.Nita Ambani is firmly committed to giving the blind hope.
She has even signed up as an organ donor to donate her eyes after her demise. Reliance Foundation has led Project Drishti – the largest corneal grafting surgery project by a single corporate in India – and it has restored sight to over 14,500 Indians, free of cost, across 16 cities. It intends to take the initiative to India’s remotest corners. Pioneering India’s IB leagueNita has also worked as an educationist, and her first projects were establishing rural schools, before realising the need for world-class education in Mumbai. It was with this vision that she co-founded the Dhirubhai Ambani International School (DAIS) in 2003, one of the first schools to offer the International Baccalaureate program. She has added her passion to Reliance’s corporate social initiatives, and Reliance Foundation today runs 13 schools teaching over 15,000 children every day. As you read this, she is hard at work setting up a school specially designed for India’s special needs community. The Reliance Foundation is India’s biggest Corporate Social Responsibility initiative, but for Nita Ambani every charitable project and philanthropic endeavour across education, disaster relief and health care demand equal attention. Set up in 2010, the Foundation has touched the lives of 4 million+ people, across 5,500 rural and urban locations.
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