Education India Project #593

Literacy for a Billion in India!

by PlanetRead

Project Report | Feb 7, 2024
Making films accessible to the disabled

By Parthibhan Amudhan | CAO

A storyboard sample of a scene from the story

Dear Friends,

Mr Bajaj, a blind advocate, made the case for media accessibility in cinema halls, in the Delhi High Court while two ISL interpreters made the proceedings accessible to Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) persons. Under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPWD) Act, 2016, Bajaj is battling the entertainment ecosystem to make reasonable accommodations.

India’s disability rights groups are asking for the Inclusion of Accessible Features, SLC (SLS implied), AD, translated English captions/subtitles, and ISL video interpretation for picture-in-picture display and if MIB and CBFC simply require that SLS/SLC and AD files are deposited for every film, it will nudge the entire entertainment system to honour media accessibility.

Planetread and the Billion Readers Initiative(BIRD) have shown that features like Same Language Subtitles or Captions (SLS/SLC) will advance the reading literacy and language skills of one billion TV viewers. Hearing viewers often use SLS in noisy environments for improved media access.

The Indian Express, one of India's leading national newspapers, carried an op-ed on our study. You can read the article here.

In other news, I am happy to share that we have made significant progress in making our latest Khamti story “How the Tiger Got its Stripes”. We have a new illustrator on board, Ms.Karmakar, who is from Guwahati, Assam, North-East India.

Planning and sketching of the storyboard is complete and the artist has started to work on the illustrations. The production team at PlanetRead has started working on the story and is hoping to finish it very soon, we will keep you posted about the story’s progress.

Warmly,

Parthibhan

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