Hindi and Marathi Braille newspapers published under the Drishti program of Reliance Foundation will now be weekly instead of fortnightly to provide news and important information to the visually impaired people. That means readers will now get a chance to read national and international news every week. Reliance Foundation publishes these newspapers in collaboration with National Association for the Blind (NAB) India. The number of readers of these newspapers is more than 30 thousand.
Founder and Chairperson of Reliance Foundation, Nita M. Ambani is continuously making efforts to help visually impaired people and provide them better opportunities. In January this year, at the 75th Foundation Day celebrations of NAB India in Mumbai, he had announced an assistance of Rs 5 crore from the Foundation. Weekly publication of Braille newspapers is part of this initiative. This will provide regular access to news and important information to visually impaired people. They will be able to connect with the events of the country and the world in a better way.
Reliance Foundation Drishti program was started in the year 2003. Its objective is to provide better eye care to the needy people and make the lives of visually impaired people easier. Under the program, work like providing free eye check-up, cornea transplant and spectacles is done. The Foundation has partnered with NAB India, Shankara Eye Foundation and Aravind Eye Care System for these services.
According to the Foundation, help has so far been provided to more than two lakh people through the Drishti programme. Under this, it has also helped in restoring the eyesight of more than 22,500 people. The aim of these efforts is to provide better eye care to the needy and also to give opportunities to visually impaired people to live life with confidence. Weekly publication of Braille newspapers will take this work further. With this, readers will be able to get news, current events and information related to society more regularly.