In News:

Context:

• The world Braille Day is being celebrated on January 4. The day is marked remembering the birth anniversary of Louis Braille, the inventor of Braille – for the people with visual disabilities.

 

• United Nations observes the first official World Braille Day today raising awareness on the importance of Braille for approximately 1.3 billion people living with some form of distance or near vision impairment. 

Louis Braille:

• Louis Braille was born on 4th January 1809 in the town of Coupvray in northern France. At the age of just 3, he lost his both eyes in an accident. This resulted into the invention of the of 6 dots- which is popularly known as braille.

Importance of the Day:

• World Braille Day is marked annually on January 4 after the day was proclaimed by the General Assembly last November, as a means of realising fully the human rights of visually-impaired and partially-sighted people, and bringing written language to the forefront as a critical prerequisite for promoting fundamental freedoms. Around the world, 39 million people are blind, and another 253 million have some sort of vision impairment.  For them, Braille provides a tactical representation of alphabetic and numerical symbols so that blind and partially-sighted people are able to read the same books and periodicals printed as are available in standard text form.
• The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CPRD) cites Braille as a means of communication; and regards it as essential in education, freedom of expression and opinion, access to information and social inclusion for those who use it.