Disabled unhappy with Kolkata Book Fair
India Blooms News Service
Kolkata, Jan 30 (IBNS): The 34th Kolkata Book Fair completely ignores the needs of persons with disabilities, said the Disability Activists Forum (DAF), a body comprising individuals and NGOs fighting for equal rights of the physically challenged.
The Forum said the book fair, Asia's biggest, is "insensitive to the needs of persons with disabilities who are an integral part of our society".
About 2.5 million visited the fair last year.
Despite 10 per cent of the global population living with some form of disability or the other, the book fair completely ignores the existence of these people using wheel chairs, crutches, artificial limbs as well as those with other forms of disability including visually challenged, people with hearing and speech impairment, the forum alleged.
"We visited 40 stalls. Only six foreign country stalls conform to the standards for movement of the disabled with wheel chairs," said Snigdha Sarkar, DAF secretary.
Over the last few years DAF has reportedly made repeated efforts and appeals to the book fair authorities for ensuring an inclusive environment but to no avail, she said.
"This despite the Publishers and Book Sellers Guild general secretary assuring DAF that he would request all the participant publishers to make their stalls accessible."
A book fair visit on January 27 by DAF members including persons using wheel chairs, mobility aids and artificial limbs revealed that the fair was completely inaccessible to them as before.
Very uneven fair ground, inaccessible stalls and toilets made the visit for the DAF members a very forgettable one, the forum said.
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| Kolkata BoiMela along with many other institutions of Kolkata is going downhill. |
| Posted by Prasanta Ghosh on 2010-01-30 11:01:17 |
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