Hello Folks, Some great news to share. The Parliamentary Standing Committee working on the Copyright amendment has made available its report. The committee has taken into account the submissions and presentations made to it by members of the National Access Alliance including XRCVC and Inclusive Planet. Given below are excepts of the Committee's recommendations:
“After analysing the proposed amendments as envisaged in section 31B and 52 (1) (zb) in the backdrop of interactions held with various stakeholders and the Department, the Committee strongly feels that concerns raised by the organizations working for the disabled are indeed very genuine. The Committee would like to point out that the real objective behind these two provisions is to facilitate the cause of the disabled. Every attempt needs to be made to remove all the drawbacks highlighted in the proposed amendments. The Committee is of the firm opinion that all physically challenged need to be benefitted by the proposed amendments. It would be very discriminating if envisaged benefit remains restricted to only visually impaired, leaving out persons affected by cerebral palsy, dyslexia and low vision. The Committee takes note of fact that even regular Braille users complement Braille with other accessible formats like audio, reading material with large fonts and electronic texts. The Committee also observes that the modern day Braille production is dependent on the material being first converted into mainstream electronic formats such as MS Word because Braille translation software requires inputs in such formats. The Committee hopes that the request of organisations for extending access of works to all accessible formats instead of special formats presently under consideration of the Department will result in a positive outcome.” This is a major breakthrough for the community. However, the journey continues and we must ensure that the wording of the amendment reflects the recommendations of the Committee. Congratulations to all those who worked hard for this. But keep your fingers crossed. Best regards, Rahul Cherian Inclusive Planet To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
