Reuters: India’s disabled find power in the law

Daniel Sorid at Reuters wrote an article about how the disabled in India are winning accessibility lawsuits:

Tired of waiting for the government to safeguard their rights to pray, work, learn and travel, India’s 22 million disabled people are increasingly turning to the courts.

So far, the strategy has yielded some surprising victories.

The article outlines a few triumphs that legal activism by organizations for the disabled have achieved. However, the disabilities rights law is still rather weak:

Vasim Khan, a polio victim who lives in India’s technology capital of Bangalore, rides to school on a wooden plank with wheels that he propels by scraping his palms against the ground. Once there, he crawls up 24 steps to reach his classroom.

Vasim, the 10-year-old son of an impoverished tomato seller, has received few of the benefits of the landmark disability act.

While he does get a free education, he has no wheelchair to get him to school or a wheelchair ramp to access the building and his teachers are not trained to teach the disabled.

A quiet child who has difficulty reading and writing, Vasim experiences daily pain.

“It makes my wrists hurt,” he said, holding out hands swollen from the strain of pushing his wooden board to get around.