International Braille Day 2024

GS Paper I

Context: International Braille Day has been observed on January 4 every year since 2019.

international braille day

The Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities organized extensive awareness programs to commemorate International Braille Day, focusing on Braille literacy.

About International Braille Day

Establishment: It was established by the UN General Assembly in 2018 to commemorate the birth anniversary of French educator Louis Braille, the inventor of the Braille language.
- He invented a tactile system of reading and writing for the blind and visually impaired in 1824. Objective: To raise awareness of the importance of Braille as a means of communication for blind and partially sighted people.
A Representation System: Braille is a tactile representation of alphabetic and numerical symbols using six dots to represent each letter and number, and even musical, mathematical and scientific symbols.Significance: Braille is essential in education, freedom of expression and opinion, and social inclusion, as reflected in Article 2 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
- The first Braille system was published in 1829 and was adopted by the National Institute for Blind Youth.
Kerala Federation of the Blind started the first Braille printing press in 1986.

As per Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, a disabled person has a long-term impairment that affects their physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory abilities.
- This impairment prevents them from participating fully and effectively in society.
Main Categories of Disability:
- Behavioral or Emotional
- Sensory Impaired Disorders
- Physical
- Developmental