Shaping a More Disabled-friendly Digital Ecosystem : Daily Current Affairs

Date: 16/02/2023

Relevance: GS-2: Welfare Schemes for Vulnerable Sections of the population by the Centre and States and the Performance of these Schemes; Mechanisms, Laws, Institutions, and Bodies constituted for the Protection and Betterment of these Vulnerable Sections; Issues Relating to the Development and Management of Social Sector/Services relating to Education.

Key Phrases: Persons with Disabilities, Digital Infrastructure, Benchmark Disabilities, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan), United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Inclusive growth, Reasonable Accommodation.

Context:

While technology has enormous potential to level the playing field for the disabled, it can, at the same time, reinforce the barriers that the disabled otherwise face if it is not designed with their needs in mind.

Key Highlights:

As per the Census 2011, there are 26.8 million persons with disabilities in India, making up 2.21 per cent of the total population.
- But according to the World Health Organization, about 16% of the global population is disabled.
- If that figure is extrapolated to the Indian context, it would mean at least 192 million disabled people in India.
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment established the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan) to ensure focused attention to policy issues related to persons with disabilities and work towards their empowerment.
There has been no mention of disabled persons in the constitution and the preamble.
Mission Accessibility, a non-governmental organization, prepared a report to check the accessibility of apps for physically disabled persons.

Accessibility Report:

Methodology
- To provide evidence-based assessment of the problem and spur conversations and reforms, a report that evaluates the accessibility of 10 of the most widely used apps in India across five sectors, was prepared.
  - These sectors were chosen based on broad stakeholder consultation with people with disabilities, and the 10 apps, based on the amount of online traffic.
  - The apps were Zomato, Swiggy, PayTM, PhonePe, Amazon, Flipkart, Uber, Ola, WhatsApp and Telegram.
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (a set of globally recognised parameters to determine how disabled friendly an app or website is) was used to evaluate these apps.
- Based on the number of violations, the levels of accessibility of the apps were categorized as “high”, “medium” and “low”.
Outcomes & Concerns
- The report found that four out of the 10 apps ranked low, while five were in the medium category.

Representatives of all 10 apps were invited to attend the launching event of the report.

Only WhatsApp sent its representative for the event.
- This shows lack of interest towards awareness and the need of disabled-friendly apps.
- This is also a pointer to the need to work with intentionality in creating disabled-friendly infrastructure, either physical or digital.

Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016

About:
- It is the disability legislation passed by the Indian Parliament to fulfill its obligation to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which India ratified in 2007.
Features:
- Expansion of Disability Criteria
  - Disability has been defined based on an evolving and dynamic concept.
  - The types of disabilities have been increased from the existing 7 to 21 and the Central Government has been given the power to add more types of disabilities.
- Reservation
  - Benefits such as reservation in higher education, government jobs, reservation in the allocation of land, poverty alleviation schemes, etc. have been provided for persons with benchmark disabilities and those with high support needs.
  - Reservation in vacancies in government establishments has been increased from 3% to 4% for certain persons or classes of persons with benchmark disabilities.
- Inclusive Education
  - Government-funded educational institutions as well as government-recognized institutions will have to provide inclusive education to children with disabilities.
- Right to Free Education
  - Every child with a benchmark disability between the age group of 6 and 18 years shall have the right to free education.
- Central & State Advisory Boards on Disability
  - Broad-based Central & State Advisory Boards on Disability are to be set up to serve as apex policy-making bodies at the Central and State level.
- District-level Committees
  - District-level committees will be constituted by the State Governments to address local concerns of PwDs.
- National and State Funds
  - Creation of National and State Funds will be created to provide financial support to persons with disabilities.
- Penalty
  - It provides penalties for offenses committed against persons with disabilities and also violations of the provisions of the new law.
- Special Courts
  - Special Courts will be designated in each district to handle cases concerning the violation of the rights of PwDs.

Need of the Hour:

There is an urgent need to start discussions on digital accessibility, product design and the development process.
Start working with the service providers and help them design practices and processes that will not only improve app accessibility but also educate their stakeholders about accessibility and people with disabilities.
- This will improve design and development practices so that the apps are accessible right from the inception.
- This will also help change attitudes around disability in the country, especially within the business community — moving them away from a charity approach to a rights-based and investment outlook.
Technology is used to automate a large number of accessibility tests, and combine that with in-depth manual testing to provide comprehensive accessibility feedback to developers.
- AI can help to further automate the accessibility testing process, and feedback from users with disabilities can now be analyzed at scale to provide actionable insights to developers and companies.
Core to the project of securing a more disabled friendly digital ecosystem must be the conviction that, “everything digital must be accessible to everyone”.
- This starts with incorporating the principles of accessibility and inclusive design into every digital offering, right from inception.
India needs to be truly accessible for all people with disabilities.
- Organizations, companies, civil society, the government and the courts must make this happen.
Reasonable accommodation is necessary to help persons with disabilities exercise their rights and participate in society equally with others.
Person with Disabilities requires empathy and understanding, not sympathy.

Conclusion:

Developing inclusive and accessible digital infrastructure will be a big step towards challenging perceptions about CWD and associated discriminations.

Source: The Hindu

Mains Question:

Q. What are the issues with people with disabilities in accessing digital ecosystems? Suggest the measures to solve these issues. (150 Words).