In an event organized for the specially-abled, the Prime Minister emphasized the need and the importance of imparting information & news to the speech & hearing impaired. He further appreciated the initiative and the efforts taken and made by Doordarshan News in this direction and said that now even private news channels have started special bulletins for the speech and hearing impaired.

DD News starts it's daily bulletins at 6 A.M, the first bulletin dedicated to the speech and the hearing impaired. The objective of the national broadcaster is to keep one and all up to speed with the latest News from around the world. Making a special mention of this effort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Doordarshan.

Keeping in mind that our country has a substantial percentage of divyangjans, Doordarshan started the first weekly bulletin for them on 15th October 1987. It's been close to 32 years and today DD News airs a special news bulletin for the speech and the hearing imparied on a daily basis, with special broadcasts on Republic Day and several other national and special occasions.

As is famously said, information is power, especially the power to decide, and keeping that in mind, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has made it compulsory for all private news channels to air news for the speech and hearing impaired since sept 2019. Prime minister Narendra Modi lauded these networks for implementing this.

India is a country known for its diversity. Every state has it's unique language and culture, due to which, different sign-languages are used in different parts of the country. As a result the sign language barrier needs to be overcome. This was the genesis of the efforts to popularize the common Indian Sign language. Setting up of the Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre as well as the compilation of a sign language dictionary comprising of 6,000 words. Keeping in mind the ease of use, Indian currency, including currency notes and coins and more than 400 websites have been designed to make them specially-abled friendly.

Everyone has the right to information & communication and this is key to a vibrant democracy as well as enriched living. The efforts by Doordarshan and other news channels are playing a crucial role in empowering this section of the society. The need of the hour is to expand these initiatives to cover every aspect of life.

