[Reader-list] CIS Workshop on Web Accessibility

[Pranesh Prakash]

Dear taraprakash,

On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 20:42, taraprakash <taraprakash at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all. Thanks Pranesh for posting this invitation. I wonder how do the
> organizers define the term "accessibility". One section of the society that
> suffers from the lack of accessibility of the web and which has not been
> mentioned here is the visually challenged people.

Print challenged people are most definitely amongst those whose
"accessibility" requirements we wish to address.  "Accessibility
involves a wide range of disabilities, including visual, auditory,
physical, speech, cognitive, language, learning, and neurological
disabilities." - WCAG 2.0, Introduction.  India has more than 15
million blind people, and a larger number still of people who are
print challenged.  Included amongst the trainers are people
(Krishnakant Mane of TIFR, for instance) who work on development of
screen readers (he develops Orca, a free/open source screen reader for
the GNOME desktop environment) which visually challenged people use.
So, they definitely are a section of society for whom we hope to make
the web more accessible.

> w3.org has certain guidelines for making web accessible to the blind but in
> India you are not legally bound to meet those guidelines. I wish the
> organizers do a thorrough research on this issue and address in the proposed
> workshop.

WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0), which is
mentioned in the mail, are the guidelines that W3C has come out with.
No country, to the best of my knowledge, mandates them legally.  In
various countries, there are separate legal requirements which provide
for electronic accessibility (in the U.S., for instance, Section 508
of the Rehabilitation Act requires that federal agencies' electronic
and information technology is accessible to people with disabilities,
and moves are afoot to incorporate the changes in WCAG 2.0 into the
requirements of that section).

In India, we are trying to push for governmental and other
government-funded websites to be mandated to follow them.  This
workshop is a first step in that direction, hoping to create awareness
about accessibility issues (and ways of addressing them) amongst web
developers.

I hope Nishant's post and this response clarify things a bit.

Regards,
Pranesh

> Regards
> TaraPrakash
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pranesh Prakash" <pranesh at cis-india.org>
> To: "indiaegov" <indiaegov at yahoo.com>; <india-gii at lists.cpsr.org>; "ICT for
> Development Community" <se-ictd at solutionexchange-un.net.in>; "Reader List"
> <reader-list at sarai.net>; <bytesforall_readers at yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 1:34 AM
> Subject: [Reader-list] CIS Workshop on Web Accessibility
>
>
>> Dear All,
>> Greetings from CIS.  We are organising a "Workshop for Web Developers
>> on Web Accessibility" in New Delhi from February 16th-18th, 2009. The
>> workshop will have seven trainers from Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore who
>> are experienced in web accessibility issues and WCAG 2.0. The workshop
>> aims to bring together participants from government departments, NIC
>> and web developers from organisations from the private sector in
>> different parts of the country to come together and learn and share
>> basic concepts of web accessibility.  There shall be thirty
>> participants in all. The call for participation is open now on a
>> first-come-first-served basis.  There are no fees for participation.
>> Those interested may contact Nirmita Narasimhan, Programme Manager at
>> <nirmita at cis-india.org>.
>>
>> About the organizers: The Centre for Internet and Society is a
>> Bangalore based non-profit, which brings together a team of
>> practitioners, theoreticians, researchers and artists to work on the
>> emerging field of Internet and Society to critically engage with
>> concerns of digital pluralism, public accountability and pedagogic
>> practices, with particular emphasis on South-South dialogues and
>> exchange. We focus on areas such as anonymity/privacy, censorship,
>> surveillance, free and open source software, open standards, open
>> access, family, sexual practices, addiction, intellectual property
>> rights, piracy, ICT4D, digital and participation divide and digital
>> communities and movements. Please visit our website at
>> <http://www.cis-india.org> to learn more about our work.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Pranesh
>>
>> --
>> Pranesh Prakash
>> Programme Manager
>> Centre for Internet and Society
>>
>> T: +91 80 40926283
>> W: http://www.cis-india.org
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