[Reader-list] CIS Workshop on Web Accessibility

[taraprakash]

Thanks Pranesh. I would just like to clarify that the corporate and 
government are legally bound to ensure accessibility in the US. The court 
has ruled in favor of huge compensation ($6 million) to those who suffered 
from inaccessible website of the Target.

www.articles.latimes.com/2008/aug/28/business/fi-blind28

Regards
TaraPrakash
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pranesh Prakash" <pranesh at cis-india.org>
To: "taraprakash" <taraprakash at gmail.com>
Cc: "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>; "Nirmita 
Narasimhan" <nirmita at cis-india.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 10:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] CIS Workshop on Web Accessibility


> 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
>>> _________________________________________
>>> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
>>> Critiques & Collaborations
>>> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
>>> subscribe in the subject header.
>>> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
>>> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>>
>>