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Ms. Sminu Jindal exhorts Young Indians to work for accessibility at CII- Yi Summit TakePride-2018, Mumbai

10 March 2018, Mumbai

Svayam’s Founder-Chairperson Ms. Sminu Jindal today addressed the CII-Yi: Annual Youth Summit – TakePride 2018, held at the historic Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in Mumbai, along with several visionary speakers fromMs. Sminu Jindal, Founder Svayam addressing CII-Yi: Annual Youth Summit – TakePride 2018, Mumbai across the sectors who spoke during the two-day annual event during 09-10 March 2018. These included Kamal Haasan (actor), Ajeet Khurana (Head – Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Committee of India), Anand Piramal (Founder – Piramal Realty), Arnav Ghosh (CEO – India, Blippar), Ashish Chauhan, (MD & CEO Bombay Stock Exchange), Balki R, (Filmmaker), Boman Irani (actor), Chandrajit Banerjee (Director General CII), Dia Mirza (actor), Dr. R. Mashelkar (renowned Scientist – Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan & Padma Vibhushan Honouree), Gauri Shinde (filmmaker), Krishnakumar T (President – Coca Cola India & Southwest Asia), Lavanya Nalli (Chairperson – Nalli Group), Madhukeshwar Desai (Vice President – Youth Wing Of BJP), Mickey Mehta (Celebrity Fitness Guru & Coach To Femina Miss India Pageant), Radhanath Swami (Spiritual Teacher), Suresh Narayanan (CMD – Nestle India).

The Young Indians (Yi), the annual flagship leadership Summit by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) is known to celebrate the achievements of entrepreneurs, inspire young entrepreneurs, and mull over the future roadmap. TakePride offers a platform to both sung and unsung heroes/champions who share an inspiring story and leave food for thought for the young leaders of CII-Yi eventually both in the interest of the organization as well as their personal- professional trajectory.

Ms. Jindal spoke at length on the subject close to her heart – accessibility. Around 600 Young Indians (Yi) from 40 Chapters across 27 states listened to her address that touched on her early years after car accident, her struggles in the men-dominated steel and gas industry, and her initiative Svayam and its numerous achievements in making India accessible.

Talking about her accident, she said: “I met with a car accident at the age of 11 as my driver was drunk; I became a wheelchair user for the rest of my life due to severe spinal injury. Initially, I could not cope with what had happened with me at that tender age. I was gloomy as I could not dance anymore, though my parents ensured I lived a normal life and got best education. They got ramps and lifts built at home and school and the college. I was born in an affluent family, but then I thought what about others who do not have resources. That is how accessibility became my passion as I wanted to see everyone with reduced mobility to live his/her life in safe, dignified and productive way.”

She told the highly attentive audience that accessibility benefits everyone and not just persons with disabilities. “Think about an elderly, a pregnant woman, and an injured. We have to accept the reality and be ready for it. Think about arthritis and accidents. Also, India’s 65 per cent population is below 35; think about 30 years from now. Will they not need accessible infrastructure and services? We have to be ready now before it hits us,” she said.Ms. Sminu Jindal's address to Young Indians at Bombay Stock Exchange

Ms. Jindal added: “People retire at 60, but thanks to the improved healthcare, we have longer years post retirement. Due to lack of accessible infrastructure, people tend to remain in the golden cages called homes. So, this is not about only 2 per cent population (persons with disabilities). It is a much larger issue. If older adults get accessible homes and public infrastructure, they will, of course, come out and shop, visit places which not only increases their own happiness quotient, but also boosts our GDP. This is how we can make them feel useful, else they may feel redundant. We are all social animals & can’t live in silos.”

She wondered why accessibility is treated as a sub topic under disability. She narrated the infamous Jet Airways incidence of December 2007 when she was asked to sign an indemnity bond. The signing would have absolved the airliner from all the responsibilities. She had refused to sign the bond and later the airliner had to issue a public apology to her.
Ms. Jindal also strongly raised the issue of lack of accessible toilet in the aircrafts. “These airlines can have first class cabin and luxurious showering room, but not an accessible toilet! Imagine holding your bladder for 6-10 hours in a long-haul flight,” she wondered.

Svayam’s Founder told the young audience how Svayam helped the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to make the first ever World Heritage Site of Qutub Minar accessible, followed by other WHS such as the Taj Mahal, Red Fort and Fatehpur Sikri Group of Monuments. “The footprints increased phenomenally after these monuments were made accessible,” she said.

She also talked about Svayam’s contribution in 2011 Census’ campaign – “Stand Up and Be Counted”. It was the clarion call for persons with disabilities to have themselves enumerated in the final round of the 2011 Census. Svayam raised awareness, so that families did remember to answer question No. 9 – the question framed to gather information about number and categories of disabilities. During the campaign, Ms. Jindal had said that by hiding, person with disabilities deny themselves the right to be citizens and deny the government an opportunity to plan for their empowerment.

Ms. Jindal said, “There is no shame in having a disability. You may have a disability; still, you can be glamourous and pursue your passion as usual.”

She also said that the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 has increased number of disabilities from 7 to 21. “This increases the importance of accessibility in built environment.”

Ms. Jindal also talked about Svayam’s international presence. In 2012, the Transport Research Board’s (TRB) Standing Committee on Accessible Transportation and Mobility (ABE60) agreed to establish the Permanent Secretariat of the Triennial TRANSED Series of conferences to be run by Svayam as its sole contribution to the promotion of mobility and transportation for the elderly and the disabled people.

She also talked about small little changes which can make big differences in the lives of people with reduced mobility, such as a proper ramp gradient, wider doors, ‘but most importantly an open heart!’

“If I can, you can, and together, we can,” Ms. Sminu Jindal exhorted the young audience to work for accessibility now for their own better tomorrow.

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www.outlookindia.com | Everyman, Woman And…

www.outlookindia.com | Everyman, Woman And….

“You count, therefore we count,” is the catchy slogan coined to explain to an estimated 1.19 billion Indians why they should be part of the mammoth, Rs 2,200-crore, 2011 census. But making Indians feel they count is no easy task for the 2.5 million census enumerators, who have  to grapple with not just one India, but the many within, from a middle class embracing new ways of living, to tribes still clinging to an ancient past.

One of the stiffer challenges they face is counting the Sentinelese people, who are among the first inhabitants of India. Descendants of people who first moved out of Africa about 70,000 years ago and now restricted to one of the Andaman and Nicobar islands—the North Sentinel Island—the Sentinelese have posed three main obstacles to enumerators, according to census officers. One, they are perceived to be  hostile to outsiders; two, nobody speaks their language; and three, there is an official diktat that the Sentinelese be left to themselves.

In the past, census enumerators have chosen to leave sacks of edibles, mainly fruits such as coconuts, along the coastline of the North Sentinel Island to lure them out of their habitat. Once out, they are photographed and a headcount is carried out of the people shot. This probably makes the Sentinelese the only community in India not to be asked a single question that enumerators ask others Indians. Using this ‘lure-and-shoot’ method, the 2001 census placed their population at 39, when they are believed to actually number anywhere between 50 and 200.

The 2011 census, too, will follow a similar practice, but critics say it should be doing a lot better. Vishvajit Pandya, a professor of anthropology who has studied the islands’ indigenous people, and even, he says, “walked on the shores” of the North Sentinel island, terms the decision by the census officials to yet again stay away from the Sentinelese as just “lethargy”. “Why can’t they fly a chopper low over the island with advanced imaging equipment to get a much better estimate of the Sentinelese people and their livelihood?” he asks. He points out that a coast guard chopper did fly over the island after the 2004 tsunami to check for survivors. That resulted in an iconic photograph of a man, presumably Sentinelese, aiming at the chopper with his bow and arrow. Another sortie was made in 2006 to spot the bodies of two fishermen killed by the Sentinelese after they encroached on their territory. “All that the census has put out so far on the Sentinelese is pure speculation,” Pandya says.

Where the census seems to be doing a lot better is in keeping up with a changing Indian society. Reflecting growing inclusiveness—perhaps too eagerly for the conservative—the census form includes for the first time a separate box labelled as “others” in the column that records the sex of the respondent. This seemingly small change is a big step forward for transgenders and others who wish to record themselves as a category distinct from men and women. Earlier, they were forcibly bracketed either with males or females. Another visibly progressive step is expanding the list of disabilities covered by the census from just five in 2001 to eight now.

 

“Enumerators have also been trained to realise and tell people that disability is not something that we ought to be ashamed of,” says trainer Madhu Grover. The move is significant, given that disability is grossly underreported in India at just 2.1 per cent; a developing country like Vietnam reports a disabled population of 6 per cent.

But the biggest change in the census approach relates to counting India’s women and girls. Nowhere is this more visible that in its publicity outreach, with a logo featuring women and girls and ads prominently showing women, from those working in fields with babies strapped to their backs, to urban working women in western-style formalwear with male colleagues in the background. “We have asked  enumerators to go beyond traditional notions of who can head a household. Very often, in the absence of a husband who may have moved elsewhere for work, it is the wife who makes all the decisions in the house. Yet, it is the husband who she usually thinks of when asked to name the household head,” points out C. Chandramouli, Census Commissioner of India.

The census will also reflect, far more than before, the entire range of remunerative work that women do that goes unrecognised by society. Enumerators have been asked to be sure to include under the rubric of work such tasks as selling fish or weaving, earlier dismissed as not being proper work. The 2001 census was way off the mark in this respect, recording for example an implausibly low female work participation rate of 9.4 per cent in a city like Delhi. “It’s entirely possible that a lady earns money by, say, selling Tupperware or Amway products from home but stays silent when asked if she works—just because her husband asks her to shut up,” says Varsha Joshi, the director of census operations for Delhi. This time, enumerators have been trained to draw women out on how they contribute to the nation’s economy.

Finally, in this wired world, where social network sites can even help depose entrenched dictators, the census too has taken on board the importance of being on Facebook and Twitter. Indeed, playing out on its Facebook page has been a fierce debate, revealing its own way of India’s changing social mores. Atheists have been expressing their displeasure in large numbers on being left out from the six identified religions on the forms. The census has had to respond by clarifying, as Joshi explains, “that people who wish to declare religions other than these six, or even those who wish to declare them as atheists, could do so”. Amen to that.