Sparshdnyan: India’s braille newspaper brings news to thousands

Journalist Swagat Thorat launched Sparshdnyan, India's only newspaper for the blind, in 2008. His major obstacle: his own sight. The paper's name, Sparshdnyan,  translates to “knowledge by touch” which is an insightful description of the purpose and impact of this braille newspaper. Thorat knew that reading was empowering, that words could be more descriptive than television news stories. A team of local journalists volunteer their services to write for the 48-page paper. Thorat also recruits visually-challenged writers to contribute to Sparshdnyan. Sparshdnyan is distributed among 400 subscribers in India's western Maharashtra state. Most of these issues are sent to institutes for the blind, where each copy is read by an estimated 60 people, putting the unofficial readership at around 24.000. The publication is currently a twice a week paper, but Thorat hopes to expand it to be a daily publication within the year.