ISL INSTITUTE BEING TAKEN SERIOUSLY.

The update on the Indian Sign language institute is actually rather exciting and I must say full marks thus far to the Ministry of SJE for pursuing the matter. Just as the Budget furore died down and we were all waiting to hear exactly what was going to happen vis a vis the Institute I had the good fortune to be able to meet the Minister, Shri Mukul Wasnik ji at a function. I casually mentioned that I would like to meet him and talk about the institute. He was noncommittal but positive nevertheless about meeting. Suddenly as a bolt from the blue a letter from NIHH did the rounds and shared a communiqué from the Ministry and asked for inputs from the NIHH and NAD and other deaf organisations.

The NAD asked for some more time to prepare a document and sure enough at the end of the time they requested a meeting was called in Mumbai at the NIHH. The NAD had prepared a project proposal in the prescribed Govt format, which was very well presented by the Secretary, Shri A.S.Narayanan at the gathering. The senior deaf leadership composed of Shri D.S.Chauhan, K.Murali of Deaf Leaders were also present at the meeting along with NIHH Director, Shri Rangasayee and the Secretary of SJE, Shri K.M.Acharya and other Minsitry officials including Joint Secy Shri Arbind Prasad.

On the whole the matter was given due respect and a serious discussion ensued where the proposal was discussed and clarified and gone over. The Govt represented by Shri Acharya was very clear on the seriousness of the intent to go ahead expeditiously with the project.

So much for happenings, but at the same time I am looking around and wondering how we will find passionate people who are ready to work at the institute and how will the positions of Professor of sign Linguistics and so on be filled when there is such a dearth of these individuals and some don’t even exist. Staffing of the center will be very serious matter and for this we may need to look to foreign universities to co-opt “Concurrent Professors” and so on to get started and then we can see how to develop proper human resources both deaf and hearing ourselves.

The prospect of having our own Indian Sign Language Research and Training Institute has taken the deaf community by storm. The one person I would have wanted more than any one to share this time in India’s and the deaf community is not with us today. Jayanti Kameshwar Rao also knows as Anil Rao would have been overjoyed at the developments of the past few weeks, great visionary and deaf community enthusiast that he was.