Improving access to Entertainment Content.

Entertainment is a very subjective pleasure a person follow to keep himself mentally and physically refreshed. Generally, Films, music, games, books etc are considered as entertainment. To be specefic to entertainment industry, a large section of the public are drived towards television, theatres and Music platforms,  to feel refreshed either visually or vocally. By the time a larger public got entertained, there may be a section of people who can't get it because of their disability to see or to hear as the content is still not much disabled friendly. In this context, as a society, we have to find alternatives for making the content available to disabled sections of the society to uphold the values of social justice.

There are some reasons for the unavailability of entertainment content to the disabled. Firstly, there is a social stigma that entertainment is not meant for differently abled people. They are mostly sidelined  though they are also interested and rightfully wish to enjoy such content. Disabled people are sometimes considered as a second class citizens who are not deserved to enjoy their life because of their physical incapacities. Secondly, producers of entertainment content never thought that there is a huge market for such content. If there is a market, making a disabled friendly content will not be economically viable to the producers. When the technology works and progress in line with the demand, technical know-hows and improvements to make a content disabled friendly is also very limited and unenthusiastic. Though there are lots of NGO'S and civil societies who work for differently abled people, they are also not much focussed on improving the entertainment needs of these differently abled, rather gives more priority to medical aids and welfare schemes. They can also compel the Govt and CBFC to assure the content in this way too.

 Understanding this issue, the Government of India has taken many steps in this regard. Rights of persons with disability act provides guidance to address this problems in a gentle way. Action 29 (h) of the act requires appropriate government to take measures to ensure that the persons with hearing impairment can have access to television programs with sign language interpretations or subtitles. Further section 42(2) requires the corporate government to take measures to ensure that the person with disability have access to electronic media by providing audio description in sign language interpretation and captioning. Ministry of Information and broadcast pursue audio description in films and they also advised Central Board of film certification(CBFC) suggest some alternatives in the regard. The films like Sanju, Andhadun, Romeo akbar walter etc had come up with such disabled friendly versions, is an admirable step.

 There are also other government initiative that are included under the Rights of persons with disability act 2016. Renaming of Department of persons with disability  to Divyangan Sasakthikaran vibag is there symbolic representation of governments approach towards these section of people. Sugamya bharat app launched to address the accessibility issue faced by differently abled people in buildings and transportation system is also great move that have huge impact on the lives of them.

WHO says that 1 in ten people in this world is disabled and 1 in five of them are from economically humble background. The impact of a disabled individual would be more pathetic if he/she is economically ill. This issue also has to addressed by giving more focus towards the economically weaker section of people among the disabled community. Their right and access to entertainment should never be taken for granted since its the responsibility of the society to assure them the same.