Padma Shri Award To Mr. J L Kaul, The Secretary General

J L Kaul receiving Padma Shri award from President of India Sri Pranab Mukherjee

President of India Sri Pranab Mukherjee pinning medal to J L Kaul after receiving Padma Shri award

We have great pleasure in sharing with you the happy news that our Secretary General, Sh. J.L. Kaul has been selected for the prestigious Padma Shri Decoration announced on the occasion of this year’s Republic Day. This is, indeed, a fitting tribute to the dedicated and distinguished services rendered by Sh. Kaul over the past 45 years or so, for the empowerment of persons with disabilities, in general and the visually impaired, in particular. As we rejoice and felicitate Sh. Kaul on this landmark achievement, we wish to reaffirm and rededicate ourselves to the values and principles of the self-help movement, which Sh. Kaul has worked for, all his life.

About Mr. JAWAHAR LAL KAUL

By dint of his unstinting hard-work, indefatigable zeal, enduring commitment and unimpeachable integrity, Jawahar Lal Kaul has shone as a beacon light of hope and promise for the millions of blind people in India and developing countries.

Born in Sri Nagar, Jammu and Kashmir on 28th July, 1944, Kaul lost his sight due to Smallpox at the tender age of five. Undeterred, he pursued his school and university education, braving heavy odds and distinguishing himself as a student with outstanding merit. He stood first in B.A. (Hons) Sanskrit at Punjab University in 1967, receiving the Gold Medal in recognition.

The miserable plight of the institutions for the blind and the charity- based treatment meted out to them, caused great anguish to the young Kaul and he had urgings to do something different for his blind brothers and sisters. Cutting short his illustrious academic career, Kaul shifted to Delhi and immediately plunged headlong into trying almost single-handed, to carve out new horizons for the blind. He set up in 1967 the Training and Rehabilitation Centre for the Blind in Delhi of which he became the Secretary. He then went on to espouse the cause of the blind at the national level and took the leading role in founding the National Federation of the Blind–the first self-help nation-wide organization of visually challenged persons in India. He continued as its General Secretary till 1978, raising the standard and profile of the organization’s work to great heights.

In 1980, he set up the All India Confederation of the Blind (AICB)–an umbrella organization with its Headquarters in Delhi. With Kaul as its Secretary General, AICB, starting with a meager amount of Rs.300 and a small rented office, has now grown into an impressive edifice of programmes and services for the blind, a campus of its own and Affiliates and branches in different parts of the country. Recognizing the importance of education, Kaul has developed at AICB the biggest Braille production Centre in the country which is providing textbook support to school and college students in over 10 States. He has also set up a Science Laboratory and a Resource Centre, encouraging people to recognize that even blind children, given the right inputs, can study Science subject at par with sighted students.

Kaul has facilitated the opening of Stenography as a new and viable employment opportunity for the blind. His pioneering and untiring efforts led to the establishment of systematic training in Stenography, which has resulted in over 400 blind persons being employed as Stenographers in Banks and Government Departments.

He has also promoted blindness prevention programmes in a big way by organizing screening of eye-sight, free eye camps and dispensing of glasses to the poor. He has not overlooked the aging blind persons either and has organized model services for them. The programmes of rehabilitation of the rural blind undertaken by AICB, under Kaul’s leadership, are also highly commendable.

From 1977-85, Kaul served as the Executive Secretary of the East Asia Committee of the International Federation of the Blind. He was unanimously elected as the Secretary General of the Asian Blind Union for a four-year term at the World Blind Union meet in Melbourne in November, 2000 and re-elected unopposed on 10th October, 2004 in Damascus, Syria and March, 2008 in Delhi.

He was also nominated as Chairman of Credential Committee of the Asian Blind Union and also member of World Blind Union’s Credential Committee. He was appointed as Chairperson of World Braille Council in 2009 for a period of three years. The World Blind Union conferred upon him its Honorary Life Membership.

He received from the Prime Minister of India, on behalf of AICB, the FICCI National Award for best service to the blind in training and rehabilitation. He was conferred the Thomas Memorial National Award 2000 by All India Blind Welfare Trust, Chennai for his outstanding contribution to the field. He was honoured with the 2002 World Human Rights Promotion Award from Indian Institute of Human Rights. He was also presented the prestigious T.P. Jhunjhunwala Award 2003 by The Rajasthan Club. He was further awarded NCPEDP – Shell Helen Keller Award on December, 2003 for his Outstanding work. He is also the recipient of prestigious R.M. Alpaiwala Memorial Award for his best services to the field, by the National Association for the Blind, Mumbai. He was conferred on the First Marga Schulze Award 2006 in Malaysia for his best services rendered for empowerment of visually impaired women in Asia and Africa. The Award was presented to him in the 12th International Conference of ICEVI on behalf of Dr. H.E. Schulze and Marga Schulze Foundation, Germany. Mr. Kaul received the most prestigious Louis Braille Medal from the World Blind Union in its 8th General Assembly held in Bangkok in November, 2012 for his outstanding service to the international blind community.