Beno Zephine became first 100% blind officer in IFS

Chennai’s NL Beno Zephine on 12 June 2015 became the first 100 percent visually-challenged person to be inducted into the Indian Foreign Services (IFS).

The 25-year-old, Beno was informed about her induction into the Indian Foreign Services by the External Affairs Ministry.

At the time of being named as IFS officer, Beno was serving the State Bank of India as a probationary officer. She is a postgraduate in English from Madras University.

Beno cleared her civil service examinations conducted in 2013. While preparing for the exam, she took help of software named Job Access with Speech (JAWS), which was a replacement of Brialle. The software allows visually challenged to read from a computer screen, and can scan Tamil and English books.

This progressive development can be seen against the Supreme Court of India’s order of October 2014. In its order, it had directed the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) to calculate backlog vacancies for the differently-abled and then accommodate them under the Persons with Disabilities Act 1995.

Earlier on 11 October 2013, Supreme Court also directed the Union Government to identify the posts for disabled persons within a period of three months and implement it without default.

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