ThinkHer

The modern world celebrates innovation as a universal triumph, yet it is often designed with an unspoken assumption: that its users are able-bodied, sighted, mobile, and neurologically typical. People with disabilities frequently encounter environments, technologies, and institutions that do not account for their needs. As a result, they are not only forced to adapt to systems never built for them, but are often compelled to invent solutions to survive, study, work, and live independently. When Louis Braille lost his sight as a child in 19th-century France, existing reading systems for blind people were slow, impractical, and designed without true user insight. Rather than accept intellectual dependence, Braille developed a tactile writing system that allowed blind readers to access language quickly, independently, and efficiently. His invention did more than improve literacy—it reshaped education, autonomy, and cultural participation for blind communities worldwide. Many breakthroughs...

In the decades following independence, science was a necessity for nation-building. It was seen as a strategic tool—science for defence, to secure sovereignty in a fragile geopolitical landscape; science for progress, to modernise agriculture, industry, and infrastructure; science for social well-being, to combat disease, hunger, and poverty; and science for economic growth, to reduce dependence on imports and build indigenous capability. But, at the same time, science was still nascent. The Department of Science and Technology under the Government was yet to come, and the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) was in the formative stage. Laboratories were few, resources were scarce, and institutional support for scientific inquiry was limited.  Science also occupied a complicated moral and political space. It was expected to be modern yet rooted, universal yet national, progressive yet attentive to indigenous traditions. Scientists stood at the intersection of...