Upasana Makati, one of those brilliant minds who changed her own lifestyle to prepare and publish a lifestyle magazine for the visually impaired. Her magazine is named “White Print” and it is specially written in Braille, so that blind people can read it. White Print is India’s first lifestyle magazine for the visually challenged.
There are about 12 million visually impaired people in India today out of these only half are literate and able to read Braille. White Print is a very low cost magazine that covers all the topics like fashion, travel, food, art, culture, gadgets, music and politics. The magazine consists of 64 pages and was launched in May 2013. It is printed at the National Association for the Blind and is available to everyone at a price of just INR 30.
Upasna Makati graduated from Canada and after coming back to India, she took a public relations job. She always wanted to start her own venture and came up with the idea of White Print, a magazine for visually impaired. According to Upasna the magazine will be enjoyed the most as it is first of its kind. She said that it is a big challenge to find the advertisers for the magazine as advertising for visually impaired is difficult.
Upasna and her team of seven people are regularly working on the improvement of magazine and are looking forward to launch another magazine in the next five years. Articles are firstly written in normal text and are afterwards converted into Braille through software by National Association for the Blind. Currently, the team is not in the position to hire or employ anyone but Upasna says that in the near future they definitely will as the business is growing. In addition, the magazine features a reader’s contribution section that features content exclusively by the readers. They could be opinions, comments, poem, etc.
The team is clear that White Print will not be available in any other version it will only be available for physically blind. The work is purely for profit maximization purposes as for now. Only in the near future will they be able to do work for charity too. Upasna’s work has attracted many famous journalists like Barkha Dutt who are willing to write at no cost. She has been actively promoting her work on social network sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. You may follow her to get the regular updates.
