Kathmandu, Jan. 24 -- Sarah Yonzan Giri never intended to become a sign-language expert. The wife of Nepal's famous Panchayat-era prime minister, she was living in Bangalore in 2002 when she wandered into a class for sign language by chance.
"The room was silent, but there was a lot of animated signing going on," Giri remembers. "They were shouting, but I could not hear them."
She had found her life's mission: advocacy of deaf rights. And recently, she has found that this passion extends to the rights of blind people as well. This has given her a unique vantage point from which she can compare the two worlds, and understand and articulate the unique needs of their inhabitants.
Giri recalls her moment of epiphany: "I realised that I had...