IIM Indore: Visually impaired woman overcomes barriers to get admission

NEW DELHI: Kottakapu Shivani (21) can not see, but that has never stopped her from dreaming of rising to the top. The woman from Zaheerabad in Telangana recently got admission in the prestigious two-year postgraduate programme (PGP) of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) here. She started her education at a school for normal children but found it difficult to cope as she neither knew Braille nor did she have access to the technical gadgets used by visually impaired students, she told PTI in an interview earlier this week.

"My parents then enrolled me in a school for visually impaired students in Hyderabad, and thereafter my academic journey became easy till Class 10," she said. She felt so confident at that stage that she decided to enroll in commerce stream in a school for `normal' children, and went on to top her batch. After graduating from a university in Chennai, Shivani appeared for the highly competitive Common Admission Test (CAT) for MBA courses in November 2023, and appeared for interviews in 18 management institutes. Eventually, she opted for IIM Indore's PGP course which is equivalent to the MBA.

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"After PGP, I would like to work in the corporate world," said Shivani. "I would like to gain work experience in all departments of a company early in my career and then specialise in one department and move to the top level of management," she added. Lord Krishna is her idol. His teachings give her the energy to stay positive through ups and downs of life, Shivani said.

Shivani is among 482 students of the PGP course, said Sayantan Banerjee, head of the PGP department. The institute has been promoting diversity in every way since its inception and is proud to have a bright student like her, he added. Visually impaired students are allowed to use electronic devices in classroom and also provided special recordings of lectures, he said.