India to redefine blindness to meet WHO norms

government will change a four-decade-old definition of blindness to bring it in line with the World Health Organization Organization (WHO) criterion and ensure the Indian data on blindness meets global estimates. The National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB) considers a person blind if he or she is unable to count fingers from a distance of six metres, against WHO's three-metre distance criterion. "Because of the current definition, we project a higher figure of blind people from India at any international forum. Thus India gets presented in a poor light compared to other countries," Promila Gupta, NPCB Deputy Director-General, told the media. The country is home to around 12 million, or one-third of the world's blind population.