This work has been undertaken by the author with the view to create an awareness about people with disabilities in general and people with visual impairment in particular and raise certain issues concerning their welfare in the Indian context. The First Chapter highlights the marked changes in paradigms for defining disability from the individual approach or more specifically the medical model to the social approach. This facilitates to understand the differing expressions and manifestations of disability being perceived predominantly as medical or biological or concerned with identity or negotiation of social roles to the social approach theories which were found to be more concerned with structural and material conditions or on culture and representation. The diversity within the broad domain of the various approaches has been discussed in this chapter. The Second Chapter explores Visual Impairment particularly in the Indian context. It also explores the psychological well-being of people with visual impairment. Critical reorientation of perspective has important implications for the manner in which law and policy in relation to disability needs to be developed. It is now been increasingly recognized that the problem does not reside in the person with a disability, but results from the structures, practices and attitudes that prevent that individual from exercising his or her capabilities. In keeping view of this the Third Chapter attempts to investigate into the policy perspectives regarding the education of people with disabilities at the global level as well as in India in specific. It is obvious that there has been marked shift in paradigms with regard to different educational policies and programmes for optimizing the development of people with disabilities by way of special education and integration and ensuring their incorporation into the mainstream society

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