General Discussion

The Evolution of the India Wheelchair Market: Driven by Rising Geriatric Population, Disability Rights Legislation, and the Ascent of Advanced Electric and Smart Mobility Solutions (Report ID: MRFR/HC/48008-HCR)

The India Wheelchair Market is experiencing a period of significant and accelerated growth, projected to expand at a robust Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 5.952% from 2025 to 2035, culminating in a substantial market valuation of $850.0 million by the end of the forecast period, up from $450.0 million in 2024. This strong momentum is fundamentally driven by critical societal factors, including the nation's rapidly increasing geriatric population, which inherently necessitates a greater demand for mobility aids, and a rising incidence of lifestyle-related disabilities that require supportive devices. A powerful, underlying growth engine is the government’s unequivocal commitment to disability rights, prominently exemplified by the implementation of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, which has substantially heightened public awareness and…

Press Officer Michael Pyke offered the following contribution to The Guardian Letters on the 4th May 2025 The scathing comments of Professor Julia Waters on the government's proposed minor tweaks to the way OFSTED inspects and reports on schools are entirely justified and everything she says is completely true.  In the last 25 years stress caused by OFSTED inspections has been cited in no less than 10 coroner's reports into the deaths of headteachers and there is clear evidence that many more school leaders have seriously considered suicide following an inspection.  It is quite astonishing that the current "consultation" makes no reference to this shocking fact while appearing to be based upon the premise that a system which aims to "improve" things by the deliberate use of public humiliation is fundamentally sound and just needs some minor and largely cosmetic improvements.

The system is far from sound: not only does OFSTED…

Press Officer Michael Pyke contributed the following letter to The New Statesman (19/03/2025): Dear Sir,

I regularly enjoy Andrew Marr's insights into Westminster politics but his knowledge of state education seems rather limited - as is often the case with the privately educated.  He asserts that the Children's Well-being and Schools Bill is a product of a "union-driven agenda", without providing any evidence for this view or any explanation of what it is supposed to mean; he implies that the briefing against Bridget Phillipson, that she has listened "to all the wrong people" in "rolling back...academy reforms," is justified but again provides no evidence, while snobbishly referring to "comprehensive-school thinking" without, apparently, realising that the great majority of secondary academies are themselves comprehensive schools.

In fact, as Alasdair Macdonald wrote in the NS of February 28th, there is no evidence whatsoever that academy schools are any better at raising attainment than…

Press Officer Michael Pyke's letter was published in The New World on the 19th March 2025. The edited, published version of his contribution can be found here: https://www.thenewworld.co.uk/letters-look-at-the-bigger-numbers-rachel/ Dear Sir,

David Handley describes Peter Hyman's proposals for education reform as "impressive and radical" (letters, March 13th).  It would be more correct to describe them as necessary but seriously insufficient.  Everything Hyman says is true but he fails to address the underlying problem that our education system - both public and private - is based upon ideas developed in the 1860s, especially about the nature and purpose of education and who should receive it, from which we have never really moved on.  Among the many problems that urgently need addressing (but won't be) are:

1.  For all the pious talk of "social mobility", the social structure of the system both reflects and reinforces existing patterns of hierarchy, as it always has done. …