Deaf community and Deaf culture. Later, the course was offered in the regional centers, in Hyderabad, Bhuvaneshwar, Kolkata and Delhi. Besides AYJNIHH, organisations like the Mook Badhir Sangathan in Indore and several other organisations offer ISL classes. Many NGOs all over the India use ISL to teach English and various academic and vocational courses. These NGOs include ISHARA (Mumbai), Deaf Way Foundation (Delhi), the Noida Deaf Society and Leadership Education Empowerment of the Deaf (LEED) (Pune), Speaking Hands Institute for the Deaf (Punjab), etc. (Randhawa, 2014). The associations like the Association of Sign Language Interpreters (ASLI) and the Indian Sign Language Interpreters Association (ISLIA) were established in 2006 and 2008 respectively for the professional development of Interpreters in India. Two schools have been established in India which follow bilingual approach to teach deaf students. The schools are the Bajaj Institute of Learning (BIL) in Dehradun and Mook Badhir Sangathan in Indore. Apart from the establishment of organisations working for Deaf people there has been a spurt in research on sign language in India. Recent research developments include the studies by research scholars of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and the University of Delhi including Wallang, 2007; Sinha, 2003,2008/2013; Hidam, 2010; Kulsheshtra, 2013. There is also work on problems and awareness of IPSL and typology of IPSL verbs (Morgan 2009,2010). Apart from these there have been continued works by scholars on linguistic aspects of IPSL as well as on varieties of IPSL (Bhattacharya and Hidam 2010, Aboh, Pfau, and Zeshan 2005, Zeshan and Panda 2011, Panda 2011, Panda 2012). Steps taken by the Government of India to promote sign language include the establishment of the ISLRTC. However, currently the autonomy of the Research centre is a contentious issue, which is yet to be resolved. Pakistan Pakistan has a deaf population of 0.24 million, which is approximately 7.4% of the overall disabled population in the country. Varieties There are many varieties of sign language in the region, including many pockets of home sign and local sign languages, such as Ghandruk Sign Language, Jhankot Sign Language, and Jumla Sign Language in Nepal, and Alipur Sign Language in India, which appear to be language isolates. There are also various Sri Lankan sign languages which may not even be related to each other. However, the urban varieties of India, Pakistan, Nepal (Nepalese Sign Language), and Bangladesh are clearly related (although, for Nepalese Sign Language at