In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.
On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.
In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.
In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.
In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.
"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi
Ram Krishnaswamy
Sydney, Australia.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Monday, November 28, 2011

2022 - R8,861-cr boost for UID phase-3 - Financial express

Bijay Shankar Patel, Kirtika Suneja
Posted online: 2011-11-28 02:55:28+05:30

New DelhiThe Aadhar project has been approved R8,861 crore by the finance ministry to reach out to 200 million Indians with biometric cards. The approval still falls short of extending the project to the entire Indian adult population but will allow the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to develop back-end capacity for servicing the entire database of 1.2 billion Indians.

For the time being, it also settles the dispute between Aadhar and the home ministry on who will do the front-end job of registering all adults on a national database. The approval will, therefore, keep the momentum going for the Nandan Nilekani-led project which is an integral part of UPA-II’s governance reform process that aims to provide a unique identification number to every Indian with linked data in biometrics. The home ministry wants the office of the Census General to do the registration as the National 

Population Register.

The UIDAI is an attached office of the Planning Commission. With the latest approval, the project’s third phase will begin from 2012. Earlier, R3,170.32 crore was approved under the first two phases of the scheme by the expenditure finance committee. The first set of 100 million UID numbers were issued between August 2010 and March 2011. Phase I of the scheme, which began in 2009, comprised setting up necessary infrastructure for offices at headquarters and regional headquarters and creating testing facilities for running the pilots and Proof of Concept experiments.

Confirming the development, director-general of the authority RS Sharma told FE: “The funding has been approved and this will be used for the third phase of the project.”

The approval is significant since in September, the finance ministry had held up UIDAI’s additional R17,000-crore funding proposal to capture biometrics of all 1.2 billion Indians through its own registrars, citing duplication in expenditure between it and the NPR.

Recently, home minister P Chidambaram had said the registration should be done by NPR and the data management handled by Aadhar under UID. 

The Aadhar system has faced criticism from various departments regarding an apparent lack of checks and balances in the registration process. However, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has reaffirmed his commitment to release the requisite funds for the UID mission.

“This money will be used for enrolling 200 million people by March 2011. We have already enrolled 140 million and 70 million Aadhars have been issued,” said a senior UIDAI official who did not wish to be named.

The authority has been enrolling 30 million residents every month and was keen on securing the funding to maintain the pace beyond March 2012.

“We have a target of enrolling 600 million people by 2014 and we can’t stop in between because it takes time to ramp up,” the official added. But a finance ministry official said those numbers will need additional funding beyond the one sanctioned now, for which no decision has been taken.

Aadhaar enrolment is expected to be a game-changer in the delivery of social security programmes as it can be used to better identify the poor making for better-targeting of welfare payments under schemes like MNREGA as well as subsidies on LPG, kerosene, food and fertiliser.