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

Saturday, February 9, 2013

3007 - Aadhaar Confusion In Hyderabad



The state bungled up big time on the manner in which an exercise of this magnitude needs to be handled

TS SUDHIR

People at an Aadhaar centre in Hyderabad

You can’t run before you are ready to walk. But the Andhra Pradesh government was trying to do that and more. That is perhaps why a February 15 deadline was set for every citizen living in Hyderabad city and Ranga Reddy district to get an Aadhaar card. Failing which, they were told, they would have to forego subsidy and pay 1030 rupees for a domestic gas cylinder refill. 
Perhaps the government was emboldened by statistics in its records. Statistics that lied. In Hyderabad administrative district, for instance, as per official records, as against a 2011 census population count of 40.1 lakh, over 48 lakh people had enrolled for Aadhar, some 126 per cent ! 

And yet, registration centres across the city have been overfull trying to meet the mid-February deadline to get the all-important unique identification card. Because only those armed with an Aadhaar card could still get the 570 rupees subsidy on each cylinder. Of course, even that was not going to be easy. As a consumer, you were expected to pay up the full 1030 rupees and then the subsidy amount would flow into your bank account. 

Is this a benefit-transfer or a headache transfer riding on Aadhaar, asks Sumalatha, a housewife living in Chikkadpally area of Hyderabad. 
The panic, frustration and fear of being left out in the cold and being excluded has been showing on the streets of the city. 

“Yeh government bilkul waste hai,” declared an exasperated Rajkumar, a businessman in the Secunderabad area of Hyderabad. He was fuming, having been turned away at the Aadhaar registration counter. He had been told no application forms for Aadhaar were being disbursed after 9 am. Pointing to the long queue at the Aadhaar centre, he said, “I will have to waste an entire day away from work to come in early here just to collect the form, fill it up and submit it.”

Carpenter Rajeshwar Chary had submitted his form and had been given a date in June to come again to get his photograph clicked. “So if I get the Aadhaar card so late, will I have to pay more for the gas cylinder,” he asked. No one at the counter was any the wiser to offer an opinion. Not that any of them thought it necessary to address his concerns and queries empathetically. His second problem was he did not have a birth certificate for his two children and had been asked to get the same from the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation. How long that would take, neither he nor anyone else here had the answer.

Some others said they had registered, shared demographic details and went through the biometrics formalities several months ago and yet had not received the Aadhaar card. Srinadh who has been waiting for his card since March 2010 wonders if he should register again. Phone calls to Bangalore have given him the routine reply that his card has been despatched. The local post office says it has not got any. 

At this centre in Warasiguda in Hyderabad, there are just four persons to take care of a crowd of nearly 150. This man handles this window alone, as a result of which the queue only gets longer and longer. At Hayathnagar, another area on the city outskirts, kilometre-long queues forced traffic shut on the main road nearby and ultimately the Aadhaar enrolment window had to be shut as the staff was unable to cope with the rush.

This has been the story across the 83 stations in Hyderabad where the long queues, delay, confusion and no result at the end of long hours of wait was leading to frustration, anger and restlessness. At many places, patience was running out, tempers were flying. Government officials thought it wiser to shut the counter rather than face the public mood of anger.

Realising the situation is getting out of hand, Chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy has promised that 300 new enrolment centres would be opened in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy district to cope with the rush. Realising that the February 15 deadline is unrealistic, the Andhra Pradesh government has also promised to delay the linkage of subsidy on LPG cylinders with the Aadhaar card. But clearly, the state bungled up big time on the manner in which an exercise of this magnitude needs to be handled.

On paper, Andhra Pradesh is way ahead of other states with 81 per cent either covered under Aadhaar or in the process. Out of the state population of 8.5 crore, some 6.5 crore people are reportedly enrolled. For 5.3 crore people, an Aadhaar number has been generated and another 4.3 crore have already received their numbers. After the numbers are universally issued, they will have to be “seeded”. What that means is that they have to be linked to the database of beneficiaries, in the case of welfare schemes for instance, and also to bank accounts. 

In the first phase, Aadhaar is to be linked to the payment of student scholarships and benefits under Janani Suraksha Yojana for pregnant women. In the second phase, it will link LPG and in the third phase, NREGA payments and pensions. 

So what is the benefit of linking Aadhaar to LPG cylinders for which the subsidy is universal? There are fears among the people that this may become a basis for eventually making it a targeted subsidy. P V Ramesh, principal secretary in Andhra Pradesh’s finance department, however, denies this. “It is a hidden subsidy at the moment. By paying upfront and getting a refund, it becomes more visible. There is no effort to target. It is basically to eliminate duplicates and stop blackmarketing,” he says.

Which raises the question if Aadhaar at the end of the day is meant to benefit the aam aadmi or the government. The jury is still out.