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

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

8835 - FM Arun Jaitley’s Facebook post: Linking PAN with cash transactions will hit blackmoney hard - Financial Express

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has done well by announcing in his Facebook post on Sunday that the government is planning to link permanent account number (PAN) with cash transactions to combat blackmoney.

By: Santosh Tiwari | October 5, 2015 3:36 PM


In a country of more than 120 crore people, only 3.6 crore file income tax returns despite more than 17 crore having PAN. Extensive use of PAN and its linking with Aadhaar is a key tax reform for curbing tax evasion and blackmoney.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has done well by announcing in his Facebook post on Sunday that the government is planning to link permanent account number (PAN) with cash transactions to combat blackmoney.

Linking of cash transactions with PAN would mean that the records of any cash transaction beyond a certain limit could be accessed by the Income-Tax Department – while this will help find out the tax evaders, it will also act as a deterrent and shut this major window for blackmoney operations.

The FM’s Facebook post has obviously been to tell people what the NDA government is doing to tackle black money after embarrassing results of the three-month compliance window which saw the disclosure of just Rs 3,770 crore; but the direction in which the government is moving now, though delayed, will yield good results if the steps he has outlined are pursued judiciously.

Jaitley has said: “The Government is at an advanced stage in considering the requirement of furnishing PAN card details if cash transactions beyond a certain limit are undertaken. The monitoring regime of income tax has been strengthened and its capacity to access information and apply technology driven analytical tools to expose evasion, has been enhanced. Its ability to detect large cash withdrawals, or large cash transactions which enter the system, is being strengthened. GST regime once introduced will also be a landmark step in this direction. Thus for commodities like gold where the initial purchase by the exporter is after the payment of custom duty, the subsequent transactions which are mostly in cash, can easily be found out”.

Going forward, it is quite clear that the government might also look at restructuring the personal income tax rate structure to address the issue of the highest tax rate of 30% kicking in at a low income of Rs 10 lakh – it should kick in at a higher income – and also enhanced promotion of plastic money.

The government must take note of the Tax Administration Reforms Commission (TARC) report’s suggestion here.
The Commission in one of its report submitted to the finance ministry in November 2014 pointed out that, “India has a low taxpayer base even as a percentage of the total population. With a population of over 120 crore, only 17 crore have a PAN and of these, about 3.6 crore file income tax returns. Only 3.3 per cent of the population pays tax, which is very low compared to 39 per cent in Singapore, 46 per cent in the USA, and 75 per cent in New Zealand. This, of course, reflects India’s low income levels, which, for a large part of the population, falls below the basic income tax threshold; yet huge potential remains to expand the taxpayer base… the base could perhaps be doubled at most to say 7 per cent”.

The Income-Tax Department has already started linking Aadhaar numbers to PAN through e-filing of tax returns to make the refund process easier and a non-intrusive handling of the taxpayers – 3,492,298 returns are already PAN-Aadhaar linked – and this process needs to be extended as far and wide as possible.

First Published on October 05, 2015 11:24 am