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

Sunday, May 1, 2016

9879 - Chances of a smooth run of Parliament are remote: Jairam Ramesh - Business Standard

Interview with Congress member in the Rajya Sabha
April 25, 2016 Last Updated at 06:42 IST



Congress spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh tells Kavita Chowdhury that since the attitude of the Narendra Modi government is deliberately provocative and confrontational, it should not expect cooperation from the Congress.

The second half of the Budget session starts on Monday. What will be the Congress' strategy in this session?

The murder of democracy in Uttarakhand is an important issue for us after the murder of democracy in Arunachal Pradesh and the attempted murder taking place in Himachal Pradesh. We will definitely raise the issue of destabilisation of democratically elected state governments - it's a very important issue.

Second, we will take up the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) issue. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has submitted its fifth report in the past six years: it's a damaging indictment of the GSPC, which was run on a hands-on basis by then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.

Then, there are other issues, like the continuation of a minister in the government, Y S Chowdary, against whom there is a non-bailable warrant for non-payment of loans amounting to Rs 100 crore; the kid-glove treatment being meted out to Vijay Mallya; the Panama Papers expose... there is no shortage of issues. It's a 19-day session, where the number of working days will be 14.

Also, I have moved the Supreme Court challenging the decision to turn the Aadhaar Bill into a Money Bill. That petition will come up on April 25. In all, the prospects of Parliament running smoothly are remote.

Do you see this Budget session turning into another washout?

Much as I would like to see the drought situation and the farmer suicides issue being taken up in Parliament, there are extremely important political issues (stated before) that need to be taken up. It is the government which does not want Parliament to run and has done everything to devalue it.

The government and the finance minister have reiterated how crucial it is for the economy to get the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill passed in this session. Will the Congress finally come around to passing the GST?

We have consistently maintained that there are three issues in the GST Bill that need to be addressed and it is for the government to respond to that. The real issue is that the Congress' objections are merely an alibi; there is a strong section in the Bharatiya Janata Party that does not want the Bill. Piyush Goyal (power minister) had expressed ambivalence on GST when he was not in government. Gujarat Finance Minister Saurabh Patel is not convinced either. We have put across our views to the Select Committee, but the government refuses to listen. In the Real Estate Bill, it accepted our conditions and the Bill was passed.

On the GST, why doesn't the Union finance minister write to Sonia Gandhi (Congress president), communicating the government's stand, and then we shall see, instead of writing on Facebook or blogs? The ball is in the government's court. As of now, there is zero chance of the GST getting passed in this session. If this remains the attitude of the government - arrogant, deliberately provocative, it ramrods its way into Uttarakhand - do you expect the Congress to cooperate? Even the Atal Bihar Vajpayee government from 1998 to 2004 believed in a give-and-take relationship. The current prime minister delights in confrontation; his government is deliberately provocative. Why should we play ball?

As Congress spokesperson you have been highlighting the GSPC issue and the CAG reports.…

We will definitely be raising it in Parliament. This KG (the Krishna-Godavari basin controversy on which the CAG prepared a report) is more serious than 2G (the 2G spectrum scam). It is far more insidious. Around Rs 20,000 crore was taken from banks, bombastic claims were made by the then Gujarat chief minister 11 years ago. Nothing has happened since then. It's a classic example of how a state-owned enterprise was used for political purposes. We have demanded an inquiry by a Supreme Court judge. We also want a probe by the Joint Parliamentary Committee. Even way back in 1957, Nehru got the Mundhra scandal probed.

Among the legislation that need to be cleared is the Bankruptcy Code. What is the Congress' stand on it?

The Bill is with the Select Committee; we objected to that. We wanted it to be sent to the Standing Committee, but this government sent it to the Select Committee. Let us see what comes of that.

The pattern on display for quite some time now is that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gets Bills cleared in the Lok Sabha with its numerical majority; then the Bills get stonewalled in the Rajya Sabha where the Congress has the numbers. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has been raising the issue of redundancy of a house of unelected members....

The problem arises due to the government's reluctance to send Bills to a Standing Committee, where they should rightly be discussed. Better Bills emerge after scrutiny by a Standing Committee, but this government has been undermining it. As for the redundancy argument, consider the top ministers in the BJP-led government: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Power Minister Piyush Goyal, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu, Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar. They are are all Rajya Sabha members. Redundancy is a bogus argument; the Rajya Sabha has a constitutionally defined role and it is fulfilling that.

Political observers say the Congress is increasingly been perceived as a negative obstructionist force....

Jaitley, as Opposition leader in the Rajya Sabha [during the term of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre], had gone on record stating that disruption was the legitimate right of the Opposition. Pranab Mukherjee had once told me that the Opposition's job was to oppose, expose and depose. This is what the BJP did to us for five years, now it's payback time. In any case, it is the government's job to achieve a consensus, and while Pramod Mahajan, Sushma Swaraj, Kamal Nath were all excellent parliamentary affairs ministers, Venkaiah Naidu has proved disastrous in that position. The government doesn't seem to have the desire to get Bills passed; more importantly, it lacks the ability to reach a consensus. Even I managed to get extremely contentious Bills, like the National Green Tribunal Bill and the Land Bill passed during the UPA regime.

Post the May 2014 defeat, the Congress was reduced to its lowest numerical strength (44 members in the Lok Sabha). Instead of regrouping, it seems to be on a downward spiral, losing one state after another. Its prospects do not appear bright in the ongoing elections in some states....

Wait for the election results; you might be pleasantly surprised. The epitaphs being written for the Congress in Assam and West Bengal will prove to be premature. We in the Congress are aware of the challenges: we are competing with the BJP, with regional parties, with new kids on the block, like the Aam Aadmi Party. There are multiple challenges. But people seem to be underestimating the Congress' resilience factor. We are like the Indian elephant: we take time to move.