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, July 30, 2016

10191 - Bihar, Tamil Nadu lagging in digitising fair price shops - NewKerala

Posted 26 days ago | IANS

New Delhi, July 4 : Bihar and Tamil Nadu figure among the states lagging so far in installing electronic point of sale (ePoS) devices at fair price shops. The scheme aimed at tracking sale of food grain to genuine ration card holders on a real-time basis, an official said on Monday.


"Andhra Pradesh figures on the top in the country with 100 per cent installation of ePoS in all fair price shops in the state. This has helped in saving food subsidy of an estimated Rs 1,000 crore, while the installation pace is going very slow in Bihar," a Union Food Ministry official said here.

"Only 9,000 cards in Bihar out of over 1.54 crore ration cards have been seeded with Aadhaar cards entries. Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has sent in half a dozen reminders to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and others," the official said.

Out of two crore ration card holders in Tamil Nadu, so far only 36 lakh, that is 18 per cent, cards have been seeded with ePOS mechanism. 

In an interview with IANS last month, Paswan referred to the importance of pan-India roll-out of direct benefit transfer (DBT) through Jandhan scheme but lamented that some states were not showing the requisite enthusiasm.

"Our national target is to have at least three lakh shops equipped with e-POS devices by March 2017. We are urging the states to take it seriously," he had said.

Sources said here on Monday that so far over 1.22 lakh fair price shops, or 25 per cent of the target, have been ePoS-enabled. 

Streamlining of the public distribution system and deleting of 1.62 crore bogus ration cards has so far saved around Rs 10,000 crore for the exchequer.

"There have been positive responses from states like Odisha lately as Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has written to the Union Food Minister and informed him the state would speed up the process," the source said.

The direct-bank-transfer (DBT)-Aadhaar and ePoS could together reduce the Centre's subsidy bill. 

The central government allocates about 55 million tonnes of rice and wheat annually to implement the National Food Security Act, which leads to a pretty high food subsidy.

The DBT-Aadhaar and ePoS system with fair price shops across the country will help reduce the Centre's food subsidy bill, the official said. 

Besides Andhra Pradesh, the states of Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan and the union territories of Chandigarh and Andaman and Nicobar have completed seeding of all the ration cards with Aadhaar.

There is also notable progress in states like Kerala -- where the figure is 95 per cent. Similarly satisfactory progress has been reported from Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, and Gujarat.

The Food Ministry has announced that 24 crore ration cards in the country have been digitised and about 56 per cent of these have been seeded with Aadhaar numbers of the beneficiaries. This is enabling holders to get highly subsidised food grain under the National Food Security Act.

A high-level committee set up the Narendra Modi government in 2014 was headed by senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Shanta Kumar, who had served as Union Food Minister in the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's cabinet.

The committee had maintained that direct bank transfer mechanism with cash benefits going straight to bank accounts could save the exchequer more than Rs 30,000 crore annually.

According to a Union Finance Ministry estimate, the DBT scheme for subsidies has resulted in savings across welfare schemes, including Rs 27,000 crore in the PDS, LPG distribution and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, sources said.