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, August 31, 2016

10336 - What’s new in Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech? ‘Middle class’ - Live Mint

Last Modified: Tue, Aug 16 2016. 08 17 AM IST


Used 7 times in Monday’s speech, the phrase middle class was completely absent from Narendra Modi’s earlier Independence Day speeches

Karthik Shashidhar


It is clear that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s favourite phrase, as far as Independence Day speeches are concerned, is “brothers and sisters”; but this isn’t particularly relevant as there are other phrases which are far more important. Photo: PTI
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day address on Monday was his longest ever, with the official copy of the English translation running to 9,367 words. In fact, the length of his Independence Day speeches (measured in English word length) has increased over the last three years.
The most used word (excluding commonly used “stop words” such as “the” and “for”) across the three speeches has been “country”, which has been used a total of 207 times. The next most commonly used word is “India”. Interestingly, while the use of the word “country” has remained high over the years, the use of “India” has fallen drastically in this year’s speech, down to 46 instances, from 70 in 2015.



Table 3 shows the top 10 words Modi has used in his last three Independence Day speeches.
It is evident from the list that most of these words are generic in nature, and don’t convey much about intended policy choices. In order to understand any policy direction or implications of the speech, we should look at the differences between this year’s speech and previous years’ speeches.
Each year, the choice of words used in the speech reflects the policy choices of the government of the day. So what words did the Prime Minister use this year that he didn’t in the last two years?
Table 2 has the list of the words that the Prime Minister used at least five times this year, which he had not used in the last two years.
Again, while some of these words are of a generic nature (impossible, thousands), some others give a definite indication of shifts in the government’s policies. For instance, the word “solar” finds a mention six times, highlighting the emphasis this government has placed on solar energy.
It is interesting to note that the Prime Minister made a mention of terrorism, a topic he had eschewed the last two years, in this year’s speech. It is also interesting to see pulses and Aadhaar, the unique ID number that has become the cornerstone of many of the government’s policies, in the list (to be precise, last year’s speech contained one mention of “Aadhaar”. This year’s speech had seven). There were no mentions of Aadhaar in 2014.
Single words, however, tell only so much of the story while describing a speech. The true indicator of possible policy direction in a speech can be gleaned by looking at phrases.
Table 1 contains the 10 most used phrases across the last three Independence Day speeches. It is clear the PM’s favourite phrase, as far as Independence Day speeches are concerned, is “brothers and sisters”, but this isn’t particularly relevant. There are other phrases which are far more important.
For instance, the phrase “middle class”, used seven times on Monday, was completely absent from Modi’s earlier Independence Day speeches, perhaps highlighting an attempt to reach out to a segment many political parties usually ignore. There were also six mentions of “Guru Gobind Singh Ji” in Monday’s speech, perhaps aimed at next year’s elections in Punjab.




Interestingly, “Team India”, which Modi used 32 times in last year’s speech, was completely absent from this year’s edition. Similarly, “black money”, which was mentioned nine times last year, failed to find a mention this year.