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

Friday, September 30, 2016

10483 - Supreme Court Shuts Down Mandatory Aadhaar Requirement in Modi’s Scholarship Portal - The Wire



The court also essentially reaffirms that the Aadhaar scheme is completely voluntary, until it eventually decides one way or the other.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has ruled that the Modi government’s national scholarship portal cannot require students to sign up for an Aadhaar number as part of its registration process, in an order that not only reaffirms the court’s earlier decision to keep the identification scheme voluntary but also throws into question the Centre’s attempts at making Aadhaar integration mainstream.

The court order came on a writ petition by the All Bengal Minority Students Council earlier this month, which pointed out that the government’s attempts at making “Aadhaar submission mandatory” for a majority of scholarship schemes ran contrary to the Supreme Court’s interim order last year on the voluntary nature of Aadhaar.

Bench of justices V Gopala Gowda and Adarsh Kumar Goel ordered that the Centre’s decision to make the submissions of an Aadhaar number mandatory for the pre-matric, post-matric and merit-cum-means scholarship schemes must be halted.

“We stay the the operation and implementation of letters dated…to the extent that they have made Aadhaar submission mandatory,” the court’s order reads.

More significantly, the court also directs the ministry of electronics and information technology, which was also a respondent, to “remove Aadhaar number as a mandatory condition for student Registration form at the National Scholarship Portal…”

Voluntary or not?
The Supreme Court references its, earlier interim order on the biometric authentication scheme last year, noting that “our attention was invited to Para 5 of the order dated 15-10-2015 passed by this Court..”

Paragraph number 5 in question goes as follows: “We will make it clear that the Aadhaar card scheme is purely voluntary and it cannot be made mandatory till the matter is finally decided by the Court one way or the other.”

This paragraph has been particularly troublesome for the Modi government, which sees mainstream implementation of the identification system as important for India’s development. As The Wire reported earlier, major ministry officials are confused over whether notification of the Aadhaar Act negated to a certain extent the Supreme Court’s order last year on keeping Aadhaar voluntary.

Attorney General Mukul Rohatagi for instance, sees the notification of the Aadhaar Act as overriding all concerns raised by civil society and the Supreme Court. In remarks to the media on September 12th, which is when sections pertaining to the mandatory use of Aadhaar were notified, Rohaagi pointed out that the law “takes care of all concerns surrounding potential misuse”.

“The earlier challenge against mandatory use was against an executive notification that conceived Aadhaar. Now, the law takes care of all concerns surrounding potential misuse,” Rohatagi said.

The Supreme Court, in its order on the government’s scholarship schemes, does not appear align itself with this argument. It takes note of petitioner’s main argument, namely that making submission of Aadhaar card mandatory “are contrary to the interim order passed by the Constitution Bench and therefore, to that extent they are not tenable in law”.