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, March 8, 2017

10879 - Axis Bank says it’s not to blame for Aadhaar issue - Live Mint


Axis Bank is coping with the challenge of being cyber secury in an open environment, say executives

Vishwanath Nair


Mumbai: Axis Bank Ltd is not at fault in the recent controversy that resulted in the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) suspending it from doing Aadhaar-based transactions, two senior executives at the lender said.

The bank has also realigned its lending strategy to reduce risk and is coping with the challenges involved in being cyber secure in an open environment, they added.

Executive director Rajiv Anand explained that Suvidhaa Infoserve (one of the other firms suspended by UIDAI) does not have the rights to conduct e-KYC (electronic know your customer) procedures to validate anyone using its infrastructure for payments, which is where Axis Bank comes into the picture. In this case, an employee of Suvidhaa who was testing the infrastructure used his own Aadhaar number to perform the tests.
“The infringement is really at that level in Suvidhaa. It has clearly said that the error is on its part,” Anand said. The lender has already shut access to various lines of business to Suvidhaa, he added.

The bank is confident UIDAI will “see the merit in the argument”, added Jairam Sridharan, chief financial officer of Axis Bank.

Talking about cyber security in general, Sridharan said that India has chosen a fully open infrastructure of digital transactions, where anyone with an account with any bank can use any network to transact with anyone else with an account with any bank. “In a completely open environment where the participants are literally in the hundreds, it is a little bit harder to have full control on the entire architecture,” Sridharan said.

Dealing with NPAs
Axis has seen a significant jump in the accumulation of bad loans, which has actually led to the bank having to revise its guidance on asset quality for the current financial year. Gross non-performing assets (NPAs), rose by five times to Rs20,467 crore as on 31 December 2016, from around Rs4,000 crore on 30 September 2015. The rise was mainly due to a deep asset quality review and an eventual slipping of many large corporate assets into the bad loan category.

“Over the last six quarters our gross NPA ratio would have gone up by about 350 basis points. Every large bank in the country which is in the corporate lending segment has also seen their ratios go up by about 300-350 basis points. If you see the rank ordering among all the large banks, it is still the same. It is just that everyone has re-baselined to a new level,” Sridharan said.

According to the CFO, about six or seven years ago, Axis Bank placed its bet on four themes that would drive growth: infrastructure, small business, growth in consumption and payments. In retrospect, Sridharan says, one of the four (infrastructure) has not panned out as planned at all.

To derisk, the bank has also realigned its lending strategy.
While incremental lending to the corporate sector has been greatly reduced, Axis Bank is largely lending to firms rated A or above. About 80% of incremental lending has been to such companies, Sridharan clarified. In the current macroeconomic environment, if a firm is rated A or above, there is a great chance that it will turn around rapidly as the economy turns, he added.


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First Published: Fri, Mar 03 2017. 01