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, April 28, 2017

11159 - Give us your religion, caste, Aadhaar: HRD to all college teachers - Indian Express


Teachers who are yet to furnish personal details have another month to comply. Moves are also afoot to create a similar students’ database next year.

Written by Jay Mazoomdaar | New Delhi | Updated: April 27, 2017 8:26 pm

Acknowledging that religion and caste identities of individuals will not help check duplication, Subrahmanyam said “those parameters were already part of the survey” process.

To set up a national teachers’ portal and detect “fake teachers” in the country, the Ministry of Human Resource Development has, over the last four months, profiled at least 60 per cent of more than 15 lakh university and college teachers, complete with individual details such as religion, caste, Aadhaar and phone numbers.

Teachers who are yet to furnish personal details have another month to comply. Moves are also afoot to create a similar students’ database next year.

R Subrahmanyan, Additional Secretary, HRD Ministry, told The Indian Express: “We believe there are a lot of ghost lecturers. These are teachers who show up in multiple institutes, the ones not run by the government. Individual details such as Aadhaar numbers will help us identify such duplication.”

Acknowledging that religion and caste identities of individuals will not help check duplication, Subrahmanyam said “those parameters were already part of the survey” process.

“Getting all the details directly from individuals will now reduce the workload of institutes that prepared the abstract for the Ministry in the past. It will also reduce mistakes,” he said.
Since 2010-11, the government has been conducting the annual All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE). But this is the first time that individual profiles of the teaching staff has been sought. Until last year, every institute provided generic data on their teaching staff with numerical break-ups under the heads of designation, selection mode, gender, category (general/SC/ST/OBC), religion (Muslim/other minority) and disability.

For AISHE 2016-2017, in addition to the existing data collection format (DCF), a new Teacher Information Format (TIF) has been introduced “to collect data on teachers profile to create ‘Gurujan’ — a teachers’ portal (gurujan.gov.in).”

Asked if the University Grants Commission (UGC) was instrumental in introducing the TIF in AISHE this year, Professor Ved Prakash, whose term as the Commission chairman ended earlier this month, said: “The HRD Ministry conducts the survey and analyses the data. The UGC only helps by asking the institutes to provide data. You have to talk to the Ministry about the survey formats.”

On the question of privacy being compromised, Subrahmanyan said: “Initially, we may not make gurujan.gov.in open to public. We will not make any personal information public. The data will be absolutely safe with the National Informatics Centre (NIC). But I don’t think putting someone’s Aadhaar number in public is a problem as long as the information linked to the number remains protected.”

Many in the teaching community, however, remain unconvinced. “Whether they want to make it public or not, creating a database identifying individuals on the basis of religion and caste is a reckless idea, particularly in the prevailing atmosphere. Data is always vulnerable to selective leakage,” said a Chandigarh-based lecturer who is yet to furnish personal details in TIF.

“This is not only about privacy. Who stands to benefit from the big data? Will our Aadhaar numbers be made available so that economic profiling helps foreign interests keen to set up campuses here hire efficiently? Will we profile students next to target high-income parents who can afford education loans necessary for private institutes,” asked a Delhi-based lecturer who was unsure if he could hold out any further against “persistent TIF reminders”.

Subrahmanyan, in fact, confirmed that the government wanted to create a students’ portal in line with Gurujan next year.
“Once the teacher-specific data from the AISHE website is shifted to the Gurujan portal, we plan to make a similar student portal, may be next year, so that all three can be used together seamlessly. We are still considering all the possibilities,” he said.

Sources said the HRD Ministry took stock of the survey’s progress with state-level coordinators on Tuesday and decided to extend the April 13 deadline by “a month or so” to maximise coverage.

In June 2015, the government amended the University Grants Commission (Returns of Information by Universities) Rules, 2004, by introducing a penalty — reduction of annual grant by up to 25 per cent and other punitive action as the UGC or the Centre may deem fit — for failure to provide information on AISHE or for “any other purpose” as directed by the UGC.
“Many institutes do not receive any funds from the UGC. Anyway, we are thinking of incentivising rather than penalising to ensure compliance. For example, our ranking framework will be based on AISHE from next year,” Subrahmanyan said.
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First Published on: April 27, 2017 3:42 am