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

Monday, August 14, 2017

11767 - Sneaky yet inept: A government's death knell? - SIFY


Source : SIFY By : Nandini Krishnan 
Last Updated: Fri, Aug 11, 2017 12:23 hrs


It has been more than three years since we were promised Achche Din. Even as lynch mobs go wild and any dissent is greeted with trolling at best and a sedition charge more often than not, we are yet to see the good days we were promised. 

There is, in fact, little change from the corruption that pushed the last government out of power after it had enjoyed two terms. What is worse is that the current government has consistently preceded its inability to combat corruption – or its agenda to propagate corruption – with draconian, sweeping measures that involve huge sacrifices of time and energy from a population that is constantly exhorted to compare the comfort of its armchairs with the inhospitable nature of army outposts. 

The Opposition’s allegation that the government has been printing notes in two different sizes – one for its friends, and one for the rest of us – is the latest in a series of corruption charges against a government which promised to bring back black money from Swiss banks and positioned itself as pro-poor. 

It was treated with the same casual indifference the government has reserved for all objections and accusations – that it is “frivolous”. The fracas that broke out in Parliament on the back of what the Opposition termed “the biggest scam of the century” has not ended with any clarification from the government. 

As Finance Minister Arun Jaitley accused Kapil Sibal, who brandished the notes as evidence, of “irresponsible statements” and “misuse of Zero Hour”, photographs of different sized and marked Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes with detailed comments on the discrepancies began to circulate in the media. The government is yet to respond to the allegations, and appears – yet again – to have no reply. 

Its sudden announcement of demonetisation sparked off several months of extreme inconvenience for the citizens it claims to serve. Even as people were standing for hours in queues in the hope of exchanging enough notes to make their rent and buy their groceries, income tax raids found stacks of new notes in the houses of several businessmen, lawyers, and hawala operators across the country – not the best advertisement for anti-corruption. 

This is symptomatic of the BJP government’s tendency to carry through drastic measures in a sneaky manner, putting the public to extreme trouble only to prove the inefficiency of the mechanisms that oversee these processes. 

The push for the Aadhaar card is yet another example. While the government maintained that acquiring the Aadhaar card was entirely voluntary, it also began to insist that PAN numbers must be linked with Aadhaar numbers in order to file one’s tax returns. It went on to introduce deadlines that ensured people could not wait for the Supreme Court’s verdict on the issue. And it did not ensure that it had the manpower in place to deal with the sudden inflow of people to Aadhaar centres. Queues began to form as early as 4:00 am for centres that would open six hours later. 

It has begun to introduce the mandatory linking of bank accounts and mobile phone numbers with a “voluntary” card. 

And, in what could be its cruellest stunt, the government has now said death certificates cannot be issued without an Aadhaar number from October 1. And there is the irony – we cannot be tax-paying citizens of this country without possessing the Aadhaar card, and we cannot cease to be so without possessing the Aadhaar card. Yet, the acquisition of an Aadhaar card is “voluntary”. 

In an even greater irony, this order comes from the Registrar General, who is overseen by the home ministry. It was this office that was in charge of the National Population Register, a pet project of L K Advani’s which was sanctioned Rs. 6600 crore, of which Rs. 4800 crore has already been spent. Since the NPR is essentially the Aadhaar without biometric data, these thousands of crores of taxpayer money have basically been wasted. 

Before the BJP came to power, Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate had spoken against the Aadhaar project by the Unique Identification Authority of India. Yet, only months into his term as Prime Minister, he began to push for its enforcement. 

Data leaks have been occurring regularly and the government has not been able to fix this. And every measure that it has brought in with the purported intention of protecting us has done just the opposite. 

How long can the government keep up this facade without being caught out? Surely no one can believe that it is pro-poor any longer, headed as it is by a man who speaks of his penurious beginnings while sporting a designer suit? And surely no one can overlook the lies and betrayals involved in pushing its pet projects through? As the next elections approach, we must remember that a government which has nothing to hide does not need to curb freedom of speech – and we have certainly not had such a government in the last thirteen years. 

Read more at: http://www.sify.com/news/sneaky-yet-inept-a-government-s-death-knell-news-columns-rilmxQgbifhba.html


Nandini is a journalist and humour writer based in Madras. She is the author of Hitched: The Modern Woman and Arranged Marriage. 

Read more at: http://www.sify.com/news/sneaky-yet-inept-a-government-s-death-knell-news-columns-rilmxQgbifhba.html