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

Sunday, November 5, 2017

12262 - Aadhaar raj: Targeting the poor & vulnerable - Deccan Chronicle




Flouting the order, the Narendra Modi government made Aadhaar compulsory for the distribution of food rations.


antoshi was 11 years old. She went to school, helped her mother with her chores, and looked after her baby brother. Perhaps like little girls in your family, or kids around you. Except that Santoshi’s family was very poor. And for most of this year, the only food she got was the midday meal at school. On September 20, her school closed for the Durga Puja festivities. And on September 28, as Ma Durga killed Mahishasura, Santoshi died. With her last breath, she asked her mother for rice. But there was no food in the house — there hadn’t been for days. Her starving mother could do nothing but watch her little girl slowly and painfully die of hunger.
Santoshi did not die because there was no food for her. Her family had a ration card and had earlier been living on the subsidised foodgrains they were entitled to. Santoshi died because the government snatched that food away. It refused to let them have their entitlement, for no fault of theirs. Except the huge, colossal fault of being born very poor in a country that is now too posh to care about the poor.


Santoshi died because the State, in its exhibitionary zeal to display efficiency, had decided that only those ration-card holders who had an Aadhaar card, and had linked it to their ration card, and could prove that their biometrics — like fingerprints — matched those on the Aadhaar database, would get subsidised rations. In a country where rural areas are barely touched by electricity and Internet connectivity, such technological competence is often impossible. So the poorest of the poor, those whose lives depend on the substandard but subsidised food rations allotted to them, do not get their food. Santoshi’s family is one such.
They had both a ration card and Aadhaar, and had tried to get them linked. But as one arm of the government failed to link the two, the other arm declared that because the link was missing, Santoshi’s family must not get the rations they were legally entitled to. So the child died.
This happened in Jharkhand. And since Santoshi’s death, news of similar starvation deaths have surfaced from that state. For example, Rooplal Marandi, 75, died because biometric machines had failed to read his daughter’s fingerprints, and had refused the family their food rations for two months.
But Jharkhand is not alone. In July, three dalits died in Karnataka because they had been denied rations for months. Narayana, Venkataramma and Subbu Maru Mukhri were brothers, and lived together with their old mother. None of them had an Aadhaar card. So they were not given the foodgrains they were entitled to, and three of the family starved to death.
This insistence on Aadhaar linkage and biometric authentication to allow the poor access to their food entitlements is ruining the poorest of the poor wherever it has been implemented across the country. In a country that ranks 100th among 119 developing countries in the World Hunger Index, where endemic hunger and malnourishment is rampant, there can be no justification for excluding the most vulnerable. The public distribution system (PDS) is a lifeline for those who live below the poverty line, and snapping that lifeline amounts to murder.
It also violates the Supreme Court’s orders, which stated that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for welfare schemes, it has to be a voluntary option. Flouting the order, the Narendra Modi government made Aadhaar compulsory for the distribution of food rations. This has ruined the most vulnerable — the old, the infirm, the children — among the poorest citizens of India. When you live close to the edge, a bump can throw you off the cliff.
There are many reasons why Aadhaar and biometric identification fails in rural areas. First, it is not easy for the illiterate villagers to get their Aadhaar and ration cards linked. It has to go through a lugubrious system that is beyond their control. Second, the machines that check this authentication at the ration shop often malfunction. Third, Internet connectivity is pathetic and the system fails. Fourth, the remote servers that authenticate often fail. Fifth, fingerprint recognition fails as the software cannot recognise the worn-out fingerprints of the elderly and labourers with calloused hands. Because of such technical issues, over and above individual, human issues, the most vulnerable groups are often excluded from benefits that they are legally entitled to.
And this insistence on denying legitimate beneficiaries their entitlements pervades our new style of governance. In the name of Aadhaar you can be denied work, education, skills training, midday meals in school, loans for farmers, bank accounts, and be cut off from all kinds of welfare schemes, including nourishment for children and pregnant women. All in the name of streamlining the system and weeding out “ghost” or fake beneficiaries.
In short, if you are severely underprivileged, you are guilty till proven innocent. And if you are unlucky, you may never be able to prove your innocence. You will be branded a “bogus” candidate and struck off welfare schemes that were made precisely for people like you.
Such muscle-flexing is the hallmark of our present government. So the Prime Minister can publicly threaten states that don’t fall in line, he can say that he will not give a single rupee to those who are against his idea of “vikas” or development. Flouting democratic norms and the federal spirit comes easy to those who believe that might is right.
So your government can trash your money in the name of demonetisation, which did enormous harm with no positive results, and not give a fig about those who died because their money was suddenly invalid. Of the 105 recorded deaths as a direct effect of demonetisation, almost all were from the most vulnerable sections.
Because might is right, the Rajasthan government can dare to table an ordinance, now shelved, seeking to give legal immunity to politicians and government officials for corruption, specifying that there can’t be complaints filed against them without the government’s approval. And the media was prohibited from mentioning the names of the accused, to guarantee full impunity.
Today we can see this complete disregard for laws, freedoms and democratic rights all around us. We have a daring government. It can dare to disturb the very norms of democracy.