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, January 15, 2018

12766 - INDIAN ECONOMY IN EXCITING TRANSITION - Daily Pioneer

COLUMNISTS
Sunday, 14 January 2018 | Swapan Dasgupta | in Usual Suspects

On the one hand, there were the speakers from the Opposition who insisted that it was the worst of times. India, they claimed, was in a state of acute distress with mounting joblessness, rural distress, macro-economic confusion, the GST muddle and policy inertia. On the other hand, the Government side insisted that India had turned the corner and that the structural reforms introduced by a Government with great political will, were now beginning to show results despite the absence of galloping GDP growth. They pointed to the astonishing rise in FDI, the buoyancy of the stock markets, the benign rates of inflation and the commendable work on upgrading infrastructure done by the Government.In the penultimate day of the all-too-brief Winter Session of Parliament, there was a brief but interesting discussion on the economy in the Rajya Sabha. Anyone who heard that debate, including Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s very erudite reply, would have been struck by the two very different accounts of where India stands today.

This mismatch of perceptions was also evident in the Prime Minister’s meeting with the country’s top economists last week. It would be accurate to say that the big tribe of economists — and India has an over-supply in this department — feels a little miffed these days. First, they are yet to get over their collective bewilderment over the demonetisation of November 2016. As of now, very few of the top economists of the world have endorsed demonetisation because they have been unable to fathom the logic of disruption in a functioning economy. 

Secondly, economists as a profession are extremely disappointed that the Government has downgraded their elevated status and pay greater heed to managers and those who implement programmes rather than those who proffer macro-economic advice. The sullenness of the economists as a tribe loosely corresponds to the anger among the professional intellectuals who feel unwanted by the Narendra Modi regime.

Then, with objections that are a little different from economists, are the civil liberties and NGO activists who entertain deep misgivings over the widening scope of Aadhaar. The objections are two-fold.

First, there are concerns over privacy and the possibility that the minefield of data, including biometric records of individuals, may be prone to hacking by a determined band of internet pirates who have made life very tense for the world economy. 

The concerns over privacy may well be partially justified since India has a poor record of keeping data confidential. Greater awareness of privacy and the enactment of tough data protection laws are imperative, although it does not need a fugitive Snowden to lecture us on the subject.

Secondly, there are the objections from the NGOs. These are a little more difficult to fathom. The activist NGOs, particularly those working in rural areas and ostensibly to improve the quality of life for the poor, have long complained of the leakage of development funds and the dysfunctional public distribution system. Many of those complaints are legitimate. In the past there have been documented cases of bogus MNREGA rolls and rations that are diverted to the open market. One of the great advantages of Aadhaar is that facilitates direct transfer of funds to beneficiaries and keeps a tab of actual beneficiaries of the PDS. It is undeniable that the use of Aadhaar has brought down the organised loot of Government funds exponentially. So why are NGOs so resolute in their opposition to it?

Part of the reason could lie in the political sub-agendas of NGOs. Despite the pretence of being non-political, most of the NGO activists are intensely political and harbour a deep hostility towards the BJP in general and Modi in particular. The Government has fuelled their hatred by cracking down on the misuse of foreign funding for political ends. In many case, foreign contributions have dried up entirely, sometimes affecting the personal livelihood of individuals.

Then there is the larger question of the celebration of poverty. In an ideal world, the role of NGOs should be transient. Having identified a problem and working towards its ultimate solution, NGOs should have their own redundancy as their ultimate objective. Unfortunately, the reality is a little more awkward. NGOs have developed a vested interest in both the continuation of poverty and the ineffectiveness of Government poverty-alleviation schemes. Aadhaar actually posits a real solution to the problems the NGOs have been highlighting for decades. It should have been promoted by the NGOs and where necessary they should have taken up individual problems — and there are individual problems —with the concerned authorities. Instead, they have been promoting a form of negativism that prompts the inescapable conclusion that the continuation of poverty and even destitution is something that feeds the NGOs. This may be a cynical view but is painfully close to reality.

The Modi Government, it would seem, has embarked on systems-based approach to create an architecture of growth and prosperity. This has involved taking tough decisions to ensure greater tax compliance, effective utilisation of official funds, removal of discretionary powers of officials and the simplification of rules and procedures. All these measures affect sections of the old economy adversely since they have developed an expertise in ‘managing’ the environment to their own advantage. Evasion of taxes, for example, have added to the competitive edge of individual enterprises. Likewise, the absence of cross-verification that both Aadhaar and GST allow possible transactions that have hitherto stayed below the radar. And the aggressive promotion of electronic transactions through banking channels have hit at the cash economy.

India is in a stage of exciting transition. It is inevitable that there will be resistance and opposition. What is being attempted is the dismantling of an old structure and its replacement by a new modern economic structure.