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, September 8, 2010

517 -NAC in hurry, need more time: Rural ministry - The Economic Times

8 SEP, 2010,
DEVESH KUMAR

NEW DELHI: A conflict has risen between the National Advisory Council (NAC), chaired by Ms Sonia Gandhi, and the rural development ministry over the time-frame for completing the BPL census.

NAC members N C Saxena and Harsh Mander, in particular, want the head count to be completed by September 2011. The rural development ministry has ruled out the possibility of conducting the census of BPL cardholders within such a short duration.

It says that it can start the exercise only after next April, when the Registrar-General and Census Commissioner’s office would have wound up Census 2011.

The latest round of BPL census operation is unique in the sense that it is being synchronised with UIDAI’s efforts to prepare unique I-cards for citizens. The latter has appointed state rural development secretaries as registrars in the states. They have also been tasked with conducting the BPL head count in their respective states.

According to state rural development secretaries, justice can be done to the exercise only if the Centre grants them at least 18 months. “Our main endeavour is to ensure that the rights of the poor are not denied, and that only the really needy are made the beneficiaries of government schemes,” contended the rural development secretary from one of the states.

The rural development ministry, in an attempt to maintain the quality of the data being compiled by them, has taken recourse to the concepts of ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion errors’ to eliminate possibilities of duplication and to ensure that only the genuinely needy are inducted in the BPL household category. And it is here the UIDAI, with its biometrics and iris identification, is expected to help eliminate the chances of leakage.

All this, rural development ministry officials point out, will require a lot of time. “But NAC wants us to complete the BPL census operation by September next year. They’re obviously in a hurry. Officials on the field, however, have made it clear that they require at least 18 months to do a full-proof job,” said a senior official.

The rural development ministry is at present in the process of completing a pilot project on BPL census. It covers four villages in every agro-climatic region of the country (as is done in the case of the National Sample Survey).

To ensure a fair representation, villages in the two poorest and richest districts will be covered. The pilot project will, in tandem with the Public Health Foundation of India, seek to identify malnutrition levels, which can be used to qualitatively identify the poorest.

Initial reports from the pilot project have been confounding, and have put question marks on the quality of BPL censuses held earlier. A team visiting a village in Andhra Pradesh was shocked to find the five richest persons included in the BPL list.

There are sharp differences among various agencies on the exact number of BPL families. The Planning Commission has pegged the figure at 6.52 crores while the Tendulkar Committee says it’s 8 crores. The cumulative figures compiled by the states is much more.
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