AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 683 - Rebuttal on UIDAI

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, October 10, 2010

683 - Rebuttal on UIDAI - Economic & Political Weekly

By: Ram Krishnaswamy, Vickram Crishna
Vol XLV No.40 October 02, 2010
LE

R S Sharma’s “Identity and the UIDAI: A Response” (EPW, 28 August 2010) argues, in response to Usha Ramanathan’s “A Unique Identity Bill” (EPW, 24 July 2010), that “The UIDAI has stated its role and objectives in various public documents, and also outlined these in its draft bill”, but she has “fundamental misunderstandings” on the UIDAI, that her “suggestion of links to the NATGRID/DNA data banks is pure conjecture” and that her article misrepresents the UIDAI’s stated objectives.

Sharma has obviously chosen to ignore the increasing number of articles in the media questioning Aadhaar, written by lawyers, economists, technologists, security professionals, sociologists, civil society supporters, scholars, academics and biometric experts, and the list goes on.

Does he really imply that everyone who questions Aadhaar is misinformed? The very foundation of “Aadhaar” that assumes “the absence of an identification infrastructure, under which every Indian has a unique identification number, has been one of the biggest barriers for the poor in accessing welfare and social services effectively”, is a sweeping generalisation, unfounded by facts from the field.

It is not the needy who possess bogus entitlement cards, but the very public servants in charge, together with other stakeholders and vested interests. Stocks are written off as being issued to all these bogus cards and the foodgrains are sold in the black market, while the remainder unsaleable stocks rot in unprotected warehouses. It is interesting that the whole nation understands this, except, apparently, the people in UIDAI.

If there is silence from some sections of the people regarding the UIDAI, it is because of the deliberate misinformation that Aadhaar is aimed at the poor. So the educated and not so poor are under the false belief that it does not affect them.

A simple and direct question to Sharma is: will he be the first to accept an Aadhaar, and share the Aadhaar number with his bank, insurance company, passport office, regional transport authority, mobile phone service provider, electricity distributor, ration card issuing authority, Income Tax authority and property registrars?

Sharma writes, “When it comes to sharing of data, the UIDAI is of the view that the individual is an active, not a passive participant, and does not need self-appointed spokespeople to debate on their behalf”.

The individual that Sharma refers to here represents millions of the poor and illiterate queuing up for subsidised rations. Sharma apparently needs reminding that it was self-appointed spokespeople who stood up to win this nation its independence, finally wrested within three years of the most brutal, callous, deliberate and avoidable choking off of food supplies that left millions dead in Bengal.

Ram Krishnaswamy, Vickram Crishna
Mumbai