1365 - LIC to offer UIDs to 40 mn policyholders this year-Source= Business Standard

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Niladri Bhattacharya & Somasroy Chakraborty / Mumbai May 31, 2011, 0:35 IST
 

To issue biometric cards to 50 million people every year for the next four years.

Unique Identification Authority of India’s (UIDAI) plan to offer a unique identification number (UID) to every resident Indian is slated to get a fillip, with the country’s largest life insurer — Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) — saying it is ready to offer unique identification cards to its policyholders.

About a year ago, LIC had signed an agreement with UIDAI to share its database of over 200 million policyholders with the government agency and issue biometric cards to these policyholders. LIC was the first institutional partner in the Aadhaar project, a national project aimed at building a secure, reliable and centralised repository of data.
However, till recently, the progress was slow, since the insurer was scouting for technology partners to make the biometric cards. Till date, LIC has issued 30,000 cards to policyholders on a pilot basis. “We have roped in CMC as the technology partner for the project. The national roll-out will happen very soon now,” said LIC Managing Director A K Dasgupta.

Senior LIC officials said the insurer planned to issue biometric cards to 50 million people every year for the next four years. The insurer has set a target of issuing 40 million cards this year, the cost for which is estimated at Rs 200 crore, or Rs 50 per card.

LIC also expects to expand its business through the Aadhaar project, especially in rural areas. “Through this project, LIC would be able to tap a greater number of people in rural areas. Since this card will act as a proof of identity, it would be much easier for us to fulfil the know-your-customer requirements. We will also be able to revisit our policyholders through this process. This would allow us to upgrade our existing records and expand business further,” Dasgupta said. LIC aims to become the largest issuer of Aadhaar cards in the coming years, since its clients outnumber members of other government agencies like Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation, which has 42 million employees as its members.

LIC would initially issue biometric Aadhaar cards to its own policyholders and then gradually, expand the issuance to individuals who don’t hold LIC policies. “Besides existing policyholders, we would also issue cards to their family and friends. This gives us an opportunity to expand our policyholder base,” said a senior LIC official.

The unique identification project was conceived by the Planning Commission as an initiative to provide identification to resident Indians. This would provide a basis for efficient delivery of welfare services. Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys Technologies, heads the project.

UIDAI is currently reported to be issuing 100,000 cards a day. The first Aadhaar card was issued in September 2010 to a tribal woman, Ranjna Sadashiv Sonwane, from Tembhali village in Nandurbar, Maharashtra.

1364 - UID numbers not needed for driving licences- Source - Times of India

TNN | May 30, 2011, 01.33pm IST

MYSORE: Transport minister R Ashoka on Sunday asked the RTOs not to press for the submission of unique identification numbers (Aadhar numbers) while issuing driving licences (DL) and LLR. The deputy commissioner, who is also the chairman of road transport authority, had made it mandatory to submit Aadhar number, while applying for DL or LLR.

Speaking at the Sarige Adalat here, Ashoka expressed his helplessness when asked about the Union government's rule making it compulsory for autorickshaw drivers to pass class VIII to get their DL. District minister Ramdas, who was also present in the adalat, said that drivers who failed to meet the requirement can enrol themselves in government schools. "They can produce the the admission certificates when applying for the DL," he said.

Ashoka also said that the transport department will double the subsidy given to the autorickshwas for switching over to LPG fuel. "The proposal is waiting for clearance from the finance department," he said.

CBS relocation:
Ashoka on Sunday gave a green signal for the proposed shifting of City Bus Stand (CBS).

"I think JK Grounds is a suitable place for the bus stand. However, it is up to the city authorities to take the final decision on the issue," he said. His comments come just a few days after district minister S A Ramdas made a suggestion to relocate the bus stand to J K Grounds to make the Mysore Palace surroundings less congested.

Speaking about the upgradation of transport infrastructure in the city, Ashoka said: "I've brought India's first intelligent transport system to Mysore and built satellite bus stands at seven locations," he said.

During a recent inspection to the city, Ramdas had asked corporation commissioner K S Raykar to work out a plan to relocate the bus stand to J K Grounds, the sports ground attached to the Mysore Medical College and Research Institute.
 

This also comes at a time when district authorities are implementing a Rs 39.45 crore heritage core development project that aims at reducing the traffic in the city. The project is expected to be completed by May, 2012.

1363 - Food Act subsidy burden can be shared by Centre and states: N C Saxena Irum Khan, Mumbai-Source- FNB News

Irum Khan, Mumbai

The cost for universalisation of the food security law, which is proposed by the National Advisory Council to cover around 85% of rural and 55% of urban population, can be shared by both, the Centre and the state governments.

That means, the Centre could subsidise foodgrains to around 32-35% of the poor and the rest of the population can be subsidised by the respective state governments. The strategy can be adopted for each state, thus making the subsidy burden lighter. The subsidy cost is bound to go up to around Rs 75,000 crore from the present Rs 63,000 crore once the Act is implemented.

This suggestion was made by N C Saxena, NAC member. According to him, a similar work plan could be adopted for all social security schemes like the PDS and health insurance.

“Like in Tamil Nadu, where the state bridges the gap by providing huge food subsidy, other states can do the same,” Saxena said.

With a number of unresolved aspects of the Food Act which are yet to be taken care of, Saxena said that the Act should take more than six months to come about or maybe a year or so.

On different committees giving different poverty estimates, (the Suresh Tendulkar Committee Report vouching for 37% people under poverty line, planning commission figure puts 27% and Saxena's own committee report betting on 50%), Saxena said, “ It is not relevant how to define the poverty line but what is important is to know who all need to be covered by the Act,”

According to him, the poverty level would differ for different states. For example, poverty estimates for states like Orissa and Bihar would be around 55%, for a place like Gorakhpur in UP they would be 58%.

Saxena particularly expressed his discontentment over certain aspects of the Tendulkar committee report, which is the official government report. He pointed out that the identification of poverty estimates in the report for the urban population at 25% is doubtful. The estimation is based on consumption but the need is to look at depreciation level. Like for Mumbai, which was estimated to have around 4% poor population, actually around 53% of the population lived in slums. Though not all slum-dwellers will be poor, at large, the city's poverty estimates should at least be at 10-12%.

Also, how relevant it is to define poverty with reference to Rs 30-35 earnings per day, is a concern too.

NAC has been vouching for the universalisation of the public distribution system plan, which has been subject to a number of debates and queries.

Like, will the country have sufficient foodgrain production to serve the NAC's universalisation plan? And will the plan sustain itself if there is not enough production?

It may be noted that during the last 10 years, food production has been stagnant at around 210-220 million tonnes with an exception of a record 233 million tonnes in 2009. At present India’s population is more than the combined population of Africa and South America. By 2020, the population will be equivalent to the combined population of Africa, North and South America. By 2025, India will overtake China, the most populous country in the world at present. How will the the country manage to provide food to this increasingly growing population?

To this, Saxena replied that the foodgrains production had crossed 233 million tonnes. He admitted that to provide 35 kg of foodgrains to the poor, the country would have to procure around 90 million tonnes of foodgrains. Currently, the procurement is around 60 million tonnes which can be stretched up to 65 million tonnes. Also, the general category could be provided foodgrains at Rs 20 per kg.

However, Saxena pointed out that the country was exporting 7-10 million tonnes of foodgrains. This could be utilised for domestic consumption.

Also, with the growing population, Saxena anticipates poverty level to decline. Hence the plan implementation should not be difficult even after considering impending challenges.

In addition, the strategy is to heavily subsidise those falling below the poverty mark. Those above the poverty line could have subsidised foodgrains at prices below the open market rate but higher than the prices set for the BPL category.

On resorting to cash transfer to subsidise the poor over the current PDS scheme, which has proved to be embarrassment for the country, Saxena said, cash transfer can be adopted on pilot basis. It will have to overcome challenges like banking infrastructure, good registration and encouraging widespread use of debit card. Also the UID (unique identification) system should be in place. Places like Delhi and Indore are using cash transfer methodology for different schemes, thus a pilot scheme will be a good idea.

1362 - Aadhaar presents a plethora of Oppurtinities for India.Inc- Source - V C Circle

May 30, 2011, 07:05 PM IST

BY ANAND RAIThe UID project will initiate numerous opportunities in IT services, biometrics, credit profiling among other areas.

The $1.6 billion ‘Aadhaar’ initiative by the Indian government will change the lives of a billion residents very soon. Initially conceived by the Planning Commission, Aadhaar is basically a 12-digit unique number which the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will issue for every Indian resident. The numbers will be stored in a centralised database and linked to the basic demographics (name, age, gender and address) and biometric information (photograph, 10 fingerprints and iris) of each individual. According to current plans, by 2014, around one million new ids will be issued every day, thus completing 50 per cent of the enrolment. Needless to say, such an initiative will also create numerous opportunities in IT services, biometrics, credit profiling, banking, education and hospitality space.
 

Experts converging at the VCCircle Insights on The Aadhaar Project, held at the ITC Grand Central, Mumbai, on May 27, 2011, discussed the implications in great details. The event did witness prominent investors, architects and builders behind the initiative meeting on a common platform to discuss its mission, as well as the investable opportunities created by the project.
 

The event featured many prominent personalities who shared their views on the implication, challenges and future possibilities of the Aadhaar project. The speakers included Sanjay Jain, chief project manager (Product Monitoring Unit), UIDAI; Govindraj Ethiraj, volunteer, UIDAI; Abhinav Sinha, co-founder, Eko India Financial Services Pvt Ltd; Sreeni Tripuraneni, chairman & CEO, 4G Identity Solutions Pvt Ltd; Dinesh Nandwana, chairman & MD, Vakrangee Softwares and Sanjay Swamy, a former volunteer of UIDAI.
 

They covered a wide range of topics including the possible opportunities that Aadhaar might throw open for Indian corporates, its impact on economy and finance, the opportunities it would present for IT, technology & hardware, products and innovation, as well as retail, telecom and e-commerce, and finally, the challenges faced during the project implementation.
 

UIDAI & The Aadhaar Project
 

Established in February, 2009, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was set up with the single purpose of providing every Indian resident with a unique identification number. The authority would come up with a database containing simple biometric data including iris and fingerprints. A venture of the Planning Commission of India, the initiative has appointed Nandan Nilekani, former co-chairman of Infosys Technologies, as its first chairman. Ram Sewak Sharma, an IAS Officer of Jharkhand government, is the Director General and Mission Director of the Authority.
 

“Aadhaar is a federal government project and not a joint venture,” clarified UIDAI volunteer Govindraj Ethiraj. “Its focus is to provide a portable ID to all the residents in India. It will also focus on providing identities to the people, ‘outside’ the reach of the developmental programmes,” he added.
 

The residents will have to submit their photographs, their biometric data (iris and fingerprints) and demographics (name, date of birth, gender and address) to an enrolment agency (currently a total of 200 are operating) which, in turn, will send the recorded data to a registrar. These agencies are enrolled by the registrars (currently 60 in number), which are basically government bodies like the state governments or NSDL. The data collected by the registrars will be sent to the UIDAI who processes the data and based on the information, sends an Aadhaar letter to the concerned individual via the Indian Post.
 

While Karnataka government has taken a somewhat slow approach towards UID enrolment, Maharashtra has started the initiative in right earnest and begun the enrolment process in all the 34 districts. Till date, Andhra Pradesh has started enrolment in six districts. A total of 7.1 million Aadhaar letters have already been issued and twice the amount of data is being processed.
 

How Aadhaar Helps
 

“The Aadhaar project will provide IDs to all the residents of the country. I say residents and not citizens because the UID is for everyone who are residing in India legally, which means even a foreigner can get himself registered for UID if he has a work permit and is working in the country,” said Sanjay Swamy, a former volunteer of UIDAI. “The enrolment process is voluntary as of now, but the focus of the government is to make the services so lucrative that everyone will enrol.”
 

The Aadhaar project will provide a portable ID to every Indian resident, with the help of which he/she can open a no-frill bank account in any Indian city, irrespective of the residential address. One can also purchase mobile SIM cards without worrying about identity and address proof. Also, a business correspondent (appointed by a bank) can provide access to basic banking services using the microATM device. 

The services include making deposits, dispensing cash for withdrawals, process funds transfers or answering balance enquiries. The users can transfer money from his/her UID in exchange goods or hard cash from the business correspondent.
 

The UID can also function as a national skills register. Therefore, when you call a plumber to your place, you can actually track his credibility and his experience.
 

“The head of the family can actually introduce all other members of the family. But we are providing everyone with a personal UID to solve the problem of dependency,” added Jain.
 

Biz Opportunities
 

Aadhaar will create an eco-system with the potential to drive many other applications. It will drive a demand for applications and services, for products, for the Internet connectivity, for identification and authentication devices and also for new channels to ensure service delivery. 

According to Dr Sreeni Tripuraneni, chairman & CEO of 4G Identity Solutions, the company is working closely with four registrars across 16 states and will cover about 50 million residents. It is also the first ones to conduct Proof of Concept (POC) for the Aadhaar project.
 

IT Companies: The potential applications will include identification services for delivery of government welfare programmes like Public Distribution System, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, social security pension and girl child schemes. IT companies can also develop applications for immigration and border control systems like biometric passports which will comply with ICAO standards, biometric visas and e-Gate systems.
 

In addition, Aadhaar can revolutionise the way healthcare is delivered across the country by introducing electronic patient record. This will push the demand for suitable software which can be used in hundreds of hospitals and other healthcare institutions. It will also assist in electronic identification of patients.
 

Since Aadhaar can help deliver financial services, there will be further opportunities for software development firms. The potential clients can be banks and other finance and micro-finance institutions.
 

There are opportunities in the mobile space as well, as Aadhaar can link one’s cell phone to the bank account and change the way payments and transactions are made.
 

Hardware Companies: Aadhaar will soon ensure integration of service delivery for all schemes and services. This, in turn, will lead to an increased demand for hardware and software, as well as databases and middleware.
 

The demand for point of sales devices (POS), which are used for authentication of residents and delivery of services, will only increase with time. The existing POS devices have limitations in terms of fingerprint matching (due to poor quality of fingerprints). Also, the quality of algorithms used is poor and hence, there will be a growing requirement for POS devices which have more accurate and faster matching capabilities, good quality sensors and faster algorithms. 

Additionally, the iris-based POS devices will have huge potential. Since the PDS itself requires more than 5 lakh POS devices, the requirement can actually go into millions. Also, there will be requirements for smart cards for secure credentials.
 

In fact, there can be requirement for millions of authentication devices at different places like the citizen service centres, offices, educational institutions, healthcare facilities, stations and airports. Additionally, access control can be used for granting safe access to public zones and high-security areas. Iris-based ATMs can also be introduced which will help prevent identity theft, electronic fraud and employee fraud.
 

Other Tech Companies: The technology companies can provide verification algorithms, identification algorithms and matching engines. Then there is the fingerprint sensors for enhancing the quality of the images captured. Technology companies can also help enable fingerprint/iris authentication using mobile phones.
 

The Challenges Ahead For Aadhaar
 

While biometric registration can start at the age of 15, demographic data can pose a problem for many. If the demographics of a person are not available, then an introducer, who is already registered, can vouch for the person concerned. But although it may work well in villages, it is sure to pose problems in large cities. Moreover, the authentication process can only take place online and hence, it becomes a problem where Internet connectivity is absent.
 

As of now, there is no policy as to what happens if someone misplaces his or her Aadhaar letter. And finally, in spite of handicap enrolment being done, authentication at the point of purchase is a problem yet to be solved.
 

“Although 69,67,735 Aadhaar have already been issued as on May 24, 2011, 99 per cent of the population are still to be reached. A lot of infrastructural changes will have to be made for creating mass human resources for UID enrolment and reducing the timeframe for issue of UID,” said Dinesh Nandwana, chairman & MD, Vakrangee Softwares.

1361 - The World Bank in India: Undermining Sovereignty, Distorting Development

“Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]? 

“If an average US citizen has 70 times the income of an average Indian citizen, then one US citizen in the market equals 70 Indian citizens ... after all, a death in a developing country is less expensive than a death in an advanced country. This is the pure functioning of the market where people are not valued. It is purely their market value that determines their worth.”

March, 2011]   

The World Bank in India:
Undermining Sovereignty, Distorting Development

Edited by Michele Kelley and Deepika D’Souza
Delhi: Orient Black Swan (2010), 535 pages, Rs895
Reviewed by P. Radhakrishnan

“Since the founding of the World Bank in 1945, we have been their largest and most influential contributing member. We have also been their largest beneficiary in terms of contracts awarded to US firms.” — US Department of Treasury, 1994

These kind of self-congratulatory claims by the US government would not have been worrisome to developing countries but for the fact that the World Bank is an insidious instrument of imperialism. That makes this volume very significant, not only to India but also to other developing countries, according to the Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India, which was organized in New Delhi during September 2007 and of which this book is a product. Perhaps the first tribunal of its kind anywhere, it brought together a broad spectrum of society to look at the damage caused by the bank to the country as a whole.

Through 35 presentations, thematically arranged, the book captures every conceivable policy issue in which the Bank has dabbled.

A confidential memo that Lawrence Summers, then the World Bank’s chief economist, sent to his colleagues on Dec. 12, 1991 was alarming. The Economist, the British publication to which this memo was later leaked, published part of it on Feb. 8, 1992, under the title “Let Them Eat Pollution.” It began thus: “Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]? ... The measurement of the costs of health-impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health-impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country of the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest-wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.”

This macabre memo was characterized as a parody by its author, Lant Pritchett, an advisor to Summers at the time and now a professor at Harvard University. But it actually gives a glimpse of the ruinous role of the World Bank in developing countries. Over the years, the bank has become a formidable global power and a key pillar of the shadow state that has come to preside over the world economy. As Arun Kumar observes in the paper “The Economic Aspects of World Bank in India,” Summers’ memo was a reflection of the extreme consequence of a bizarre assumption premised on bizarre illogic. Kumar drives home the message thus: “If an average US citizen has 70 times the income of an average Indian citizen, then one US citizen in the market equals 70 Indian citizens ... after all, a death in a developing country is less expensive than a death in an advanced country. This is the pure functioning of the market where people are not valued. It is purely their market value that determines their worth.”

After India’s economic crisis of the late 1980s, the World Bank pressured it into an overhaul of its economic policies through structural adjustment programs. India overcame its crisis, and nearly two decades down the line it had more than $200 billion of reserves. But an excess of foreign exchange reserves creates a problem of excess liquidity; Kumar asks whether the political authority is weakening itself deliberately in order to push the interests of capital.

Going by a report in The Economic Times of Aug. 29, 2010, India was the largest recipient of World Bank loans, with over $9 billion (15 percent of all loans) as of the fiscal year ending June 2010. When the country already has an embarrassment of riches, why it mortgages itself to a dubious moneylender is a mystery.

Utsa Patnaik, in the paper “The World Bank and its Impact on Food Security,” even indicts World Bank economists as “economic criminals” and condemns the Indian Planning Commission for producing fraudulent poverty estimates.

“Indian poverty estimates are a scandal. Our Planning Commission has been working very closely with the World Bank economists to produce spurious poverty estimates. It is saying that poverty is declining when exactly the opposite is the case.”

The jury of 13 — academics, activists, judges and so on — sat through four days of deliberations over the testimony and depositions from 150 affected people, experts and academics from about 60 grassroots, civil society and community groups from all over India, covering 26 different aspects of economic and social development. The conclusion contains the 29 charges the jury framed against the operations of the World Bank in India. These charges are preceded by the following observations by the jury: “We draw attention to the fact that the World Bank tends to legitimize its action through its self-proclaimed mandate of poverty reduction and development while in reality, its actions exclude the poor in the best of cases, and hurt and worsen their situation in most other cases. And yet the poor in India excluded and hurt by the World Bank are not marginal in numbers, constituting 27.5 percent of the population while three-fourths of the entire population lives below 20 rupees (purchasing power) or $2 per day. To exclude and hurt the majority of Indian citizens in the name of development and poverty alleviation is not merely callous, but it verges on a social crime.”
As all the charges by the jury are grave, they should be read in their entirety for a proper understanding. The highlights are reproduced here:

•The World Bank has not reduced poverty in India. Its policies are directly contributing to the concentration of wealth and a growing disparity between rich and the poor.

•The World Bank deliberately miscalculates poverty. The World Bank and the government of India seem to have collaborated in the production of poverty estimates that obscure the suffering of millions of people.

•The World Bank’s policies have increased hunger in India. The Bank is responsible for an economic policy framework that has exacerbated poverty levels and dismantled government safety nets created to soften the hardships of acute poverty.

•The World Bank contributes to India’s agricultural depression and farmers’ suicides. In a country where nearly 70 percent of the population depends directly or indirectly on agriculture, the World Bank has consistently advised refashioning the agrarian sector to generate corporate profits.

•World Bank-led development has not improved employment levels in India. From the data presented, the period of World Bank-led economic reform appears devastating from the point of view of labor.

•The World Bank, through policies of financial liberalization, has reduced credit to India’s rural poor, particularly Dalits and adivasis (tribal groups).

•World Bank micro-credit programs legitimize financial liberalization while undermining local women’s movements by claiming that the markets and new financial instruments will solve poverty and gender inequality without looking at other social practices.

•World Bank programs have increased deprivation by taking essential services away from the poor by systematically dismantling government institutions and services.

•World Bank power sector reform projects have failed. They enriched private corporations and created increased costs for consumers. Without increased availability, the poor have not benefitted in any way through this marketization process, but corporate profits have increased.

•World Bank water reforms and privatization programs turn the most basic right and necessity into a commodity.

•The World Bank has undermined the primary education system. The Indian people’s constitutional right to eight years of primary education is being subverted by World Bank policies and projects.

•World Bank health care programs have failed the poor. Under the bank’s guidance, the Indian government has moved away from providing universal health care to targeted health care and immunization, which has made overall health care unaffordable to the majority of India’s citizens.

•World Bank urban development programs benefit developers at the cost of the urban poor and are detrimental to the environment.

•World Bank coal mining projects have caused grave and ongoing harm to India’s tribal communities. In Jharkhand, the World Bank-funded Parej East coal mining project has destroyed the livelihoods of nearly 2,000 people at last count.

•World Bank relief efforts from the devastation of the 2004 tsunami have served as a pretext for grabbing land and privatizing the fishing industry. The bank’s Emergency Tsunami Recovery Project works with the existing Tamil Nadu Urban Development Project to appropriate coastal lands for private developers, resulting in massive displacement of people.

•The World Bank has displaced thousands in the name of eco-tourism. World Bank-financed projects, as evidenced in its India Eco-development project of 1995, have resulted in the forced displacement of thousands of people from traditional forestlands, while simultaneously opening these areas to the private sector.

•The World Bank exerts enormous an influence on Indian policy-making through posting current and former staff in key positions within the Indian bureaucracy.

•World Bank conditionalities defy India’s economic sovereignty.

•The World Bank’s Good Governance Agenda has undermined the sovereignty of the Indian State while having little impact on reducing corruption.

•The World Bank has undermined democratic functioning in India. Bypassing the parliament and other elected bodies and public debates, the bank’s interventions at various levels of government have weakened India’s democratic processes.

•The World Bank’s so-called good governance measures have, by focusing exclusively on government conduct, completely ignored issues of private sector corruption, and indeed encouraged them via deregulatory policies.

•World Bank activities subvert and undermine people-centered movements for social change.

A major conclusion of the jury is that “in India there is little difference between the thinking of the policymakers and the World Bank; we hold the Indian government equally responsible and call for a reversal of its policies.”

The other conclusions are that the majority of World Bank-sponsored projects neither serve their stated purpose nor benefit the poor; instead, in many cases they have caused grievous and irreversible damage to those they intend to serve; the bank’s underlying agenda and operations benefit those privileged with capital but push the already vulnerable to despair.

The jury has recommended that the World Bank compensate those it has harmed through its policies and projects. Unless there are clear and transparent mechanisms through which World Bank activities and policies can be independently monitored and audited, it would be better for the World Bank to quit operations in India.

Michele Kelley’s concise introduction, “World Bank out of India,” touches all the bases, but two sets of observations stand out.

The first: “The struggle is therefore with development policy and with historical capitalism as a form of social organization. It is a battle against a ‘developmental terrorism’ that is corporate-driven and based on the voting power of the rich in the market as opposed to democratic principles. This volume was written in solidarity with the movement that is taking place across India and all over the world to dislodge this imploding system, to widen democratic participation, and to decentralize and localize processes of growth. I believe we can find the unity to do just that.”

The second: “Because the government of India conveniently uses ‘international obligations’ as an excuse to avoid people-centered policy directives, demanding World Bank withdrawal from India will send a symbolic and critical message that these policies, from whatever direction they originate, must stop.”

Kelley’s observations, though well meaning, are far-fetched. While “developmental terrorism” is a reality, there is no movement either in India (excluding the Maoist movement) or elsewhere in the world that can counter it; indeed, India’s governing class remain what they are, devoid of democratic ethos and of what Dr. B R Ambedkar, architect of the Indian Constitution, termed “constitutional morality.”

In addition, no matter what hullabaloo a group of 300 or 400 discerning individuals make in an organized manner in New Delhi or elsewhere, the World Bank’s withdrawal from India, as from other developing countries, is wishful thinking for at least three reasons. First, as shown by some of the contributors, the World Bank’s money creates enormous incentives for officials not to pursue alternative policies and creates more loyalty to the bank than to the people of India. Two, the revolving door between the World Bank and the government that results in most economic policy-making positions being filled with bank staff has allowed the bank to impose its ideology and policies. Three, while the bank works with domestic elites to pillage the economy, the NGOs with which it works reflect its co-operation for development, thereby exposing the local face of imperialism; its engagement in a complementary activity at the bottom neutralizes and fragments the burgeoning discontent that results from the savaging of the economy.

To conclude, neither the World Bank nor globalization can remain what they are but for the well-laid tracks that the NGOs provide them. In this scenario, the ongoing Maoist or Naxalite movement in India is not without relevance as a rallying force. Perhaps there should be another Independent People’s Tribunal to look at the perils and potentials of this movement.

P. Radhakrishnan is a former Professor of Sociology at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India, and continues to be a social critic and commentator on public affairs. He can be contacted at prk1949@gmail.com

1360 - Cash for kerosene instead of subsidy

PTI | May 29, 2011, 09.30pm IST

NEW DELHI: Delhi may soon become the first city in the country to give cash instead of subsidized kerosene to BPL families, a move aimed at controlling widespread pilferage of the fuel.

As per the proposal put forth by chief minister Sheila Dikshit, cash equivalent of the monthly kerosene subsidy will be directly transferred to the bank account of the female head of the family.

A BPL family is likely to get around Rs 400 every month instead of subsidized kerosene, if the proposal originally mooted by the Planning Commission comes through.

The city government is currently holding discussions with the ministry of oil and natural gas and a final decision on the issue is expected next month.

Every BPL family in the city is entitled to get 22 litres of kerosene per month at Rs 9 per litre against the market rate of Rs 27 to Rs 30 per litre.

The subsidy component of kerosene comes to around Rs 18 per litre.

"Discussions are on with the oil and natural gas ministry and we are expecting a final decision on the issue soon," a Delhi government official said.

He said that under the scheme, bank accounts of four lakh BPL families will be opened and cash component of the kerosene will be transferred to the beneficiaries on a monthly basis.

As per the proposal, government will open bank accounts in the name of the female head of the family as budget of the kitchen is mostly taken care of by her.

Food and civil supplies minister Haroon Yusuf said despite their persistent efforts, the department has not been able to stop diversion of kerosene meant for distribution under the PDS system.

"There are loopholes in the PDS system. The kerosene meant for the BPL families at times does not reach the beneficiaries. That is why we are trying to evolve a mechanism under which poor families get their dues," he said.

According to a study by National Council of Applied Economic Research, nearly half of the kerosene supplied through PDS in Delhi found its way into the black market.

State-run oil companies are losing around Rs 28 a litre of kerosene for selling it below the imported cost.
As part of its efforts to streamline the PDS system, the city government had last year started the process of issuing bio-metric BPL cards.

The government had also found at least 18,000 bogus ration cards in the capital last year.

While presenting the Union Budget earlier this year, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had said the government would move towards direct transfer of cash subsidy in a phased manner.

A task force headed by UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani is working out the modalities for the proposed system of direct transfer of subsidy for kerosene, LPG and fertilisers.

1359 - Two laptops containing UID data stolen from Hadapsar school-Source-Times of India

TNN | May 29, 2011, 11.25pm IST

UNE: Unidentified persons broke into a school hall in Hadapsar and decamped with two laptops, two web cameras and a pen drive in the early hours of Saturday. Investigations have revealed that the laptops contained the data of around 150 persons collected as part of the Central government's Aadhaar (UID) project. A complaint has been lodged by Pankaj Shisode with the Hadapsar police.

Assistant inspector S S Chavan said Shisode is a supervisor with a private agency, which has been appointed for collecting data of the residents for the UID. "The agency was given a place at the Indira Gandhi Sanskritik Bhavan in Bunter school by the divisional office," Chavan said.

He said Shisode had kept the items in the hall. "on Saturday, unidentified persons broke the wooden door of the hall and disappeared with the items," Chavan said. tnn

1358 - Chaos mars Unique Identification Number scheme - Source - IBN Live

PUDUCHERRY: The Unique Identification Number (UIN), also known as ‘Aadhar’, will not remain so unique after all, defeating, in fact, the very purpose for which it was created, given that both the Department of Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs and the Census Operations are going ahead and generating UINs simultaneously.
 

The Department of Civil Supplies had already started the generation of ‘Aadhar’ data for Aadhar-enabled smart cards for the Public Distribution System (ration cards) from January 24, to cover 11.52 lakh citizens in all four regions of the UT.
 

It had already covered 1.5 lakh population till date by capturing the data (via photography,� finger biometry and iris), according to collector G Ragesh Chandra.
 

However, now a similar exercise is being undertaken by the Census Operations for creation of the National Population Register (NPR) and issuance of Unique Identity Cards.
With regard to the latter, work� commenced at Bahour village of Bahour taluk on Friday (May 27).
 

In a statement, director of Census Operations, Haje Kojeen, has requested the people to cooperate and participate in capturing the data and ensure success of creation of the NPR. Now, not only would this entail duplication of data and waste of public funds but it would also lead to all kinds of problems. For one, those whose Aadhar enrolment is done under NPR prior to that of the civil supplies department may not get ration cards, as the latter might not be able to generate a UIN again.
 

It is not clear whether the Aadhar data generated by both would be shared or not, said Ragesh Chandra , who is the� civil supplies secretary as well as the district registrar for Census Operations for Puducherry district comprising Puducherry, Mahe and Yanam.
 

“It will have to be sorted out by the Unique Identification� Authority of India (UIDAI),” he told Express. “We have written to UIDAI to clear up the matter,” he informed.
UIDAI is an agency of the government of India responsible for implementing the envisioned multipurpose National Identity Card or Unique Identification Card (UID Card) project in India. It was established in February 2009 and will own and operate the Unique Identification Number database. The authority will aim at providing a unique number to all Indians, but not smart cards.

1357 - NAC members protest against plan panel's move for new poverty line - Source- Times of India

Nitin Sethi, May 24, 2011, 04.12am IST
 

NEW DELHI: A spoon, 25 grams of dal, half a slice of bread, some washing powder and a torn piece of kurta, in total worth Rs 20. That is what three key National Advisory Council members -- Jean Dreze, Aruna Roy and Harsh Mander -- brought for the deputy chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Monday protesting against the Rs 20 per day person expenditure poverty line it has decided upon as a cut off.

The three NAC members led a group of about 60-70 noisy protestors carrying dozens of packets – all worth Rs 20 – and asked the Planning Commission members to survive a day in Delhi on the contents and shouted slogans waving placards mocking the poverty line

The presence of the trio, who have been locked in an argument against the 'fiscal prudence wallahs' in the government while pushing for an expansive food security bill, marked a scaling up of the battle between the two sides.

They were leading the Right To Food campaigners protesting against how the Planning Commission defines poverty in the country.

The storm had been brewing since the Planning Commission impleaded itself in the case in the Supreme Court and claimed that an expenditure of Rs 20 per day on essentials for those living in urban areas and Rs 15 for those living in rural India was enough to keep them out of poverty and, therefore, out of government's social safety net.

The poverty line of Rs 20 works out from the Rs 578 per month per capita expenditure Planning Commission considers ample for a city dweller to survive on. This, as per their report, includes Rs 31 a month on rent and conveyance, Rs 18 a month on education, Rs 25 a month on medicines and Rs 36.5 a month on vegetables. Anyone spending a paisa more than this is officially not poor.

The three would have been well aware that their presence at the protest would mark a public declaration that they were not backing off from the confrontation with the Prime Minister's Office and the Plan panel, the latter being as determined that food subsidies have to be kept low despite the food security bill.

Earlier the apex court too had suggested to the government to relook at whether spending Rs 20 kept people well fed and above the poverty line.

When the protestors gathered at Yojna Bhawan they were whisked away by the police and later released. The Plan panel members refused to meet them but later in the evening the deputy chairman met 15 of them which included Jean Dreze.

Montek got his packet of goodies. The gathering handed over the Rs 20 packets -- including combs, a little dal, some rice grains, a band aid, and other essentials -- for his colleagues as well. But he stuck to his position, said one of the protestors who got to meet Singh. He instead suggested they meet Kaushik Basu, the chief economic advisor to the finance ministry. Basu has made a strong pitch for dismantling the grain distribution system and shift to cash transfers.

The meeting only produced one result – both sides came out sure that the other is not going to budge from its position anytime soon.

1356 - Whose Child is it any way? By Ram Krishnaswamy & Vickram Crishna

Whose Child is it any way?

By Ram Krishnaswamy & Vickram Crishna

The opinion that Aadhaar, India’s Unique Identity Number that will eventually reside on every Identity Card or Identity Proof in India, is illegitimate, has been voiced by several legal experts right from the beginning. Most crucially, Mother India has been violated, because Aadhaar was conceived, and is being imposed, without the consent of Parliament.

According to lawyer Praveen Dalal, even the constitution of India has been totally neglected by Congress government in its zest to impose unconstitutional projects like Aadhar. Praveen Dalal further maintains that the UPA II  Congress Coalition government is taking anti-national steps, and neither the Judiciary nor the Parliament is challenging it.

Even within the sanctity of a legal marriage, sex without consent is rape. Can India’s judiciary charge the UPA II coalition Government of violating the rights of an entire nation of 1.2 billion people, if the matter is taken to the courts?

This unholy creation called UID and later christened as Aadhaar, would not have been born, had an IUD been in place – i.e. contraceptive or preventative measures such as  Public & Parliamentary debate and consent.

That Aadhaar is not an immaculate conception, but a Frankenstein, is opined by many God-fearing people, as also legal experts such as Usha Ramanathan. Ms Ramanathan says, “The project pegs its legitimacy on what it will do for the poor. It promises that it will give the poor an identity, with which they may become visible to the state.”

Unfortunately this legitimacy is, at best, a myth.

That Aadhaar is a threat to the privacy of Mother India’s entire population was first raised by Tehelka, that asserts, “We raised the issue of privacy long before any one else.”

“Privacy is not something that people feel, except in its absence. Remove it and you destroy something at the heart of being human,” writes Phil Booth, national co-ordinator of the  UK-based campaign No2ID.

Whodunnit?

Whilst the legitimacy of what Aadhaar may, or may not, do for the poor is better left undebated and even less relevant, what is pertinent here is “Whodunnit?”

A  whodunnit  ( for "Who['s] done it?") is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story, in which the puzzle is the main feature of interest. The reader is provided with clues, from which the identity of the perpetrator of the crime may be deduced, before the solution is revealed in the final pages of the book.

Let us investigate who fathered Aadhaar from the following clues.

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Suspect No.1. L.K.Advani, BJP Leader

Citing security concerns, senior BJP leader L K Advani said that if voted to power, the NDA will enact a law to make multi-purpose national identity cards mandatory for citizens of the country.

Security is the main concern for making national identity cards mandatory, he said in 2010, as he unveiled the IT Vision Document of the party for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. Advani pointed out the increasing infiltration of Bangladeshi nationals into the country, particularly in the northeast. There are an estimated two crore Bangladeshi immigrants staying illegally in the country, he said, and stressed on the necessity of having national identity cards for citizens. National identity card is the key promise of the IT Vision Document, Advani said.

Did Advani father this child called Aadhaar? That is highly unlikely, considering the nation divorced him in 2004, despite the India Shining claims by NDA. At best, it could be wishful thinking on Advani’s part, building on the failed attempt to impose identity cards on all border residents in 1999, following the Kargil war. The reader must concede that Advani is honest and speaks his mind, although his vision may not always be one befitting a free and egalitarian democracy.

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Suspect No.2:  P. Chidambaram, Home Minister

“The National Intelligence Grid (NatGrid), which has just been set up by Home Minister P Chidambaram, will turn India into an Orwellian police state. It has been opposed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who argued that it infringes the privacy of citizens, and may be unconstitutional,” says Ravi Visvesvaraya Sharada Prasad, an IIT Kanpur Alumnus in his article “Will new Intelligence Grid make India a Police State”.

Ravi Prasad explains, “Under NatGrid, security agencies will be able to access sensitive personal information of all individuals, such as bank accounts, insurance policies held, property owned or rented, railway and airline tickets booked, income tax returns, driving records, automobiles owned or leased, credit card transactions, stock market transactions, educational background, phone calls, emails and SMSs, websites visited, etc.

“Under NatGrid, eleven agencies of the government (including Research and Analysis Wing, Intelligence Bureau, Revenue Intelligence, Enforcement Directorate, Military Intelligence, etc.) will be permitted to easily access computer databases of organizations in the private and public sectors as well as of central and state government agencies, such as banks, insurance companies, stock exchanges, land records, airlines, railways, telecom service providers, educational institutions, credit card issuers, chemical vendors, etc.”

Was UIDAI conceived by Chidambaram to act as the main hub of Natgrid to connect seamlessly to multiple Govt and Private databases to identify and track Indians in general ?

Quoting Ranjit Devaraj in IPS news, “Chidambaram said NATGRID would tap into 21 sets of databases that will be networked to achieve quick, seamless and secure access to desired information for intelligence and enforcement agencies.” He added that “NATGRID will identify those who must be watched, investigated, disabled and neutralized.”

It has been reported in the media that Chidambaram is not content with just finger prints and iris scans, and wants a DNA Databank.

“Chidambaram himself underscored the UID's security rationale by announcing the UIDAI's establishment in January 2009, as a timely response to the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks,” says Praful Bidwai in his article 'Questionable Link'.

Murali Krishnaswamy, in an article in The Hindu titled 'It is Time to be Counted' points out that in his message, the Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram said, “I wish to point out that the National Population register is an important event. Never before have we tried an exercise of that scale. In fact, nowhere in the world has a Government tried to count, identify and issue identity cards to more than a billion people. This is the biggest exercise, I believe, since humankind came into existence.” His idea is that people will get unique ID numbers and also National Identity Cards. The slogan for Census 2011 is “Our Census, Our Future”, and the National Population Register exercise has been foisted on the Census, altering its character irrevocably for the first time since 1931, when a forward thinking policy decision removed the stigma of caste and creed from formal estimates of the country's makeup.

Is Aadhaar Chidambaram’s brainchild, hastily cobbled together from previous abortive attempts, after the Mumbai attack on 26/11, when he replaced a Home Minister who was held to have failed the nation?

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Suspect No 3: Prime Minister: Manmohan Singh

It is common knowledge now that India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi officially christened Aadhaar on 29th September in tribal dominated village Tembhali in Nandurbar district in Maharashtra.

It reminded the author of the money wasted - and sponged up by a well-placed few - in brightening up Mandabam Village, for the inauguration of Pamban Bridge 

connecting Rameswaram Island with the mainland, by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in the 70’s. It just shows that our leaders are still ashamed of the truth, and do not want to see the Real India.

The UIDAI was established by an executive order of the Union government, with its chairman Nandan Nilekani handpicked for the Cabinet minister-ranked job, by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh constituted a council under his chairmanship to advice the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and ensure better coordination between ministries, stakeholders and partners. “The council is expected to advice the UIDAI on the programme, methodology and implementation to ensure coordination between ministries, departments, stakeholders and partners,” said a release from the Prime Minister's Office. It will also identify specific milestones for early completion of the project.

“Nandan Nilekani, the 54-year-old co-founder of Infosys Technologies, took charge as the chairman of the UIDAI last month and started work on the government's ambitious project to provide a single identity number and card to each of the country's 1.17 billion people.”

“The main task of the authority would be to create a database that will help in issuing unique identity cards”.

We cannot tell if the idea of Unique Identity is, in fact, what the head of state wants for the nation, or a decision of the Home Minister he was forced to endorse. But he is a firm supporter of his colleague, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, about whom more later.

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Suspect No 4 – Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman

In political circles it is strongly believed that the man driving India’s PM is Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and not the Congress President Sonia Gandhi, as is believed by the masses, the opposition and the media.

Are our policies being dictated by the foreign privatisation lobby, asks Lola Nayar in her article “The Agenda Agents” in Outlook India? 

Lola Nayar asks, “Then why are we surprised by the charge that India’s policymakers are 'toeing the line' dictated by the World Bank, IMF, ADB and so on? With many of our bureaucrats, technocrats and economists, including the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia having served in some of these institutions, which profess pro-liberalisation and pro-globalisation ideologies, such a view has gained ground”.

Is Aadhaar a part of Montek Singh's privatisation plans to sell India’s vast asset, its population?

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Suspect No 5: Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister for Environment & Forests

Jairam Ramesh is the first IIT Bombay alumnus to become a Cabinet Minister in the UPA II Coalition Government. Nandan Nilekani is the second IIT Bombay alumnus to be given a Cabinet Rank by appointment by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to head UIDAI as Chairman. Jairam Ramesh and Nandan Nilekani, were quizzing partners at IIT Bombay. Like a few others listed here, Jairam Ramesh was with the World Bank on a short assignment in 1978.

Jairam Ramesh, Nandan Nilekani and Sam Pitroda are great believers of leveraging the Bottom of the Pyramid, a marketing concept propounded by the late Prof C.K. Prahalad. The latter gained much support in India, although in fact he lived mostly in the USA, and his working experience in India was exceedingly limited. This does not stand in the way of the staunch support afforded by his professed acolytes.

Did Jairam Ramesh pave the way for his friend Nandan’s meteoric rise to the Cabinet Rank, sans elections, by convincing the Cabinet that he is the man for the job – and, as critically, the man the nation will not question, because of his achievements as CEO of Infosys? The power of the tradional media to influence and occasionally to mislead, is undoubted.

Is Jairam Ramesh the real culprit?

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Suspect No 6: USA & Barack Obama

Why would American President Barack Obama, making a short three day visit to India, take the risk of visiting the Taj Hotel in Mumbai which was one of the main targets in Mumbai attacks. He  followed this up by an unscheduled visit to an Aadhaar enrolment station.

“The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind” Bob Dylan

Alex Newman writes in the New American, “A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators is teaming up with the Obama administration to legalize illegal immigrants and require biometric national ID cards for every American worker, prompting a swift and bipartisan backlash across the nation.

The proposal would unilaterally and unconstitutionally force nearly all Americans to obtain new “tamper-proof” Social Security cards, while purporting to require that all employers purchase new $800 ID scanners. It would also provide a “path to citizenship” for the estimated 12 million to 20 million illegal immigrants currently living in America.”

India’s Aadhaar seems to bear an uncanny resemblance to Obama’s plan for USA, which has been blocked. The excuse of 20 million illegal migrants in USA, and 20 million illegal Bangladeshis in India, resonates - Vote Bank politics in both countries.

“Our plan has four pillars: requiring biometric Social Security cards to ensure that illegal workers cannot get jobs; fulfilling and strengthening our commitments on border security and interior enforcement; creating a process for admitting temporary workers; and implementing a tough but fair path to legalization for those already here,” wrote Graham and Schumer. “We would require all U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who want jobs to obtain a high-tech, fraud-proof Social Security card.”

This is where it gets confusing. Biometric Social Security cards in USA will ensure illegal migrants cannot get jobs; Aadhaar on the other hand is all about embracing illegal migrants in India with financial inclusion. At least that is the official line we are fed.  Does this make sense, or is this marketing spin, choosing any line that will hold, echoing the famous globalisation slogan, 'Think Global, Act Local'?

President Obama promptly signalled his approval and pledged to “act at the earliest possible opportunity.” The White House released a statement noting that the President would do everything in his power to push the issue, and Obama called the Schumer-Graham proposal “a promising, bipartisan framework which can and should be the basis for moving forward." Read more on the US proposal

Gautam Patel writes “In The Dark Side, a riveting account of ‘how the war on terror turned into a war on American ideals’, Jane Mayer shows how the Bush Administration’s extralegal counter-terrorism programme presented the most dramatic, sustained, and radical challenge to the rule of law in American history”. It has reached a new high, in the redefining of 'illegal' search and seizure, by authorising any police officer to justify an intrusive search on exigency.

“Terrorists pander to totalitarian regimes. The road to perdition is always paved with claims of necessity. India’s latest contribution to this is the NATGRID, a nation-wide intelligence network that our Home Minister plans to link to Mr Nandan Nilekani’s Unique Identity (UID) project, a DNA data bank and nearly 21 other database sets, all to be placed in the hands of intelligence agencies”

“This Big Brother scenario operates on a single, fatally flawed and thoroughly reprehensible presumption: every one of us is a potential ‘terrorist’, a threat to the nation. This is a governance of suspicion, a rule of fear. Forget privacy, and forget that it is a fundamental right. Its invasion is a necessity.”

“The error lies in the assumption that individual freedom is the enemy of collective safety. But liberty is not merely personal, though it is primarily that. It describes the state of an entire nation. Our freedoms were not easily gained.” Give me liberty or give me death is not a populist rant by some long-dead nonentity. “It means this: give me liberty, for without it I might as well not live.” writes Gautam Patel  (a must read article). Our own Tilak echoed that tune with his eloquent “Swaraj is my birthright,” although its 'swar' has been muted by the claims of modern economists, to whom the nation has been entrusted.

“With Obama’s coming to power, the police order in America is getting tighter and tighter in two directions – strengthening internal security and militarization of civilian institutions. Tellingly, having condemned the infringements on individual freedoms done by the Bush administration, Obama has put his own staff under total control, by making them fill out a 63-question form that touches upon the most intricate details of their private lives. In January, the US President signed bills that enable the continuation of the illegal practice of abducting people, keeping them secretly in prisons, and moving them to countries where tortures are used.

“He also proposed a bill called National Emergency” (from Crisis as a way to build a totalitarian state).

It is not at all surprising that UID was included in the White House's Fact Sheet: The National Export Initiative: U.S. - India Transactions, which says "The Unique Identification Project: L-1 Identity Solutions, headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, and another U.S.-headquartered company, lead two of the three vendor consortia, which have been pre-qualified by the Unique Identity Authority of India, for the first phase of an effort to register Indian residents with a 12-digit unique number using biometric identifiers. Unprecedented in scale, seeking to register 1.2 billion Indian residents, the Unique Identification program aims to enhance delivery of government services in India."

The sheet carries no mention of some, what the naïve might think would be relevant, facts: that L-1 has been blacklisted by several State Administrations for its poor quality of design and delivery, that it is was investigated by the SEC for suspicions of insider trading (and that the matter was settled out of court), and that the company is overwhelmingly staffed at the top by former US retired spy chiefs.

Shekhar Gupta’s relevant question to Bill Gates in an interview was :  “Let’s go back to Capitalism 2.0 and America. America is now more polarised than it has been in a very long time. The debate again seems black and white. One side is saying what Obama is doing is almost anti-capitalist, is socialistic and driven by Nancy Pelosi. The other side says we are a capitalist country with flaws that need fixing. Where do you stand in this debate?” (Read full interview)

Is UID backed by US administration?

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Suspect No 7:  World Bank, CIA, FBI, L1 Identity

The theme of this year's World Economic Forum is “Implementing India”.

Hello! - is India the next target for USA now that it has played enough games in South America? Is India, the world's third largest economy, now the sought after 'greener pasture' for capitalists and corporations?

Is the world taking note of India’s phenomenal economic growth, and the fact that it is infested with corruption? Only the naïve will believe Jonathan Favreau's, oops President Obama's, eloquent, "India is not emerging, India has emerged".

At the top of the Aadhaar chain are multinational corporations like L-1 Identity Solutions – a company that has President Barrack Obama’s full backing.

The author’s concerns are echoed by Dr.Samir Kelekar, another IIT Bombay Alumnus like Nandan Nilekani in his article, “UID another big scam- watch out for FBI and CIA agents involvement”.

That is not all. India’s Finance Minister Pranab Mukerjee also urges US Companies to partner India . “The Government, on Monday, asked US companies to take part in India's financial inclusion programme, in a bid to not only bring more people into the banking network, but also ensure that the fast growth of the economy is inclusive and sustainable.”

A major concern is the involvement of L-1 Identity Solutions in implementing Aadhaar.

L-1 Identity Solutions and the World Bank have reached an agreement to insure all people in the world, including third world countries, are enrolled into a single global system of identification that translates into a single system of control.

With India’s Aadhaar already in the bag, one sixth of the global population will be accounted for.

Why is L-1 significant? L-1 is the largest biometric company in the United States, and arguably the world. L-1 provides nearly 95% of all US state driver’s licenses. It is involved in the production of all passports and passport cards. It is a global company that has had, or does have, on its Board of Directors, the former Directors of the CIA, FBI, TSA, and others. L-1 also has an intelligence division with ongoing contracts with nearly every intelligence agency of the federal government. In addition to losing a contract for misleading the client, and being accused by the SEC for insiders selling stock in advance of adverse financial news (settled suit) L-1, under its previous name Viisage Technology, overstated the capability of its biometric technology many documented times. Read the full article.

Will UIDAI’s database eventually merge with USA’s, to be managed by L1 Identity Solutions?

Now the question is, if US President Barack Obama, using India as a testing ground for developing biometric solutions and tools developed by L1 Identity Solutions and Morpho, to weed out problems, before implementing the same in USA?

History reminds us that the atomic bomb was tested on Japanese civilians who were asleep in Hiroshima on 6th August 1945. We have 1.2 billion Indians sleeping when UIDAI is busy manufacturing the time bomb as we speak.

History tells us how powerful the CIA is, and how it has been linked to assassinations of head of states, including President J.F.Kennedy himself.

The U.S. provided material support to the military regime of Augusto Pinochet after the coup (accomplished by assassinating the democratically elected leader, Salvador Allende), although criticizing it in public. A document released by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2000, titled "CIA Activities in Chile", revealed that the CIA actively supported the military junta after the overthrow of Allende, and that it made many of Pinochet's officers into paid contacts of the CIA or U.S. military, even though some were known to be involved in human rights abuses.[20]

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Suspect No 8 : Nandan Nilekani, UIDAI Chief

Nandan Nilekani, the co-founder of Infosys, one of India’s biggest IT firms, is a corporate icon in his homeland. But to many readers outside the country he is best known for a stray comment he made to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in February 2004. His remark (“Tom, the playing field is being levelled”) inspired the title and thesis of Mr Friedman’s “The World is Flat”, a big-think book about off shoring and globalisation, that sold millions of copies.

The publishers of “Imagining India”, Mr Nilekani’s admirable first book, must hope that many of those readers will be eager to hear the Indian side of the story, straight from the source. Not to disappoint them, Mr Nilekani provides a chapter on globalisation and two on information technology.

But “Imagining India” is a very different book from Mr Friedman’s bestseller. Mr Nilekani, an intellectual trapped in an entrepreneur’s body, seeks to understand India through the “ebb and flow of its ideas” and debates. Some of these arguments are now resolved, even forgotten. Others have yet to be joined. A third category of ideas commands assent, but no action. And some arguments still burn white-hot.

New York Times journalist, author and friend Tom Friedman describes Nandan Nilekani  as a ‘great explainer’.

 “Explain he certainly does, while taking upon himself the onerous task of inquiring into, probing, dissecting, delineating and engaging in profound research into what ticks, and what does not, about the complex entity called India. It is a heart-felt love for bettering the lot of its people that we see in page after page of this book, embedded with cold facts and incisive data. The jocular rhetoric and flamboyant flourishes of Friedman, media cheerleader par excellence of globalisation, is conspicuously absent here”.

Our Questions to Mr Nilekani, “Are you the driver of the bulldozer that will 'level' Mother India?” or should we say flatten?

“Debates”, Mr Nilekani? What debates, when you will not even answer questions at your so-called Public Lectures in controlled environments, where you hide behind the moderator? Forget public lectures, why not be brave enough to face National Advisory Council members, headed by Chairperson Mrs Sonia Gandhi?

Also Mr Nilekani: “Is Unique Identity or Aadhaar 'your idea' for India’s future, that you talked about in your TED speech?”

“Did you sell the Idea of Unique Identity/ Aadhaar to UPA II?”

And “are you the Chairman of UIDAI only because the Prime Minister asked you to?”

Lastly, “can you still assert  that Aadhaar is not an Idea in Conflict?”

Curiously, Nandan Nilekani, in “Power of Identity”, talks about Chile and China. “In Chile, for instance, the National Identification Number is called RUN (Rol Único Nacional). It is used as a national identification number, tax payer number, social insurance number, passport number, driver 's licence number, for employment, etc. It is also commonly used as a customer number in banks, retailers, insurance companies, airlines, etc.  
Since 2004, every newborn baby has a RUN number; before it was assigned at the moment of applying to get the ID card. Non-Chilean residents also get a RUN and an identification card.”

Will India become a modern avatar of Chile, controlled by the CIA? This is a question that Indians have to ask themselves.

Nandan goes on to say, “In China, an ID card is mandatory for all citizens who are over 16 years old. The 18-digit ID card is used for residential registration, army enrolment, registration of marriage/divorce, going abroad, taking part in various national exams, and other social or civil matters.”

Now, when did India begin to endorse China's totalitarian regime, with its inhuman control over its own population? Is this where India under UPA II is heading?

Does Mr. Nilekani deserve full credit for creating Aadhaar?

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Suspect No 9: Congress President Sonia Gandhi:

Is she a willing accomplice in creating Aadhaar, or has she been misled and coerced to participate?

We are aware that Sonia Gandhi backs Aadhaar for reforming PDS. “A senior Congress party official, who did not want to be identified, said that Gandhi had directed the government to initiate discussions with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in this context,” writes Liz Mathew.

We are also aware that Mrs Gandhi was concerned about questions raised by National Advisory Committee members like Jean Dreze and Aruna Roy, and requested Nandan Nilekani to address NAC concerns.

To this day Nandan Nilekani has not addressed NAC concerns.

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Suspect No 10: M.Karunanidhi, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

Not to be outdone by Congress, UPA II coalition partner and DMK chief M.Karunanidhi has taken the identity number to the next stage, a Biometric Identity Card for Tamil Nadu.

The Union government has agreed to the State government proposal to implement the biometric 'family cards' project (while noisily rejecting the Gujarat state government's own 'ID Card' project).

The Rs.300-crore TN project envisages taking up biometric capture of data, regarding beneficiaries of the public distribution system (PDS). A few weeks ago, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram sent a letter to Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, conveying the Centre's approval.

With Jayalalitha now being re elected as CM of Tamil Nadu, one has to wonder what the future of the ID card in Tamil Nadu will be.

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Suspect No 11 : The Devil Himself

Chapter 13 Verse 17 of the Book of Revelations in the Bible  says "... and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark or the name of the Beast or the number of his name."

 Revelation, Chapter 13 speaks of the beast and how to identify his followers. According to verses 16 and 17, they will have the mark or the name or number of the beast on their right hands or foreheads. Verse 18 introduces the number 666 itself: "Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six."

The Beast is not necessarily the Devil -- in fact, it is unlikely that they are one and the same. The Beast has a prescribed role in the final days, described in the Bible, as an evil entity in its own right.

The triplet of '6's is not directly evinced in India's UID project, but 'marking' individuals, the time-honoured imprimatur of the legendary Beast, has had its notable examples from history. Most implacably, the Nazi German government marked individuals for removal from humanity (by permanent exile to or death in 'work camps'), by tattoing identification numbers into their skin.

"Tattooing numbers may not be the favoured approach of the Indian government yet. Without any defensible legal sanction or parliamentary consensus, with Nilekani's help, it has named a less visible substitute. Unfortunately, its confidence - or hubris - is misplaced, for there is no scientific evidence that biometric markers such as fingerprints and irises are sufficiently valid unique identifiers for a population that numbers over a billion people. In fact, to believe in biometrics as identifiers, one only needs blind faith."

It is another matter that its faith is misplaced, for the followers of the Devil, by definition, do not need faith.

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Suspect No.1:

L.K.Advani, BJP Leader: Verdict: Doubtful

Suspect No.2:

Chidambaram, Home Minister: Verdict: Likely

Suspect No 3:

Prime Minister: Manmohan Singh: Verdict: Co-accused, possibly guilty of conspiracy

Suspect No 4:

 Montek Singh Ahluwalia: Verdict: Likely

Suspect No 5:

Jairam Ramesh: Verdict: Unlikely, but possibly a co-conspirator

Suspect No 6:

USA & Barack Obama: Verdict: Co-conspirator

Suspect No 7:

World Bank, CIA, FBI, L1 Identity: Verdict: Co-conspirators

Suspect No 8:

Nandan Nilekani, UIDAI Chief: Verdict: Co-conspirator

Suspect No 9:

 Congress President Sonia Gandhi:  Verdict: Insufficient evidence

Suspect No 10:

M.Karunanidhi, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu: Verdict: Sentence already executed

Suspect No 11:

The Devil Himself: Verdict: Legendary Executor of Human Evil