Nishit Dholabhai
Saturday, 21 January 2012 11:27
New Delhi: The smart card versus unique identity number battle between P Chidambaram and Montek Singh Ahluwalia will hit the ground on Saturday at Porthapur village in Andaman and Nicobar Islands when the home minister hands out the first tranche of 2.56 lakh resident identity cards.
The resident cards are a rival to the unique identity number conceived by the Planning Commission to establish authentic identification for each resident and cut out corruption in social welfare schemes.
“This is a project prior to the UID,” registrar general and census commissioner C Chandramouli said.
But 110 million unique identity numbers — called Aadhaar — have already been issued and the cabinet will on Wednesday get an update on the Nandan Nilekani-headed Unique Identification Authority of India. The authority is close to meeting its initial mandate of signing up 200 million Indians and will now need an extension.
“On Wednesday we are taking the note to the cabinet, we have no problems if the MHA wants to do it differently,” Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia said on Friday.
Chidambaram had on Friday written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ask Ahluwalia to move a cabinet note to clarify the status of the Unique Identification Authority of India project. Following the first lot in Porthapur, the home minister will distribute resident cards at Pattipulam village in Kancheepuram district of Tamil Nadu on Monday.
After the 26/11 terror attacks, it was announced that resident cards would be rolled out in nine maritime states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Bengal and the Union territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Puducherry, Lakshadweep and Daman & Diu.
Chidambaram’s smart cards — like Nilekani’s identity number — use biometry. His ministry now wants UIDAI to stop collecting biometric data and leave the job to the Registrar General of India, which is collecting the data for the smart cards.
In what is looking like a turf battle, the home ministry also wants the unique identity number to be made part of its smart card and maintenance and update of the database to be in the hands of the office of registrar general and census commissioner, not the UIDAI.
The resident card has a 64KB microprocessor chip and can be used at any ATM and back-linked to a ration card system, Chandramouli said.
The “national identity number will have to be mapped with the UID” or the two reconciled in the 3,331 coastal villages where the resident cards will be issued, he said.
“The UID needs a medium to reach the main server. You will have to pay mobile operators or have an Internet connection to use the UID,” Chandramouli said, adding that he did not have anything against the Aadhaar number. “For the RIC, you only need a reader. The card will have fingerprint details also and can even be used for voting,” he told.
Ahluwalia had recently said Aadhaar was a more practical option when it comes to electronic transfer of benefits to the rural poor. The card would need a reader while the unique identity number can be used “even through” mobile phones, he had pointed out.
“We are not talking about national security, we are only talking about the UID, it will not be appropriate for me to talk about the contents of the note prior to going to the cabinet,” Ahluwalia said today.
The approved cost of the resident card scheme is Rs 216.31 crore. So far, the demographic data of 12 million people and biometric data of 75 lakh residents has been collected for the project. Five lakh cards have been produced. The Rs 10,000-crore Aadhar project is conceived on a much bigger scale.
- The Telegraph
Saturday, 21 January 2012 11:27
Why this Blog ? News articles in the Wide World of Web, quite often disappear with time, when they are relocated as archives with a different url. Archives in this blog serve as a library for those who are interested in doing Research on Aadhaar Related Topics. Articles are published with details of original publication date and the url.
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
