In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.
On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.
In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.
In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.
In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.
"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi
Ram Krishnaswamy
Sydney, Australia.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

3060 - Aadhaar is getting support across party lines: Varad Pande


Aadhaar is getting support across party lines: Varad Pande
Interview with officer on special duty, ministry of rural development

Varad Pande, officer on special duty, ministry of rural development, says the Aadhaar identification project aims to cover at least half of country’s population by next year. He talks about where it has reached, in an interview with Samie Modak & Abhineet Kumar. Edited excerpts:

What is the Aadhaar project’s status?
The project started about two years earlier and now has a little more than 270 million enrolled, roughly a fifth of the population. We have set a target of getting 600 million enrolments by 2014 and are on track to achieve that. We have enrolment capacity of a million a day and that is being used across 18 states.

We also have started this Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) programme, in 43 districts. About 30 government schemes have already been moved to this platform. We are really pushing in these districts. We will show results and then we will cover more districts and schemes.

For DBT, the focus is on micro-ATMs and business correspondents (BCs). Why is there no focus on mobile banking that has huge penetration? 
We are still a long distance from being a cashless society. We have to be responsive to the ground reality. The bank branch network is only 30,000, for 600,000 villages. To reach every Indian who doesn’t have access to banking, BC is the model to move forward right now.

There were two problems in the BC model. One was the ‘one bank, one BC’ model, which was giving a sort of monopoly. The second was that the payment model was not attractive enough. We are trying to correct for both. The government and the Reserve Bank of India have allowed anybody to be a BC, one big change. The second is to move towards a transaction-fee model. The task force on Aadhaar-enabled payments has recommended 3.5 per cent (of the transferred amount). The government is considering that. Hopefully, there will be some decision soon. The eco-system of one million BCs with micro-ATMs is what is going to unleash the potential of this platform, both for delivery of government schemes and financial inclusion.

Could Aadhaar also be used for electoral purposes?
The UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) and the Election Commission have met and discussed this. I am not privy to the conversation. But, through Aadhaar, we are creating a platform and once you have that, it can be used for multiple things. There can be many apps built on this platform.

Are all state governments on board for this project?
A lot of state governments across party lines are on board. You have non-Congress states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Tripura which have backed this Aadhaar platform. We are getting support across party lines. Ultimately, the Centre and the states have to push this together. There are going to be coordination issues. We are putting in place institutional structures to address coordination concerns. This is going to be the most important thing to get right.

There are concerns that the money received through direct cash transfer could be squandered towards wrong things by the end-beneficiary. We are not putting any additional money in the hands of people. In the first phase, we are only moving things anyway paid through cash, such as scholarships, pensions. The second phase is when you are substituting kind for cash — LPG subsidy, kerosene subsidy or even the Public Distribution System. Here, what you say is a possibility. We need to do an evaluation on whether this really happens. There is a recent study by the India Development Foundation in Delhi and MP on this, which shows people don’t end up spending on wrong things like alcohol. My own view is that replacing kind with cash in urban areas is fine. In rural areas, you have to be a little more careful.



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