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, May 15, 2013

3285 - Is the Congress Govt. Legitimizing Illegal Immigration Through the UID?



BY POLITICALLYINCORRECT / IN FEATURED, THE BAR / MARCH 30, 2013

I am sure the title of the post sounds breathless and alarmist to a few, but based on what I have written in the last two posts, no reasonable person can help thinking on these lines. The proponents of the UID project could probably fall over each other to correct me and say-

The UID is not about vesting or recognizing citizenship! It is about creating a database of residents! So where is the question of legitimizing illegal immigration?

My response to these enlightened souls would be-

“The UID is not just about compiling the identity details from existing identification documents. It goes a step further to create identity for those who have no documentary proof of their existence. Recognizing residency is the first step towards officially legitimizing the stay of illegal immigrants. The UID gives illegal immigrants a chance to create a new identity for themselves. No illegal immigrant is concerned about citizenship as long as his stay in this country is recognized and he has access to the country’s resources and the Government’s schemes!”

Do I have a concrete basis for holding the view that the UID project aids in legitimizing illegal immigration? I’d invite the proponents of the UID to read the gem that is the “Introducer System” (Refer to Para 3.5 on Page 16 of the hyperlinked document).

Under this system, a network of “approved introducers” introduces a person who has no documents to prove his residence. Here’s the relevant excerpt from the official-sounding shallow document of the UIDAI called the “Demographic Data Standards and Verification procedure (DDSVP) Committee Report”:

In the UID registration process, registration is proposed to be done through various registrars like the Banks, Insurance Companies, Central and State Government Departments. In each of these institutions, the introducer concept will work like a “tree structure” where one introducer may introduce more than one person. However, someone needs be the first introducer and be the “root” of this tree. The person at the root will be the person who will be “self-introduced”. In other words, that person will be initially registered without any introducer. He will then introduce and get a number of persons registered. This process will then continue.

As an example, in a registration process where State’s Rural Development Department is the registrar and NREGA is the scheme whose beneficiaries are being registered. In this process, the District Magistrate (or the Deputy Commissioner) can “self-introduce” and become the root of the introducer tree. He/She will introduce his/her BDOs and the Block Panchayat heads (known as Block Pramukhs in some states) who implement NREGA. Each of these BDOs and Block Pramukhs can introduce other people at the Panchayat level like the Panchayat Sewaks, Pradhans/Mukhias (elected Panchayat Head), and ward members (in a village Panchayat). Generally, the last category will reach down to the village level. However, in order to ensure that the enrolment process is not hampered by the lack of approved introducers at the ground level, each registrar should have the freedom to decide on the issue of approved introducers so as to ensure that there are people at the ground level who are able to introduce the people who want to enroll in the UID system.”

Notice the latitude and discretion that executive authorities have in identifying/approving Introducers. This is yet another classic instance of excessive delegation with immense potential for abuse and misuse.

Has the UIDAI prescribed guidelines to these cerebral registrars on selecting Introducers? Of course yes. Let’s take a look at these so-called guidelines:
  • The list of approved introducers should go down till the village/customer level so that the process of registration is not hampered due to lack of introducers.
  • The registrars need not keep the hierarchy of approved introducers limited to their own department/organization. As an example, in NREGA, there are a number of NGOs involved in NREGA social audit and the registrars could make some of the representatives of these NGOs who work at the village level as the approved introducers. Similarly, the village teachers and postman could also be incorporated as approved introducers by state Governments if required.
  • At the ground level, residents should have access to multiple introducers so as to avoid harassment by a single introducer.
  • Introducer list should include credible organizations which have traditionally been advocates of vulnerable communities to make sure goal of inclusion is truly achieved.
I ask myself these few basic questions- So which are these “vulnerable communities” that the guidelines refer to? Is identity creation being used as a pretext by the Congress to undertake a nation-wide exercise to create a new vote bank? Once identities have been created for illegal immigrants using the UID, how difficult is it to make the UID card an acceptable document for registration of voters?…

It really doesn’t take the genius of a Sheldon Cooper to know what’s brewing in the name of UID.

What is truly shocking is that despite such grave dangers which were pointed out in no uncertain terms by the Parliamentary Standing Committee chaired by Shri Yashwant Sinha, the UID is not only spreading its tentacles all over the country, it is slowly being pushed as a mandatory requirement. This is a vastly different position from the initial tune of the Aadhaar card being “voluntary”. Following were the observations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the nexus between the UID and illegal immigration:

2. The Committee are surprised that while the country is on one hand facing a serious problem of illegal immigrants and infiltration from across the borders, the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 proposes to entitle every resident to obtain an aadhaar number, apart from entitling such other category of individuals as may be notified from time to time. This will, they apprehend, make even illegal immigrants entitled for an aadhaar number. The Committee are unable to understand the rationale of expanding the scheme to persons who are not citizens, as this entails numerous benefits proposed by the Government. The Committee have received a number of suggestions for restricting the scope of the UID scheme only to the citizens and for considering better options available with the Government by issuing Multi-Purpose National Identity Cards (MNICs) as a more acceptable alternative.”

Before the usual culprits from the left-lib clique accuse people like me of xenophobia, let me clarify that I am not advocating that India should follow a closed door policy and shut its borders. After all, when Indians expect to be welcomed with open arms on both sides of the Atlantic, it makes no sense to say that we must not let others in. That said, let’s not be naive enough to close our eyes to the grave national security challenges that unchecked illegal immigration brings along with it, something that I had alluded to in my first post on CRI titled “Kautilyan Thoughts“.

There are several other problems, including severe technological ones, which plague the UID project that I have not touched upon, but for me the biggest problem is the opaque and surreptitious manner in which the Congress government has been pushing the project aggressively, with double-speak characterising its stance even before Courts. So once again I ask this question: If the Congress government has nothing to hide and the UID project is truly an altruistic one, why does it lack the spine and conviction to debate and legislate in accordance with the law?

Given the manifest public interest involved here, and its implications for the integrity of the nation, we request the enlightened readers of CRI to actively let us know their views on the UID project.

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