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

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

3450 - Direct Cash Transfer - A Game Changer for Whom? 0 News Click


Direct Cash Transfer - A Game Changer for Whom?

Author / Source / Date: 
Monita Muralidharan, Newsclick, June 22, 2013

Direct Cash Transfer (DCT) scheme aims to transfer the difference between the market price and subsidized price directly to the beneficiary in the form of cash. UPA II government is accelerating the implementation of DCT keeping 2014 elections in mind.

The consensus or hope in the ruling circles is that direct cash transfer scheme which allures people with the idea of “Aapka paisa, aapke haath mein”, will be a game changer in the forthcoming elections. Government promises that once the “system is in place”, the scheme would be extended to essential commodities like food and fertilizers. In this period of high inflation, it is widely argued that a move to replace distribution of goods like food, kerosene etc., with cash transfer will only add to the burden of India's poor. While DCT is appreciable for scholarships, various pension schemes or unemployment wages, it cannot be a replacement for all subsidized public delivery systems.

DCT can not be a substitute for PDS
Neo-liberal economists, policy makers advocate for the withdrawal of State from public delivery systems (PDS). The goal is to eventually replace universal PDS and other forms of subsidies with direct cash transfer. The PDS is a vital source of economic security and nutritional support for millions of people. It should be expanded and consolidated, not dismantled. The State should redeem its promise of enactment of National Food Security Policy at the earliest. It is important to understand that cash transfers should compliment, but not substitute for the provision of public services such as health care, school education, water supply, basic amenities, and the PDS.

Unique Identification - AADHAR and Direct cash transfer
One of the main problems that are associated with DCT is to make AADHAR mandatory. As pointed out by experts, biometric identification for manual workers has a 20% margin of error since fingerprints of such workers are susceptible to change. So is the case with senior citizens. The difference between UID enrollment figures and the number of actual beneficiaries is suspected to be very large at least in the present. Moreover, duplicate or deliberate incorrect inclusions and forced exclusions from the AADHAR project, questions the very integrity of the UID database. Many human rights organizations raised valid concerns about the possible misuse of UID data by law enforcing agencies and its potential impact on the civil liberty rights. Before correcting these flaws and addressing these concerns, making AADHAR mandatory for critical programs like food subsidy would be catastrophic.
Access to banks and infrastructures in rural India
In a country like India, where the rural poor have little or no access to banks or knowledge of the banking system, money may not reach the desired ones. The possibility of exploitation is huge mainly in tribal regions and in villages where quasi-feudal systems still persist. In simpler terms, money might just get snatched away from the poor. Data shows only about a third of Indians have bank accounts. Enrolling all the beneficiaries into the banking system is a huge operational challenge which might take enormous amount of time. Rushing into DCT without a truthful analysis of the actual enrollment numbers and of the timeline will only contribute to the increased rate of starvation deaths and farmer suicides.
Patriarchal society and gender power equations
While responding to a question related to DCT, eminent economist Amartya Sen noted that, DCT may hurt girls and kids. In a society like India where patriarchal power structure still exists, the authority to take financial decisions is the prerogative of males who are considered as ”head of the family”. Cash can be easily used for wrong priorities like addictions. Even if that might not be the case, we have no way to believe that with the existing gender inequalities in place, resources will be equally divided in the family. Already there are enough empirical evidences to suggest that malnutrition among girl children and females is much higher than the boys and adult males
1  . We have every reason to believe that replacing direct distribution of food with cash transfer will worsen the malnutrition figures among girl children and women.
Forced participation of poor in unregulated open markets
In India, food inflation figures are high due to several reasons ranging from artificial shortages to agricultural crises to government policies. It is of no doubt that there will be a time lag for actual money to get reflected in the beneficiary account in case of inflation. Looking at the past experiences, we can easily assume that these time lags can be notoriously long. This is going to create an enormous damage to the nutritional intake of the urban and rural poor who literally live a hand to mouth existence. The poor eventually have to borrow money from local money sharks to buy food and fuel. By forcing poor to buy food from open markets (supermarkets in urban areas where kirana shops are becoming non-existent) at highly inflated prices, the government is pushing poor into an endless debt abyss.
Adverse Effects
There are so many adverse effects of DCT, like price rise of the essential goods and potential unemployment of government fair price shop employees which are not discussed in this article but are also of immense concern. The neo-liberal ideologues have been urging the government to withdraw from the social security measures in a timely manner and have been declaring that the government’s job is to just act as an enabler of conducive business environment. The Government of India happily echoes these sentiments. The very argument that public distribution of food is not effective is not valid. We have several successful models like one that exists in Kerala
2   and Tamil Nadu which has a highly efficient public distribution system for food, kerosene and even for essential drugs.
References
1. Kaur, I. P. and Kaur, S. A Comparison of Nutritional Profile and Prevalence of Anemia
among Rural Girls and Boys, Journal of Exercise Science and Physiotherapy, 2011, 7 (1), 11-18
2 K. P. Kannan, Declining Incidence of Rural Poverty in Kerala, Economic and Political Weekly, 1995, 30, 2651-2662
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Newsclick
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