AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 5145 - Government's move to shelve Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfer blow for UIDAI

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

Sunday, February 23, 2014

5145 - Government's move to shelve Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfer blow for UIDAI - Economic Times

Government's move to shelve Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfer blow for UIDAI

By Yogima Seth Sharma & M Rajshekhar, ET Bureau |

31 Jan, 2014, 07.09AM ISTPost a Comment

NEW DELHI: The government's decision to put the Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfer (DBT) for cooking gas on hold could be a blow to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), set up as one of the United Progressive Alliance's flagship initiatives and aimed at ensuring that subsidies reached the right beneficiaries without fraudsters and middlemen ripping them off.

Ahead of elections, the government is at pains not to risk alienating any constituency, having already sustained heavy defeats in recent state elections, some of these in areas where the programme has been rolled out. Oil minister Veerappa Moily attributed the decision on Thursday to complaints about implementation of the scheme.

A committee has been formed to look into them and pending its report, he said, "the Aadhaar-linked LPG subsidy transfer has been put on hold." According to Himanshu, an assistant professor of economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University School for Social Sciences, "If the government is calling for a pause, it clearly shows they are having a rethink."

The programme to transfer the cooking gas subsidy directly to the bank accounts of users is the biggest linked to the Aadhaar platform thus far. Until now, the only government programmes paired to Aadhaar have been items such as scholarships, which don't have a similar footprint.

The decision disappointed UIDAI officials, although officially the agency played down the development. "Aadhaar is just a platform. It is up to the people and ministries to leverage it for their own services," said Vijay S Madan, director general of UIDAI, adding that the authority will study the decision. "We are yet to get the details of this decision from the ministry of petroleum. It is only after we see the decision (that) we will be able to analyse its impact," he said.

A senior UIDAI official in charge of a north Indian state said, "Enrolments had slowed after the SC (Supreme Court) order. Now they will slow down further." The Supreme Court had said in an interim order that no one can be denied benefits just because they don't have an Aadhaar number. About two weeks ago Congress party vice-president Rahul Gandhi had described the DBT project as the "largest anti-corruption platform that anyone has ever built". It will, he said, enable people to get their benefits and entitlements without paying a bribe. He also said that the Congress party hadn't done enough to get the message about its achievements across to the people, which was partly responsible for its current standing ahead of elections.

Moily didn't mention the Supreme Court order though. Technically, the government was in danger of contempt of court if it insisted on Aadhaar numbers for getting LPG subsidy. Given that, in his address to the party, Gandhi had only criticised the government for capping the number of subsidised cylinders, this suggests the rethink was prompted by the fact that the Congress has not done well in the areas where its DBT programme had been rolled out.

As ET reported on Tuesday, in assembly elections late last year in Rajasthan, the Congress fared dismally in the three districts - Ajmer, Alwar and Udaipur -- where DBT had been rolled out in January 2013. Of the 27 seats on offer, the Congress won just two. The DBT-LPG programme itself is running into other, more unique problems. "There are problems with the seeding," said an IAS official tracking DBT-LPG implementation. "Incorrect Aadhaar numbers have been entered into bank databases, addresses are incorrect."

Delays in Aadhaar registration, including Aadhaar numbers in bank databases and last-mile problems in financial access were among the reasons for the DBT programme not succeeding as envisaged. However, the government's decision hasn't come as a surprise to experts who feel this should have been expected. "It was premature on the part of the government to have announced the rollout of LPG subsidy under DBT without having a proper implementation system in place," said Kalpana Jain, senior director of Deloitte, adding that the concept was sound but implementation was inadequate.

DK Joshi, chief economist of Crisil, also wasn't surprised. "Problems already existed from the beginning and this was anticipated since all beneficiaries were not on board," he said, adding that the government needs to accelerate the process of enrollment and seeding before it re-introduces the programme. Until last month, consumers in as many as 289 districts in 18 states were getting a subsidy of Rs435 in their accounts for an LPG cylinder they bought at market price.