AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 5149 - Who benefits?

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

5149 - Who benefits? - Indian Express

Who benefits?

January 31, 2014 11:35 pm

SUMMARY

Delinking the LPG subsidy from Aadhaar, the UPA has damaged the cash transfer scheme.

In a combination of bad economics and bad political signalling, the cabinet committee on political affairs (CCPA) has decided to put on hold the Aadhaar-linked direct benefits transfer on LPG. It also raised the number of subsidised LPG cylinders per person from nine to 12. This extra spending is difficult to justify — RBI governor Raghuram Rajan rightly said that a subsidy has to be misdirected if 97 per cent of the population falls within its net. But what is worse is that this suspension of LPG cash transfers has undercut one of the UPA’s most promising initiatives, and called the utility of Aadhaar into question.

The efficiency gains of Aadhaar-backed transfers are undeniable. Not only do they sharply target subsidies — for example, in the case of cooking gas, individuals with multiple gas connections were identified — they also allow individuals to face the true marginal cost of their decisions by pricing products (like gas cylinders) at market rates, and encourage private participation in sectors where consumers are subsidised. In Moily’s estimate, the government could save Rs 12,000-14,000 crore if direct benefits transfers were fully implemented. The success of the LPG transfer would have provided incentives to join the Aadhaar network. It was, indeed, the perfect platform to begin Aadhaar-backed direct benefits transfers, to be extended to some or all of the Centre’s approximately Rs 2,20,000 crore food, fertiliser and fuel subsidy. It did not depend on the support of state governments or their bureaucracies — the Centre merely needed to coordinate with the three relatively well-run LPG distribution PSUs. By Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily’s account to Parliament, the LPG cash transfer was doing well, implemented in 291 districts covering 9.22 crore consumers. Moily also informed Lok Sabha of the willingness of 11 states/ UTs to launch a similar scheme for kerosene.
Given the Supreme Court ruling that Aadhaar can not be a prerequisite for accessing government schemes, and the consequent difficulty of widening the network of Aadhaar-linked bank accounts, the government’s decision to delink it is understandable. But by suspending the scheme rather than making it optional, it is putting the brakes on transfers that are successfully taking place. The UPA has shown a damaging lack of confidence in the idea, one that will be hard for Aadhaar to recover from.