AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 5837 - Aadhaar’s limited roll-out poses a big hurdle to Jan Dhan Yojana

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, September 7, 2014

5837 - Aadhaar’s limited roll-out poses a big hurdle to Jan Dhan Yojana - Live Mint

FIRST PUBLISHED: THU, SEP 04 2014. 11 47 PM

Aadhaar’s limited roll-out poses a big hurdle to Jan Dhan Yojana

NDA’s efforts to ensure households don’t open multiple bank accounts may be hit by low UIDAI reach in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar

Remya Nair

Aadhaar enrolment in Uttar Pradesh has reached around 22%, and is about 13% in Bihar. Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint

New Delhi: The limited spread of Aadhaar unique identity numbers in populous states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar may impede government’s plans to keep households from opening multiple bank accounts to take advantage of incentives being offered under its ambitious financial inclusion programme.

Under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Independence Day, unbanked households are being encouraged to open bank accounts with the offer of free life insurance and personal accident insurance covers. The government has been planning to rely on seeding of bank accounts with Aadhaar numbers to ensure that multiple bank accounts are not opened by households attracted by the incentives. Though Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has managed to reach more than 80% enrolment in southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, its reach in northern states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh is much lower since it received government’s mandate to start enrolling in these states only in February.

While enrolment in Uttar Pradesh has reached around 22%, it is about 13% in Bihar. Some 669 million Aadhaar numbers have been issued by UIDAI so far. The government aims to take the number to more than 900 million by the end of 2015. At least 20% of the 20 million plus bank accounts opened under the Jan Dhan scheme so far belong to households who already have a bank account, the finance ministry estimates. The Narendra Modi government launched its financial inclusion mission on 28 August. It aims to provide every household with at least one bank account, which comes with the added benefit of a debit card along with a personal accident insurance cover of Rs.1 lakh and life insurance cover of Rs.30,000. The government has asked banks to use a mix of the voters list and census data to identify households that do not have any bank accounts. “Only one bank account will be seeded with Aadhaar where biometric identification can be used for verification. Only this account will then get the benefits of both the insurance covers. Though banks have been asked to simultaneously start seeding, Aadhaar linkage will take some time,” a government official said, requesting anonymity. “It is difficult to say how quickly the accounts will be seeded given that they (UIDAI) are still in the process of giving Aadhaar numbers and are yet to make inroads into some populous states,” the official said. “We are also clarifying that no one needs to open a new account. We will give a debit card and the personal accident cover with the old account only.” Another government official, who also declined to be identified, said the government has asked state-run banks, which also act as registrars for UIDAI, to enrol people who do not have Aadhaar numbers when they come to open a bank account under Jan Dhan Yojana. Nearly 70 million bank accounts have already been seeded with Aadhaar on account of the previous government’s direct benefit transfer scheme that sought to transfer the cash equivalent of the subsidies under various government welfare schemes directly into the bank accounts of the beneficiaries, the second official said. “The approach that we are following at present is asking the customer if they already have an account. In this scenario, we are left to depend on the answer of the customer. Only in cases where the previous and the new accounts were opened using e-KYC (know your customer norms) through the Aadhaar platform, it is ensured that there is no duplication,” said Rishi Gupta, chief operating officer and executive director of FINO PayTech, a banking correspondent service provider. “There is a need for some kind of a central depository to solve the problem of identifying multiple accounts,” Gupta said.