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, October 15, 2014

5851 - Government website throws up shocking attendance figures - DNA

Government website throws up shocking attendance figures
Saturday, 11 October 2014 - 7:10am IST | Place: New Delhi | Agency: DNA

Sushil Kutty


Blame it on Urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu. He made a couple of surprise visits to his ministry in June and July and a government attendance website was launched, which is throwing up stunning figures of attendance in central government offices. If attendance.gov.in is to be believed, nearly 40% of central government employees tend to be absent from work on any single working day of the week. Attendance.gov.in is a live website and tracks attendance minute by minute

For example, on Friday, October 10, of 50,587 central government employees registered with attendance.gov.in, the recently launched "attendance website" by the Modi government, only 27,553 were present. The remaining 22,000 odd employees had not turned up for work for whatever reason.

The story of this bureaucratic-lethargy started when, soon after taking charge of the Urban development ministry, Naidu checked into Nirman Bhavan, once on June 12, and then on July 28. "That is when late coming to office was noticed. Shri Naidu then directed ministry officials to take necessary measures to ensure punctuality at work," says a PIB note issued on August 13.
Very soon biometric attendance marker systems were installed in Nirman Bhavan. Other ministries followed suit, and the 'Babu' was forced to answer to an electronic roll-call, mornings and evenings. Attendance.gov.in was simultaneously launched. It took some days but now the website is in full flow, and throwing up numbers that tell the story in numbers.

Modelled on the lines of Jharkhand government's attendance website, it has a dashboard which gives an overview of daily attendance activity of every employee registered with it, and will very soon become a centralised database of and for all central government employees.

The numbers on attendance.gov.in show that the biometric attendance system has so far not done much to change Babu-behaviour. Playing truant continues though "late coming to office" might have stopped to an extent.

The figures are graphic on attendance.gov.in. Bureaucratic-lethargy is seen across the board, cutting across ministries and departments. For instance, in Naidu's ministry of urban development (MOUD), where it all started, 345 employees were present on Friday, out of a total of 463 biometric-registered employees.

Other departments did not depart from the script. Out of the 1006 self-registered and department-verified employees of the department of rural development, only 429 marked attendance on Friday. 

In the case of ministry of water resources, the numbers were 1034 and 439. Directorate general of supplies and disposals (DGS&D): 1143 and 409. Department of Science: 351/889. The total at all these four departments: 3487/9846.

In CPWD, which too is governed by the MOUD, of the 6444 registered employees, on 754 were on attendance on Friday. 

Contacted by dna, CPWD's nodal officer for biometric attendance, K C Singh, said, "I am not competent to speak on this issue." He was dead serious. A call to the Ministry of Finance elicited a somewhat similar reply. The person who answered the call said, "Please call on Monday. I do not know the name of the nodal officer."

As of Friday, 149 government organisations & departments had registered with this unique attendance website. More are expected to sign in. The ubiquitous Babu is finally under the scanner, and unwilling to talk of the experience. Attendance.gov.in is doing all the talking.

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