AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 7067 - Khosla Labs & Unitus to incubate and fund Aadhaar-based startups

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, December 30, 2014

7067 - Khosla Labs & Unitus to incubate and fund Aadhaar-based startups - Medianama

Khosla Labs & Unitus to incubate and fund Aadhaar-based startups

By Vikas SN ( @tsuvik , +VikasSN ) on December 15, 2014

Vinod Khosla’s startup incubator Khosla Labs is partnering with the impact investment fund Unitus Seed Fund to incubate and fund Aadhaar-based startups. It’s worth noting that Khosla had invested in Unitus Seed Fund last month and in January last year.

The details on this initiative is sketchy at the moment, however Khosla Labs CEO Srikanth Nadhamuni said that they will be incubating 4-6 startups through this initiative. Khosla Labs is also organizing an Aadhaar Hackathon next month, wherein the incubator will conduct tutorials on building Aadhaar verification apps for Android and provide developers with requisite biometric devices & SDKs to build apps for the Aadhaar platform. Note that Nadhamuni was earlier the technology head of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) before joining Khosla Labs in October 2012.

There is no specific information on what sectors the incubator is looking at, although there are some indicators. At a recent press interaction, Khosla said their impact efforts are more focused on “services and goods that people at the bottom of the pyramid can use”, since most of the investments “go after the people who have money, which leaves out the bottom three billion people on this planet”.

Novopay Solutions

Khosla Labs had also incubated a mobile payments solution provider called Novopay Solutions earlier this year. The company offers Android-based mobile payment solutions to Kirana stores, but what’s interesting is that it uses Aadhaar-based biometric scanners to allow consumers conduct banking transactions, money transfer and mobile payments among others.

Novopay is currently operational in select locations in New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore and is headed by Sridhar Rao, who was the CEO of Vodafone India’s mobile payment service M-Pesa until November 2012.

Others in the team include Novopay CTO Sanjay Jain who was UIDAI’s chief product manager until June 2012 and Novopay COO Gautam Bandyopadhyay who was previously the head of Infosys’s Finacle innovation hub wherein he was involved in projects like Airtel Money and India Post among others.

That being said, Khosla Ventures currently has no plans to setup a India-specific fund. Khosla said –

We tend not to do separate funds but our investment in KV Labs (Khosla Ventures Labs) is an example of that. We are doing more and more at KV Labs but I don’t expect we’ll setup an India fund.

On reliability of Aadhaar:

Khosla believes that Aadhaar has way more benefits than harm, and the problems like people having multiple cards (or the bizarre situation of Aadhaar card being issued to Coriander) will reduce over time. He said –

Any technology which starts out has some problems. The key question is does it have more benefits than harm. I have no questions that Aadhaar has way more benefits than harm. Can some people get multiple Aadhaar numbers? Yes. But if you can save 10%, 20% or 30% of government programs, because there is less corruption, less laws or more efficiency, then is it worth putting up with the problem? Once the problem is identified, it almost certainly can be solved.

I consider Aadhaar as important infrastructure as say roads, airports and ports. When you build a new road, some people will have car accidents on it, but you learn how to reduce it by putting a median on the road. You solve problems one step at a time.