AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 7465 - EC drive to link poll rolls with Aadhaar on March 3

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

Monday, March 2, 2015

7465 - EC drive to link poll rolls with Aadhaar on March 3 - TNN

EC drive to link poll rolls with Aadhaar on March 3

Bharti Jain, TNN | Feb 28, 2015, 05.04AM IST

The Election Commission will launch a nationwide drive on March 3 to purify electoral rolls by linking UIDAI’s Aadhaar data with electoral photo identity card database.

NEW DELHI: The Election Commission will launch a nationwide drive on March 3 to purify electoral rolls by linking UIDAI's Aadhaar data with electoral photo identity card (EPIC) database. The project is to be completed by August 15 this year.

The seeding of Aadhaar number with EPIC under the National Electoral Rolls Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP), will end duplication of electors database by weeding out fraudulent (duplicate, bogus, ineligible and shifted) EPIC Card holders. "Once the project is successfully completed, we can declare to the world that our electoral rolls are perfect and error-free," chief election commissioner H S Brahma said on Friday.

NERPAP also proposes linking of mobile number and e-mail address to provide poll-related information to voters. It will also allow electors to voluntarily disclose multiple entries pertaining to him, followed by disposal of such cases by the electoral registration officer (ERO) within 15 days. The programme will also allow correction of errors in EPIC database on production of cogent documentary evidence, besides allowing improvement of image quality of elector by borrowing better photos from the UIDAI database.

According to data furnished to EC by UIDAI, only 50 crore of the country's 85 crore electors have enrolled for Aadhaar so far. The remaining voters will be issued Aadhaar numbers over the next couple of months, UIDAI has assured EC.

Yet, a look at the Aadhar enrolment figures as on February 26, 2015, indicates that UIDAI has a major task at hand in several states. Though the national Aadhar enrolment percentage is 63.27%, Bihar lags behind with just 32.13% enrolment, as does UP (42.86%), Uttarakhand (47.86%) and many north-eastern states. "We will keep up the pressure on UIDAI to expedite enrolment in these states, so our objective of one vote for one Aadhaar number is achieved within the given timeframe," said a senior EC functionary.

Under NERPAP, voters can feed their Aadhaar number online using the National Voters Service Portal (NVSP) or through a mobile application likely to be available by first week of March. The facility of feeding one's Aadhaar data by sending a simple SMS/email to a designated number/address or making a call at '1950' to state and district call centres will also be available. Alternatively, the details of one's Aadhaar and EPIC may be submitted in hard copy along with photocopies of both the documents.

Where the voters don't feed their Aadhaar data voluntarily, EC's poll machinery, or the BLOs, will collect these details from electors by conducting door to door surveys or through voter facilitation centres, e-Seva centres and citizen service centres authorized by the district election officer (DEO).

The de-duplication will then be done by EC technical staff by matching the identification details on Aadhaar and EPIC databases so as to eliminate bogus EPIC holders.

The launch of the nationwide mission for purification of rolls follows the successful completion of a pilot project in GHMC area and Nizamabad in Telangana.