AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 7473 - Invest more in agriculture by targeting subsidies better:

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, March 3, 2015

7473 - Invest more in agriculture by targeting subsidies better: - Live Mint

Invest more in agriculture by targeting subsidies better:

Economic Survey Economic Survey calls for increased investments in agricultural infrastructure and research, stresses need for common market

Sayantan Bera

Photo: Priyanka Parashar/Mint

New Delhi: The time is ripe for a broad response to challenges in agriculture to ensure it grows at an annual pace of 4% on a sustained basis, the Economic Survey released on Friday said, calling for increased investments in agricultural infrastructure and research, and stressing the need for a common market.

Rationalisation and better targeting of subsidies can free up resources required for investments in agriculture, the survey observed, adding that the focus of public expenditure should shift from provisioning of subsidies towards investments to boost productivity. “As terms of trade deteriorate and rural incomes come under pressure, the political pressure for support will increase,” the survey noted. “There have been proposal to raise tariffs in a number of sectors like oilseeds and pulses and to provide export subsidies in sugar.” The quick response would be to enhance targeted support for the vulnerable—the small farmer and the agriculture labourer, the survey suggested.

“MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) has the virtue of being reasonably well-targeted. The challenge here is to build on this feature and use the program to build assets such as rural roads, micro-irrigation and water management, while also shoring up rural incomes.” The survey said India’s agricultural markets were not integrated and tended to be distorted. It needs a national common market for farm commodities; towards that end, agriculture produce marketing committees should be made just one among many options available for farmers to sell their output, the survey said and called for a reassessment of the role of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research—the apex farm research body in the country; it asked whether research, education and extension should be separated. To generate resources required for public investments in agriculture—in research, education, extension, irrigation, water management, soil testing, warehousing and cold storage— rationalisation of subsidies and better targeting through direct transfers can be the way out, the survey said. To achieve this, the survey made a strong pitch for cutting back price subsidies by using technology to plug leakages and said direct cash transfers, if targeted well, were capable of boosting household consumption, asset ownership and reduce food security problems of ultra-poor households. The survey coined a new term in the food management lexicon, the JAM number trinity—Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar and mobile numbers—that will allow the state to offer cash support to poor households in a targeted and less distortive way. Jan Dhan Yojana is aimed at ensuring that every household in the country has a bank account; Aadhaar is the unique identity number the centre wants every resident of the country to have. The fiscal cost of leakages in the existing public distribution system (PDS) is high—Rs.10,044 crore for subsidized kerosene, Rs.5,800 crore for PDS rice and Rs.12,600 crore for PDS wheat— and price subsidies also distort markets in ways that ultimately hurt the poor, the survey said, adding that minimum support prices (MSP) contribute to food price inflation and lead to water-intensive cultivation. However, cash transfers may prove to be daunting for the centre to implement. The Supreme Court in March last year had said that no citizen can be deprived of an entitled service for want of an Aadhaar number. Also, states such as Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh have in the past voiced their opposition to cash transfers of PDS benefits. “Agriculture is the weakest part of the economic survey. At a time when farmers’ incomes are squeezed due to a crash in commodity prices, the survey only offers lip service to boosting investments,” said Himanshu, associate professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University and a Mint columnist. “To say targeting subsidies will save resources is like reinventing the wheel. Certain subsidies are meant to be given in certain form (PDS subsidies in kind). If cash could deliver outcomes (say, better nutritional standards), then economic growth is the largest cash transfer programme. Do cash transfer programmes like Indira Awas Yojana (housing for rural poor) or old age pension schemes have no leakages?”