AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 8144 - Reality cuts into poll euphoria at Aruvikkara

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, June 16, 2015

8144 - Reality cuts into poll euphoria at Aruvikkara - The Hindu

June 15, 2015

Reality cuts into poll euphoria at Aruvikkara

The tough life in tribal hamlets at Aruvikkara seems to have blown a hole in the hoopla surrounding the by-election.

It is not often that top politicians get to see life in the raw deep inside tribal hamlets that can be reached only if one treks for long hours or takes a bumpy ride by vehicles that are little better than ramshackle contraptions. The Aruvikkara Assembly by-election is turning out to be an occasion for such a rare reality check for many politicians. Prominent among them is Chief Minister Oommen Chandy who has been pushing himself to the limits doing the rounds of the many Scheduled Tribe hamlets and Scheduled Caste colonies in Aruvikkara.

On the first day of his visit to the constituency, the Chief Minister spent as many as 16 hours moving from one tribal hamlet to another, the first Chief Minister to do so if one were to believe the local people. From the way Mr. Chandy was received with song and dance by the Adivasis, anybody could guess that considerable preparation had gone into the series of events. There were Adivasis waiting to receive the Chief Minister with their drums and dance and ready to feed him tapioca and their special chutneys.

Aruvikkara virtually borders the capital city and many who travelled with the Chief Minister could not help wondering whether the harsh life that Adivasis lived just a whiff away from the seat of power had registered where it should.

Hardly a month after the Supreme Court ruled that Aadhaar cards should not be made mandatory for benefits under various government schemes, the Palakkad district authorities have decided that the possession of the Aadhaar card is mandatory if a person is to get any benefit from the proposed mass contact programme of Chief Minister Ooomen Chandy in the district this week.

Apparently, the import of the Supreme Court directive and the subsequent instructions from the Union government are yet to sink into the district administration. At a news conference recently, District Collector P. Marykutty insisted that benefits granted at the mass contact programme would be credited to the bank accounts of only those who possessed the Aadhaar card.

When scribes brought the Supreme Court order and the subsequent Union government directives to her attention, the District Collector was heard wondering aloud why people were not obtaining Aadhaar cards when various official agencies were collecting more information from them.

Although she finally said that people without the Aadhaar would be welcome at the function, officials accompanying her were in no doubt that those who possessed Aadhaar cards should turn up at the event with the cards.

A few candid observations made by the Fifth State Finance Commission about the functioning of local bodies in Kozhikode district seem to have earned the wrath of the Mayor and the Kozhikode district panchayat president.

Commission chairman B.A. Prakash had observed that the civic bodies had failed to mobilise their own resources, and that the three-tier local bodies in the district were only interested in securing funds from the State government. The commission has been mandated to review the financial position of panchayats and municipalities and make recommendations.

Mayor A.K. Premajam’s complaint was that the commission had overlooked the constraints that limited the manoeuvrability of the local bodies.

District panchayat president Kanathil Jameela’s grievance was that the district panchayat could not possibly implement schemes without getting approval from the Chief Engineer attached to the Local Self-government Department. Both, sources close to them say, were upset because the commission’s observation would create the impression that the two local bodies had not delivered on their promises at a time when preparations were afoot for the three-tier local body polls slated for September-October this year.

(With inputs from

C. Gouridasan Nair

(Thiruvananthapuram),

K.A. Shaji (Palakkad), and Biju Govind (Kozhikode)