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

Saturday, July 18, 2015

8225 - State logs in to digital India - Telegraph India


State logs in to digital India
- PM fetes Giridih achiever, CM launches appointment app
Our Correspondent

Chief minister Raghubar Das is all ears in Ranchi as Prime Minister Narendra Modi launches the Digital India Week in Delhi on Wednesday and (below) employees of the General Post Office, which has lined up a string of programmes, watch the proceedings in Jamshedpur. Pictures by Prashant Mitra and Bhola Prasad

Ranchi, July 1: Digital India Week, launched with great fanfare by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium today to transform India into a digitally empowered mega knowledge economy, had a proud Jharkhand moment.

Kiran Kumari, a Pragya Kendra worker from Giridih, received a laptop and a citation from Modi to acknowledge the fact that she opened 5,000 digital lockers in 10 days, trained 200 anganwadi workers to become tech-savvy and was instrumental in her kendra enrolling highest number of Aadhaar card-owners in Jharkhand.

"It's a proud moment for us all as Kiran Kumari is from Dhanwar, Giridih," Giridih DC Uma Shankar Singh told The Telegraph this evening. "Her achievements are notable in the run-up to Digital India Week."

In Ranchi, chief minister Raghubar Das kicked off the digital week at a newly built conference hall in Project Building in the presence of state urban development minister C.P. Singh, development commissioner R.S. Poddar, information technology secretary Sunil Kumar Burnwal.

"Our country is ready for its biggest digital empowerment measure under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership, which will change the face of the country. Jharkhand has moved towards e-governance and it is our priority to make people digitally literate. The unique combination of Make in India and Digital India campaigns will completely transform India," chief minister Das said.

Jharkhand has campaigned aggressively for e-lockers and at present stands fourth among Indian states and Union Territories with 45,000 e-lockers opened in the past one-and-a-half weeks.

Today, Das also launched Online Appointment, an app through which a citizen can seek appointments from the chief minister, his cabinet ministers and top bureaucrats.

Sounding upbeat about both initiatives, Burnwal said the state aimed at contributing 10 per cent of the Centre's goal of opening 10 lakh digital lockers, also called DigiLockers and e-lockers, across the country in the coming week and added that the appointment app would empower the common man.

The e-locker is a personal online folder with up to 1GB space for every citizen owning an Aadhaar number linked to an email ID or cellphone number. Citizens can digitally store e-documents free of cost by opening an account at digitallocker.gov.in.

Though Online Appointment is not a mobile app, it is easy to operate from a laptop or PC, said representatives of National Informatics Centre (Jharkhand state centre), who have designed and developed it.

"Anybody seeking an appointment can visit jharkhandmulakat.nic.in and apply. A request will be sent to the department concerned, which will fix the time and date and inform the same to the supplicant through an SMS," said Shahid Ahmad, state informatics officer of the NIC.

Twenty-five Pragya Kendras from across the state also received tablet PCs and citations. Till July 7, the IT department will arrange programmes across the state, especially in schools and colleges, spreading awareness on e-governance, e-education and e-health, launching contests on best mobile apps for public utility, essay writing on digital challenges and opportunities in rural India, IT quiz and talent hunts.
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