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

Thursday, August 27, 2015

8599 - Criminally Correct - Kashmir Life

Criminally Correct

Posted on: Monday, August 24th, 2015

Arshid Malik

A few weeks ago some people (official designates) visited our home and did a head count and noted down names, age and gender etc. of the inhabitants. We were given a coupon with a code and were given a date on which we were required to visit the “Aadhaar Card” Camp which would be setup in the locality for biometrics and identification. The day the camp was setup there was an unending queue at the Camp; everyone was in a rush to get himself/herself enrolled. I turned up at the last moment upon handling persistent calls from my father who wanted me to enrol myself for the card. There were a few people from my locality still getting enrolled and I waited out my turn. Then I realized that the person in the chair getting his prints and eyes scanned was a top pro-Pakistani “agitator” from the area. I asked him, “Hey! Why are you getting yourself scanned; I thought you “hated India” and its systems?” He replied in a squeaky voice, “I turned up to see what they were up to, actually.” That was the best possible excuse.

It was the former Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh who under some “influence” appointed former Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani as Chairperson of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which had been set up to assign a unique number to every resident of the country. Nilekani chose his “dream team” and made forays into turning this “dream project” into a reality. 

The project eventuated “Aadhaar Card” (Aadhaar meaning base or basis) project which has now made it mandatory for every citizen of India to enrol himself/herself for the card by way of forcing people into coercive submission by making it mandatory to have an “Aadhaar Card” to get an LPG refill, file an RTI and other such basic necessities. 

The Unique Identification System had met with a lot of criticism from the Indian intelligentsia for it was too brazen a system to strip citizens of their privacy and thus the “system” was collated to acquiring subsidized amenities in the stead of a ration card. 

This levelled out the opposition to a great extent and sent every individual hankering after it instead of asking questions and raising doubts. This is the way cunning governments who want to feed off democratic systems of governance to “tap” the citizenry work which is made evident by the fact that even email identities and phone numbers are being logged.

The “Aadhaar Card” which roughly translates into the “Basis Card”, is an anti-privacy and anti-democratic project which seeks to create a full-fledged database of the Indian population which would be at the fingertips of government agencies 24×7 and when I say agencies I am not indicating only Indian agencies. 

The “Aadhaar Card” Project is being run by a US-based company which under US law would have to turn in the data to the US if their government demands. So, by and large we will be part of the “US Database against Terror” in the coming few years and thus under constant surveillance. 

The off-beat excuse that the government has for mapping the biometrics of the population is that it would be able to control crime and hunt down criminals in comparatively shorter spans of time but why does the whole nation have to surrender its privacy to better the crime-fighting system. 

Well, they can nab criminals but can they stop crime? As for the poor, who think they will be benefitted, I do not think possessing an “Aadhaar Card” will stop a crisis-hit farmer from committing suicide. The whole exercise, which is approximately costing the government a whopping Rs 150,000 crores, is a violation of democratic rights. Howsoever, I must admit that the government is criminally correct in what it is doing.
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