AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 8718 - Five Myths about Aadhar - Reetika Khera

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

Sunday, September 20, 2015

8718 - Five Myths about Aadhar - Reetika Khera - Outlook India

FOR THE RECORD

Five Myths about Aadhar

And how to dispel these misconceptions using the government’s own data.

REETIKA KHERA

There are many misconceptions about the "aadhaar" number.

Many people believe that this project is essential for poor people, better implementation of government programmes and so on. This note dispels these misconceptions using the government's own data. Here are the five most popular myths.

The UID project will help give a valid ID to millions of Indians who do not have any ID.

According to a recent reply to an RTI query, only 0.03% of those who got an aadhaar number were people who had no ID before. The rest (99.97%) were enrolled with the help of existing IDs.
UID is necessary for reducing corruption in government programmes

Between 2004-5 and 2011-12, corruption in the PDS in several states has decreased. For example, in Bihar it has come down from 90 per cent to around 20 per cent; in Chhattisgarh from 50 per cent to 20 per cent, in Odisha from 75 per cent to about 25 per cent. These improvements have come about without any use of aadhaar.

Similarly, in NREGA also, corruption has gone down. Earlier, close to half of the wages did not reach NREGA workers. This has come down: according to estimates using IHDS data, leakages are less than 5 per cent now. Again, this has been achieved without aadhaar: payment of wages through bank and post office accounts has acted as a safeguard against corruption.
UID is necessary because there is a lot of duplication of names in welfare programmes

There is very little reliable data on duplication. In its report, the Dhande Committee report on DBT for LPG found that there were about 2 per cent duplicate beneficiaries in the LPG database (p. 22). According to an affidavit submitted by the government to the Supreme Court, 2% duplicate job cards were detected in Andhra Pradesh. In the PEEP survey, we had found only one case of duplication (out of nearly 3800 beneficiaries) on the pension lists from ten states.

The size of the duplication problem remains a mystery. A cost-benefit study of UID by researchers from NIPFP was constrained to make a purely hypothetical assumption about duplication for their calculations.
The UID database is foolproof

In March 2015, in Parliament, a minister said that more than nine crore enrolment records were rejected due to quality issues and suspected fraud.
UID is necessary to proceed with "Direct Benefit Transfers" (DBT)

This is not true. For DBT, people need to have bank accounts. In fact, as government data below shows, DBT are doing quite well without aadhaar. In the case of NREGA, pensions etc, more than 90% of wages are paid through NEFT rather than the aadhaar-payment platform.

Name of the Scheme	Total amount transferred (Rs. Crore)	Share of transfer through
		Aadhaar-based NPCI (%)	Aadhaar-free PMFS+NEFT (%)
MGNREGA	20,010	2	98
LPG subsidy ("PAHAL")	9,384	59	41
NSAP (IGNOAPS, IGNWPS & IGNDPS)	6,956	5	95
Janani Suraksha Yojna	127	4	96
Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojna	77	11	89