AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 9110 - JAM+Digital India=Better financial inclusion for India’s marginalised

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, December 3, 2015

9110 - JAM+Digital India=Better financial inclusion for India’s marginalised - Hindustan Times

JAM+Digital India=Better financial inclusion for India’s marginalised

Arvind Gupta/Krishnan Dharmarajan | Updated: Nov 28, 2015 01:40 IST

The winning combination of JAM with Digital India has kick-started a major disruption in banking, payments and the like, as never before. All this will hopefully unveil the promised revolution of a less-cash society, financial inclusion and a savings culture which can be beneficial for the economy. (Abhinav Saha/HT Photo)

India’s marginal citizens now appear to be at the centre-stage of things, even in newer areas of technology and financial innovation. This is largely because of #DigitalIndia and the vision behind this programme — the empowerment of a billion Indians, most of whom live in villages across the country.

The real push has come from combining the Jan Dhan accounts, the Aadhaar identity infrastructure and the spread of mobile phones. Together, this new vehicle for government reforms now seems to have caught the imagination of policymakers, RBI, researchers and technology innovators. At a recent discussion on Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM), participants spoke of how financial technology could use these 3 pillars in the service of the poor and excluded.

For a start, a bank account for every household is a means of pulling each one of the excluded families into the financial mainstream. On the one hand are the 99.7% households that the bank accounts have already reached. On the other, a regulatory innovation has now unleashed 11 new payments banks to reach out to the people. Interestingly, licences have been given to entities which have built viable business models based on small-value transactions.

Coupled with the payments bridge that links each Aadhaar number with a bank account, an effective channel is fast emerging to route intended benefits to the poor and make many of these small accounts viable. Importantly, more firepower has been added to the inclusion drive as well by the move to grant licences to a set of small finance banks, which by virtue of their licensing conditions are required to focus on the under-banked and poor. The new connectivity solutions and smartphones will allow more and more people to carry a 24/7 bank in their pocket in the near future. With over 65%of the population under the age of 35, we have the right demographic profile to adopt this technology-driven change.

A growing number of IT-driven governance systems are set to deliver benefits in cash and kind in a manner that will at once cut down the leakages and put more disposable income in the hands of the poor.

Banks and regulators must adopt consumer-friendly practices and schemes to encourage a less-cash ecosystem. It is outdated thinking to flag tax payers making credit card purchases of Rs 2,00,000 per year for potential scrutiny; this should instead give way to tax breaks for those who spend a substantial portion of their income in cashless transactions. A small change in mindset can bring significant transparency in monetary transactions and yield benefits that could go beyond mere efficiency gains.

Arvind Gupta is a digital entrepreneur, Eisenhower Fellow for Innovation and heads the BJP’s technology cell , Krishnan Dharmarajan is executive director at the Centre for Digital Financial Inclusion. The views expressed are personal.