AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 9187 - Government rolls back order on physical registration of leave and licence agreements -dna

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, December 29, 2015

9187 - Government rolls back order on physical registration of leave and licence agreements -dna

Government rolls back order on physical registration of leave and licence agreements

By Dhaval Kulkarni

Date published: Friday, 18 December 2015 - 7:40am IST | Agency: dna

Senior officials said from Tuesday onwards, they had decided to withdraw the decision in three of the four offices, namely at Kurla, Andheri and Borivli, where manual registration will take place again.

Over two months after it decided to stop physical registration of leave and licence agreements in some sub-registrar offices in Mumbai, the state has decided to roll back the order.

On October 7, the department of registration and stamps had decided that four sub-registrar offices — one each in the island city, Andheri, Borivli and Kurla — would be off limits for leave and licence registration. This was meant to reduce footfalls in these offices as these agreements form a bulk of the registration burden and give a boost to e-registration at empanelled service providers.

"This is being done in view of the high registrations which happen in December. We had decided to stop physical registration of leave and licence documents at the Andheri-I, Kurla-I, Borivli-I and Mumbai city-I offices, but are withdrawing it for the time being in view of public convenience," an official said.

Mumbai has 25 registration offices including five in the city, six at Andheri, five at Kurla and nine at Borivli. Of these, leave and licence registrations have been stopped at one office in each location. This was a precursor to gradually ensure that all leave and licence documents were e-registered.

However, this was not being done "openly" due to the Supreme Court's judgment which said that the Aadhaar card will not be mandatory but can be used optionally to avail various welfare schemes.

Officials say that this Aadhaar-based e-registration, which will serve as an alternative to the cumbersome and time-consuming physical registration process, will help people file documents at their convenience, do away with the necessity of coming to government offices and being fleeced by agents and lawyers charging hefty fees. However, this may inconvenience people who do not hold Aadhaar cards or are unaware about the facility.

This reduction in footfalls would also enable the department to undertake back-end work on recovering stamp duty on around 50,000 documents in Mumbai (of a total 1.25 lakh in Maharashtra) pending for registration.

This e-registration will take place through authorised service providers (ASPs) — Mumbai has 71 now with plans to scale it up gradually to 200 by March — and also through the state government's MahaOnline portal. These service providers will charge Rs700 for these services (of which Rs150 will be paid to the department) and an extra Rs300 for home visits.

For e-registration, the parties to the document and their identifiers need to be Aadhaar card holders.

Officials say this will also prevent agents and lawyers from charging hefty amounts to people for drafting these agreements. The department had uploaded a draft document which would do away with such intermediaries.

"We have set ourselves a target to ensure that at least 50% of leave and licence documents are registered through the e-registration route by March. So, people who come to our offices for registering other documents will get good service while those registering leave and licence documents will be able to do so at their convenience," the official said.

Of the around 3 lakh leave and licence documents registered across Maharashtra, around 2.5 lakh are in Mumbai.

The department is also looking at allowing a non-Aadhar linked
e-KYC based authentication system to push e-registration of documents. This system, which will cover people who have registered their biometrics for various transactions at the sub-registrar offices since 2012, will ensure that more citizens can register their documents electronically.

Today, e-registration accounts for just around 10.09% of leave and licence documents registered. Apart from leave and licence documents, people can also register first sale of flats by developers and Mhada allotment letters from the Konkan Board using the facility. People with the necessary software and hardware can do so from the comfort of their home.