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

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

9620 - Govt's LPG subsidies caused loss of 97 crore, not any savings, finds study - News Minute

The reduction in cooking-gas subsidies in 2014-15 was no more than Rs 143 crore ($21 million), the study said.
Saturday, March 19, 2016 - 12:20


- See more at: http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/govts-lpg-subsidies-caused-loss-97-crore-not-savings-finds-study-40497#sthash.bgIg7TV6.dpuf

By FactChecker.in
The government has said that direct transfers of subsidies to cooking-gas consumers have saved Rs 14,672 crore ($2.2 billion) but it actually led to a loss of Rs 97 crore ($14 million), according to an analysis by the Global Subsidies Initiative, a part of Canada-based International Institute For Sustainable Development (IISD).

The reduction in cooking-gas subsidies in 2014-15 was no more than Rs 143 crore ($21 million), the study said.

The government set aside Rs 200 crore ($30 million) to implement the direct benefit transfers for liquefied petroleum gas (DBTL), or Pratyaksh Hanstantrit Labh (PAHAL), of which Rs 40 crore ($6 million) were commissions paid in 2014-15, the study said, quoting the government’s own figures.
“Therefore, the maximum net saving, according to the government’s own figures—without accurately accounting for the costs of implementation and entirely discounting Rs 5,234 crore ($781 million) provided in permanent advances (and associated interest costs)—was approximately (-) Rs. 97 crore ($14 million),” the IISD report said.

On October 12, 2015, the government said 33.4 million consumers were blocked under PAHAL and related activities. “If we take into account the quota of 12 cylinders per consumer and the average LPG subsidy of Rs 336 [sic] per cylinder for the year 2014–15, estimated savings in LPG subsidy due to the blocking of 33.4 million accounts work out to Rs 14,672 crore ($2.2 billion), during that year,” the government’s release said.
Subsidies have grown four-fold over the last 10 years, IndiaSpend reported earlier.

Petroleum subsidies increased from Rs 2,820 crore in 2007-08 to an estimated Rs 26,947 crore in the budget estimates for 2016-17, a nine-fold growth.

The petroleum subsidy peaked at Rs 96,880 crore ($17.9 billion at an exchange rate of Rs 54/$) in 2012-13 and declined to about Rs 30,000 crore ($4.4 billion) in the revised budget estimates for 2015-16.

Public data “clearly demonstrate” that DBTL was not responsible for identifying and blocking 33.4 million connections or even a significant fraction of this number, the IISD study said.
“… the large majority of the connections formally identified and blocked as of March 31, 2015 (and presented as blocked by DBTL) were done prior to the nationwide introduction of DBTL, and through methods entirely unrelated to DBTL or Aadhaar,” the report said.

Fake and duplicate connections unearthed—but not as the government claims

A large majority of potentially irregular connections were identified through a process unrelated to DBTL. “The only mechanism for identifying and blocking potentially irregular connections that was specific to the DBTL programme (as implemented) was Aadhaar-based de-duplication,” the IISD report said.

The government’s own figures have demonstrated that the maximum number of potential duplicates identified in LPG databases through Aadhaar-based de-duplication is approximately 1% (or less) of connections assessed—a figure that may relate to an even smaller percentage of consumption, the IISD study reported.

The list-based de-duplication was between 15 to 20 times more effective in identifying irregular connections than the Aadhaar-based method, while imposing less than 1% of the equivalent cost of implementation to both government and beneficiaries.
“In the case of LPG, the path to substantive subsidy reform is clear—reinstatement of a realistic per-household cylinder cap, adjustment of the per-cylinder price-to-subsidy ratio, a crash programme of access extension to all non-connected households, and rapid expansion and formalisation of access to smaller cylinders (both subsidised and unsubsidised),” the IISD study said.

The Finance Minister’s LPG expansion programme
During his budget speech, the Finance Minister announced plans to give cooking gas to 50 million households that live below the poverty line.

“We have decided to embark upon on a massive mission to provide LPG connection in the name of women members of poor households,” said Jaitley. “I have set aside a sum of Rs 2,000 crore ($290 million) in this year’s Budget to meet the initial cost of providing these LPG connections. This will benefit about 15 million households below the poverty line (BPL) in 2016-17. The scheme will be continued for at least two more years to cover a total of 50 million BPL households.”

The proposal has also been welcomed by experts. As columnist Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar wrote: “The analysis of Arun Jaitley’s Budget has focused on issues like the fiscal deficit, boost to infrastructure, and sundry tax measures. Yet in terms of life and death, by far his most important proposal is the scheme to provide LPG (cooking gas) to the poorest 50 million households over the next few years. This finally shows sensitivity to one of India’s greatest health hazards that has long been ignored…indoor pollution has always been a far greater health hazard, killing and maiming million… at last we have recognised a huge problem terribly neglected for decades.”

(FactChecker.in is a fact-checking initiative, scrutinising for veracity and context, statements made by individuals and organisations in public life.)

- See more at: http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/govts-lpg-subsidies-caused-loss-97-crore-not-savings-finds-study-40497#sthash.bgIg7TV6.dpuf