AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 10180 - Manmohan Singh has some words of advice for Modi

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

Friday, July 29, 2016

10180 - Manmohan Singh has some words of advice for Modi - Asia Nikkei

June 30, 2016 12:00 pm JST

Chaitanya Kalbag: Manmohan Singh has some words of advice for Modi

India's former prime minister Manmohan Singh (blue turban) and Congress party president Sonia Gandhi cross a police barricade during a "Save Democracy" march to parliament in New Delhi in May. © Reuters

The man who launched India's economic revolution 25 years ago, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, believes the country needs a stronger political consensus on reform to fuel double-digit growth and lasting prosperity.

India's economy expanded 7.6% in the fiscal year ended in March and is set to be the fastest-growing in the world this year, outpacing China's -- but Singh is not sanguine. "We need a growth rate of 8 to 10% to be sustained over a long period of time," he told the Nikkei Asian Review in a rare interview. "We must move forward, we must build a national consensus on reform. We have to make sure that multiparty democracy does not inhibit the growth factor, the reform process."

Singh, 83, noted that India's economy has grown by an average of 6.5% a year since economic reforms were launched in 1991. China, which began its own economic modernization in 1978, has far exceeded India in the speed of its expansion.

Supporters of India's main opposition Congress party attend a protest against what they say is a rise in the prices of essential food items and fuel in Ahmedabad in June. © Reuters

The roots of India's economic revolution go back to when P.V. Narasimha Rao, the Congress party prime minister in 1991, gave then-Finance Minister Singh crucial support in freeing what was a closed, Soviet-style economy. The two men overturned a protectionist industrial policy and started dismantling a corrupt and inefficient licensing regime.

Singh's tenure as finance minister ended when his party lost an election in 1996. He returned to government as prime minister in 2004, running quarrelsome coalition governments for a decade. He is pleased that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party administration, which replaced the Congress party two years ago, is now taking forward most of his initiatives.

For instance, Modi has set up a ministry of skill development, giving more muscle to Singh's National Skill Development Agency. "Employment and skilling our people is the major problem, and the youth of the country are desperate for jobs," Singh said. "About a million young people enter India's workforce every month. Better vocational training will create a vast blue-collar army and provide manpower for millions of small and medium enterprises."

Anxious to expand the half-finished social sector reforms of the 1990s, Singh as prime minister kicked off financial inclusion for India's vast under-banked rural population. Modi has continued that process, opening nearly 300 million bank accounts with zero balances for the rural poor and creating a conduit for the direct transfer of subsidy payments to beneficiaries.

Modi has promised cooking-gas connections for the poor. Singh ended a gasoline subsidy; Modi ended subsidies on diesel. Singh's government launched the world's biggest unique identity project, Aadhaar. Modi has extended it to more than a billion Indians and given the ambitious program constitutional permanence.

"The BJP had opposed the universalization of these processes. They opposed the Aadhaar scheme," Singh said. "Now they've picked it up."

Singh opened up India to foreign direct investment, but Modi has flung the doors wide open, declaring after the latest burst of liberalization on June 20 that India was the world's most investor-friendly country.