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, August 4, 2016

10225 - Maneka sees point in single mom's passport plea - Telegraph India


Maneka sees point in single mom's passport plea
Ananya Sengupta
New Delhi, July 15: Maneka Gandhi today wrote to foreign minister Sushma Swaraj requesting children of single mothers be allowed to exclude their father's name from their passports, a day after a divorced mother launched an online petition with the demand.
Sources in Maneka's women and child development ministry said her letter had been spurred by Priyanka Gupta's change.org petition, addressed to her ministry as well as the foreign and home offices, which had collected 25,000 signatures by this evening.
"Have received petitions where #mother/#child have insisted that name of the father should not be mentioned in #passport," Maneka tweeted today, tagging Sushma.

"The petitions involved cases in which the father had abandoned the mother and the court had granted custody of the child to the mother."
She added: "The current guidelines for #passports warrant the name of the father as a mandatory requirement. I have requested Smt @SushmaSwaraj ji to look into the matter & get necessary modifications done in the rules for issuance of #passports."
In her letter, Maneka has cited a Delhi High Court judgment that said earlier this year that in the case of single mothers, her name alone would suffice for her child to apply for a passport.
When the government had argued that the passport office software didn't accept a single parent's application for her child, the court said that this did not make it a legal requirement.
It also cited how, on two previous occasions in 2005 and 2011, passports had been issued without the father's name, which "makes it evident that the said requirement is not a legal necessity but only a procedural formality".
After the verdict, the government gave the relief to the daughter of the petitioner, a single mother, but did not change the rules for others, prompting Gupta's petition.
"My husband abandoned my daughter and me when she was born just because she was a girl. He never looked back and doesn't even care whether we're dead or alive," Gupta's petition says.
"Recently, I applied for the passport of my daughter. My daughter doesn't want her father's name on the document. Our application was denied and we were told that both names are required."
Gupta says the passport office's logic was that her husband's name occurs in her daughter Garima's birth certificate ---- although the college-going teen's Aadhaar card, voter ID card and bank account only carry a single parent's name: her mother's.
She told The Telegraph the passport office demands the father's name wherever it's possible to identify a father, making an exception only for the children of single adoptive mothers. "Why should a divorced woman suffer?" she asked.
Gupta said she had applied for her daughter's passport in 2014, when Garima was a minor.
"She got the passport only when I relented and put in her father's name. She hates me for it. My humble request is for the Prime Minister and the home ministry to look into this matter and help single parents, both fathers and mothers."
Garima says she doesn't want her father's name on her passport.
"I need my passport, it's a necessity, but I don't want it with the name of a man who abandoned us because of me being a girl. To him, I am dead and honestly, I don't care about him either," she has said in a comment attached to her mother's petition.
"I have my voter's identity card, Aadhaar card, my 10th and 12th pass certificates --- all in my name and my mom's, then why not my passport?"
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