AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 10570 - Umang, the master app for Govt services, will feature only Aadhaar & few other amenities in initial rollout

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, December 9, 2016

10570 - Umang, the master app for Govt services, will feature only Aadhaar & few other amenities in initial rollout

Umang, the master app for Govt services, will feature only Aadhaar & few other amenities in initial rollout

“Since most government services will be linked to Aadhaar, it makes sense to integrate it with UMANG,“ said a senior official in the ministry of electronics and information technology

Neha Alawadhi | ET Bureau | Updated: November 03, 2016, 08:28 IST

A master app to unlock government services for citizens on the mobile phone is slated for launch within four months, but only a small number of amenities will form part of the initial rollout, according to people aware of the plan.

Aadhaar, the unique identity number, will be in the first lot, providing a validation layer for all services, and so are government solutions for healthcare and skill development and those aimed at farmers and students.

“Since most government services will be linked to Aadhaar, it makes sense to integrate it with UMANG,“ said a senior official in the ministry of electronics and information technology, referring to Unified Mobile App for New-Age Governance which will be a mobile gateway to central, state and municipal services.

“UMANG will enable citizens to download a single mobile app instead of multiple apps for each department, and make it easy for them to discover government services,“ the official said. Spice Digital, a part of the Noida-based Spice Connect group, has been contracted to develop the first set of apps as part of UMANG.

Some 200 apps will eventually be part of the project by December 2019. Part of the mandate for Spice Digital is to provide support for Aadhar based e-KYC, document access via Digilocker and easy pa yments via PayGov -the government's payment gateway.

“The app will have a section where the citizen can update their preferences, frequently accessed services and short-cuts, languages, and so on, which will then be available for all services so that data entry can be minimised,“ said Jatinder Verma, president of Spice Digital.

The government already has an existing app store platform called “Mobile Seva“ which hosts applications from different government departments, leading to a multiplicity of apps.

With UMANG, the government hopes to address some of these issues as well. “This is a graduation from Mobile Seva, which has over 600-800 applications built by different developers, often for the same thing, which tells us there should be one single application,“ said the government official.

While Mobile Seva will continue to exist, UMANG aims to reduce the time taken for different de partments to come on board the mobile app route.

“This will become a boon to many government departments which have limited capability or resources to frame their own tenders and execute their individual projects,“ said the official.

Also, most government departments still do not have mobile apps covering all their processes, which is why the UMANG team is working with them to ensure uniform and smooth work-flow integration.

In future, there will be a single point of integration for things such as the Digital Locker, Aadhaar, and every department will be integrated with payment gateway, all this will get done in one place now.

UMANG may also save government the money which each department pays to consultants, first for developing tender documents and later for development of the app.