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, April 20, 2017

11080 - Universal basic income can work only if welfare schemes are phased out: CEA Arvind Subramanian - Financial Express


The radical idea of giving free money under a universal basic income plan to reduce poverty can work in India only if the plethora of welfare schemes are phased out, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian has said.

By: PTI | Washington | Published: April 19, 2017 3:51 PM

Universal basic income (UBI) will guarantee all citizens enough income to cover their basic needs and would be easier to administer than the current anti-poverty schemes, which are plagued by waste, corruption, and abuse. (Reuters)

The radical idea of giving free money under a universal basic income plan to reduce poverty can work in India only if the plethora of welfare schemes are phased out, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian has said.  Subramanian — who had mooted the idea of universal basic income or a uniform stipend paid to every adult and child, poor or rich, in the annual survey of the economy this year — said such a move will have to be completely financed from within and implemented at a mass scale. Universal basic income (UBI) will guarantee all citizens enough income to cover their basic needs and would be easier to administer than the current anti-poverty schemes, which are plagued by waste, corruption, and abuse.According to The Economist, India’s proposal to give every citizen a cash transfer using the digital platform Aadhaar could reduce absolute poverty from 22 per cent to 0.5 per cent. “The Indian setting is completely different in two three different ways. One is that this is not going to be donor-financed at all (like in some African countries). It is going to be completely financed (from) within,” Subramanian said in his appearance at the Center for Global Development, a top American think-tank.

“So the issues that come up, relate to is do we have the fiscal space to do? Secondly, if it happened this is going to be kind of a scaled-up version. It’s not going to be 80 villages, what is the impact and then we think about scaling up. It will be a scaled-up kind of a thing,” he said, observing that this was something that does not necessarily need to be implemented by the centre like one scheme.

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States can start on their own, noted Subramanian, who is currently in the US to attend the annual Spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Observing that providing UBI would amount to between four and five per cent of GDP, he said the Indian government cannot afford that.  “So the only way it can work is to potentially we can phase down some of the existing programmes, otherwise it does not work,” he said.

“Then you get into the political economy of questions like can you phase down other subsidies…the fertilizer subsidy, the employment guarantee scheme. Can you phase those programmes politically or now? When you can’t phase it down an extra four-five per cent of GDP is not very meaningful,” he said.  Subramanian also noted that some people think that India has built in a reasonably well social welfare programme in terms of giving away subsidised food.

“Would this undermine that? And the third big question is, is the infrastructure to implement this…the whole biometrics, financial inclusion, and mobile,” he said in response to a question.
“India currently has 1.1 billion people covered under biometrics. At the same time 250 million have banking financial accounts and about 60 per cent of those are linked to the AADHAAR numbers,” Subramanian said.

In terms of mobiles, 250 million people have smart phones, 300 million people have regular phones and 350 million people have no phones, he noted.  Ideally one would like to have the biometric number, bank account and mobile phone linked with each other, he said.  “That is the kind of dream, we call it the JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) infrastructure. At the moment, it is very patched in the way it is developed,” he said.

Noting that in principle nothing prevents a state government from going on its own, Subramanian said, what some of the states, which are thinking about it seriously, do want is federal money for this.  The states might ask for untied money from the Centre, he said.  “That is the kind of conversation that is beginning to happen, because that would make it easier for the state governments to finance this,” Subramanian said.
One of the starting points for this in India is the various social welfare schemes, like the employment guarantee scheme, the food or kerosene subsidy are very leaky and they do not do a very great job in reaching the poor, he said.

UBI can easily be an improvement on that, the chief economic adviser said.  Responding to a question, Subramanian said that it would be very difficult to phase out the existing subsidy programmes, because of the potential political opposition to it. 

 “That’s true across the world, very difficult to withdraw entitlements,” he said.  “So unless you phase down existing programmes…you can’t really (implement UBI)…because the magnitude is so big,” he said.