AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 12217 - Nandan Nilekani repeats the lie that Aadhar has saved $9 billion (Rs.54000 crore).- New Click

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, November 3, 2017

12217 - Nandan Nilekani repeats the lie that Aadhar has saved $9 billion (Rs.54000 crore).- New Click

Nandan Nilekani repeats the lie that Aadhar has saved $9 billion (Rs.54000 crore).

Subodh Varma 18 Oct 2017

Image Courtesy: rightlog.in

Speaking in Washington on 12 October, Nandan Nilekani , the man behind Aadhar, said that “It has also saved the government about $9 billion in fraud and wastage because by having that unique number you eliminate fakes and duplicates from your beneficiary and employee list.”

This and a similar statements repeated endlessly by many supporters of the Modi government that Aadhar had saved $11 billion, have acquired a Goebbelsian traction, swallowed by mainstream media unquestioningly .

IT minister R.S. Prasad claimed the same thing on September 8, 2016, the CEO of Aadhar authority (UIDAI) AB Pandey repeated it on May 13, 2017. By that time, the government had begun to really believe it and so it asserted the same $11-billion figure in an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court on April 27, 2017 during the right to privacy hearings.

The truth is far from this.

As has been shown by food rights activist from IIT Delhi Reetika Khera the figure of $11 billion was popularised by the World Bank in its 2016 World Development Report. What is their source of information?

They lifted the figure from a Washington based think tank called Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) housed at the World Bank itself. But in doing so, the mandarins of World Bank made a fatal slip. The CGAP study clearly says that the “value of transfers” is Rs.70,000 crore ($11.3 billion) per annum. They are talking about all the money that is directly being transferred to beneficiaries in schemes like MGNREGA, NSAP, JSY, LPG subsidy and scholarships for SC/ST.

The government converted “value of transfers” to “potential savings”. The rest is history.

Let’s take a charitable view and assume that some savings have taken place. How much? There is no firm data but several estimates are periodically floated only to perish under the microscope.

As TheWire has pointed out claims on savings made by shifting LPG subsidy to direct cash transfers have been debuked by the CAG, the International Institute for Sustainable Development and various analyses published in the EPW. In fact the govt. has said in Parliament that fall in LPG subsidies were due to various factors including dipping crude oil prices, the GiveItUp campaign, etc.

The World Bank has said that it extrapolated from other studies to “estimate” that 11-14% savings took place on the govt.’s total expenditure on welfare programmes, which was $70-100 billion. It calls this estimate “potential” savings.

But by the time it takes off from Washington and lands in New Delhi, all caveats are blown away, as are dodgy assumptions. The Modi government, innocent of data and evidence, takes it as gospel. And so do its camp followers.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Newsclick.