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

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

12582 - Aadhaar Articles Dated 1st January 2018



NDTV
The Supreme Court of India has extended the deadline till March 31, 2018 to link bank accounts to aadhaar number. Aadhaar number or Unique Identity Number (UID) is the 12-digit personal identification number (PIN) issued by the UIDAI or Unique Identification Authority of India. Not only bank ...



NDTV
That was said by the UIDAI or Unique Identification Authority of India - the issuer of the 12-digit Aadhaar number or Unique Identity Number (UID) as well as Aadhaar card - on microblogging site Twitter. For requesting an update in the mobile number, Aadhaar holders need to visit the Aadhaar Kendra ...



Ibcworldnews
New Delhi: Regulator PFRDA has asked Atal Pension Yojna (APY) service providers to use a revised form to seek consent of subscribers' for seeding Aadhaar with their accounts from Monday. APY, a guaranteed pension scheme, is government's flagship social security programme. The Pension Fund ...






NewsBytes
The government has lately been obsessed with Aadhaar; it made mandatory the linking of Aadhaar with various schemes and services. There have been many controversies and a lot of confusion over Aadhaar linkage. Though the Supreme Court, which heard petitions against mandating Aadhaar, is yet ...






Financial Express
No one gave Aadhaar a chance of succeeding when it was launched by then prime minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on September 29, 2010, with the stated aim to provide an identity to the common man, especially the deprived section of the population, who could then use ...






Techook.com
Last week in Tech was dominated by the exciting updates coming in from the telecom industry. Adding a midas touch to Christmas and new year celebrations, Jio announced a Surprise Cashback offer with benefits up to Rs 3,300, exclusively for its prime subscribers. In other news, BSNL announced the ...






Financial Express
When India does 10 million eKYCs using the Aadhaar platform every month, you know something has changed. When digital payments on the phone using mobile wallets primarily rise to, in roughly just the last year, 15% of those made by debit and credit cards—in terms of volume, it is more that ...
Dial D for Digital - The Telegraph



Economic Times
"Revised AEPS (Aadhaar Enabled Payment System) interchange which was applied on banks with retrospective effect has impacted the creation of Aadhar payment acceptance infrastructure," the letter says. "Banks who want to create, deploy and maintain such a last mile BC network now have to incur ...






Economic Times
Karnataka, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh are difficult for BJP. While Congress under Siddaramaiah is posing a strong challenge in Karnataka, BJP faces anti-incumbency in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. All About Aadhaar The Aadhaar battle, which is now being played out in the Supreme Court, will also ...






Trak.in (blog)
2017 witnessed several online frauds, involving e-commerce customers, Aadhaar users, senior citizens who gave away their OTP and along with lakhs of ... The chaos and panic related to Aadhaar linking led to this scam worth Rs 1.3 lakh, wherein scammers posed as bank officials and tricked the ...






IndiaSpend
The SC has yet to rule on a clutch of petitions challenging the Aadhaar bill. In the meantime, the government continues to mandatorily link bank accounts, mobile services and welfare schemes to Aadhaar. This is despite the apex court's right to privacy verdict and an interim order it formerly issued in ...



Economic Times
"Once regulator allows credit card disbursals on the basis of digital KYC via Aadhaar and pushes up the maximum loan amount disbursed through e-KYC from Rs 60,000 to around Rs 5 lakh, there will be a boost in retail lending through digital channels," said Naveen Kukreja, cofounder of Paisabazaar.






India TV
The government will now provide more options to the customers of telecos to links their mobile number with Aadhaar card number. Till date, a customer was required to visit the office of his telecom service provider to complete the process. But now, an OTP will be sent to your mobile number, allowing ...






Economic Times
Estonia, a small country hugging the Baltic Sea to the east, is seen by many as one of the world's most digitised countries. Citizens cast their vote online and the country even has a provision for e-residency, and this and more has made the tiny nation something of a poster child for the use of technology ...






Business Standard
This is despite the apex court's right to privacy verdict and an interim order it formerly issued in 2015 that held Aadhaar enrolment voluntary. In a recent hearing on the matter, the SC extended the deadline for Aadhaar linking by three months to March 31, 2018, the Mint reported on December 16, 2017.






India Today
Then you might soon have to carry a valid age proof like voter ID card or Aadhaar to buy alcohol at Delhi's liquor vends and pubs. This is if a slew of recommendations of leading NGO Community Against Drunken Driving (CADD), which has been working in coordination with Delhi Police for 15 years to ...






Economic Times
Citing the example of the Aadhaar and payment app BHIM initiatives, Sinha said, "Financial technology is one area where there is immense scope for innovation. We can develop such financial products and services that will create sizable companies. We have the volumes and scale...we have to build ...






Medical Dialogues
A wife of a Kargil braveheart died at a private hospital in Haryana's Sonipat after allegedly being denied treatment due to non-availability of Aadhaar ... son saying that the patient never got to the hospital, and that Aadhaar card was mandatory only for the documentation process and not for treatment.






NewsBytes
The first draft of the much-awaited National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam has finally been published with 1.9cr names. Verification of the remaining 1.39cr applicants is ongoing and will need a few months, officials said. Despite apprehension of disturbance and heavy security, no incidents of ...






Hindu Business Line
... it is time policymakers acknowledged thatirrepressible consumer and investor confidence, which have proved resilient to highly disruptive events, have been the wind beneath the wings of the India story. As the recent bail-in provisions in the FRDI Bill and aggression on Aadhaar-linking send ripples of ...






Scroll.in
... a a blind eye to the atrocities around them. Add to this the herd mentality that drove people to queue up Aadhaar with zero consideration of the impact this ID system will have on their lives in they years. I am praying for a day when the entire nation joins hands to boycott Aadhaar. – Ram Krishnaswamy.






Press Trust of India
"The accused had carried out some illegal changes in his Aadhaar card. Charges have also been slapped against the accused under various other sections of the IPC, which include kidnapping (363), forgery of valuable security (467) and forgery for purpose of cheating (468)," he said. "Charges have ...






Deccan Chronicle
The comprehensive land survey being taken up after a gap of over seven decades reached the concluding stage in 2017. Over 95 per cent of the survey has been completed and the balance 5 per cent will be over in the first week of January 2018. The survey will put an end to land disputes by purifying ...






News18
While four people managed to flee, police arrested nine people, including two minor girls, and instead of sending them to juvenile homes, sent to the jail after producing them as adults before a local court. The Aadhaar cards of the two girls show their dates of birth as 2005 and 2001 respectively.