AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 12800 - Has Aadhaar Worked For Rural India?

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

Monday, January 29, 2018

12800 - Has Aadhaar Worked For Rural India? - Bloomberg Quint

Has Aadhaar Worked For Rural India?

Alex Mathew @alexandermats
Aayush Ailawadi @aayush_a6
28 January 2018, 8:16 PM28 January 2018, 3:05 AM

Over the past couple of years, Aadhaar has grabbed the headlines on a lot of occasions. From the apex court to news shows to tweets — a lot of people have said a lot of things about the world’s largest biometric identity programme. Concerns have ranged from privacy and security to law and ethics. Amidst all of this, the original intent behind the Aadhaar Act or the scheme itself took a back-seat. The legislation explains that very succinctly in the first line of its purpose clause, “An Act to provide for, as a good governance, efficient, transparent, and targeted delivery of subsidies, benefits and services.”

BloombergQuint went into rural Maharashtra to understand how the Aadhaar programme has changed the lives of those people who rely on it for the efficient and transparent delivery of subsidies, benefits and services.

First Stop: Ramshej Village

A little over 200 kilometers from Mumbai is a small village in Maharashtra called Ramshej. On Thursday, the villagers lined up in serpentine queues outside Devidas’s ration shop. They are each entitled to a set amount of food grains a month under the Public Distribution System. But, some of them have had to go back empty handed The reason — their fingerprints are failing to authenticate their identity on the Aadhaar based electronic Point of Sale (e-PoS) device at Devidas’s shop. A lot of the villagers availing the benefits of the scheme have hands worn-out by rigorous farm work and some due to old age. While the UIDAI has come up with a modern-day solution for this problem by using facial authentication — on an as-per-need basis — in conjunction with other authentication methods, it will only be rolled out in July. Also, a lot of the villagers don’t own mobile phones or have an email address, which means that they can’t receive an OTP or one time password. The e-PoS machine provided to Devidas has not had a very high success rate, for a number of reasons: from software issues and connectivity problems to the fingerprint mismatch. But, the villagers have tried every tool at their disposal.

At times, they call their kids from school only to authenticate the transaction and send them back to school once it is successful.

Next Stop: Koliwada Village

The residents of Koliwada village, 250 kilometers from Mumbai. (Photographer: Yatin Nawar/BloombergQuint)

Similar issues are faced by the residents of Koliwada village. The village sarpanch told BloombergQuint that instead of making things more convenient, Aadhaar has made things tougher for them. A college student from the village backs him up saying that when he attempts to link their Aadhaar with a bank account or for a SIM card, the vendor asks him for an extra Rs 100 just to facilitate the transaction.

The Deputy Tehsildars of Dindori. (Photographer: Yatin Nawar/BloombergQuint)

The Tehsildar’s office in Dindori looks at complaints related to Aadhaar for the entire taluka, consisting of 155 villages. Abasaheb Tambe, the deputy Tehsildar understands the authentication issues the people are facing, but he says that Aadhaar has ensured that the right person receives due benefits. Tambe adds, “We have done a number of things to solve these issues. For instance, in one ration card there are five beneficiary names. So, if one member’s fingerprints don’t match we tell the villagers to get any one of the other four family members to authenticate themselves for the rest of the family.”

BloombergQuint