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, June 22, 2018

13688 - Aadhaar Articles Dated 21st June 2018



Economic Times
NEW DELHI: Less than a year after banks and post offices were asked to set up Aadhaar facility on their premises, as many as 18,000 centres have ...




Economic Times
Your Aadhaar number may soon be noted by prosecuting plastic squad ... there is a likelihood that the civic officers will also note down the Aadhaar ...




Times of India
New Delhi, Jun 20 () Less than a year after banks and post offices were asked to set up Aadhaar facility on their premises, as many as 18,000 centres ...






Biometric Update
Indian IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad defended the Aadhaar program at a ministry conference and declined to say what the government planned to ...






Deccan Chronicle
Hyderabad: Certain private banks have frozen accounts of customers and when asked why, say it is because the Aadhaar linkage is missing.






Times of India
MUMBAI: Saturday onwards, if you are caught by a civic inspector with plastic items that are banned in the state, he or she will note down your name, ...






Daily Pioneer
Instructing the officials the Governor said that Aadhaar linking should not be made an obstacle in PDS food availability. She said that each Panchayat ...






Times of India
BENGALURU: The government will give BPL card holders one more chance to link their ration cards with Aadhaar for obtaining their monthly quota ...






The Wire
Aadhaar-linked direct benefit transfer of scholarships to CSIR and UGC fellows was meant to eliminate delays in funds disbursal. But in places like IISc ...






Nagaland Post
State government has decided to make it mandatory for every state government employees to enrol under Aadhaar in order to improve governance ...






Swarajya
Following reports of Aadhaar data leaks, the UIDAI had set up the VID system to allow users to provide a temporary number instead of their actual ...

UIDAI's plan to make Aadhaar virtual IDs to authenticate for NBFCs - GNS News (satire) (press release) (blog)



Oneindia
Stressing that India needs to take "far greater risks", Infosys President Mohit Joshi, who is in London to take part in 5th Annual UK-India Leadership ...






Devdiscourse
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had in July last year asked private as well as public sector banks to set up Aadhaar facility in at ...






Moneycontrol.com
A customer who asked the bank about its policy of making Aadhaar mandatory for opening bank accounts, the company apparently instructed its ...






The Hindu
The Andhra Pradesh Social Security Board's Aadhaar-linked database with 2.2 crore workers will be used as an efficacy indicator for the national ...






OpIndia
A Chinese citizen was arrested in West Bengal's Siliguri on Sunday night after he was supposedly caught possessing an Aadhaar card, Hindustan ...






News18
New Delhi: The Centre has started work to create a national database and Aadhaar-seeded identification number system to facilitate welfare delivery ...








NYOOOZ
Chances are, they will also note down your Aadhaar or PAN card details.On Tuesday, BMC held a training session for over 200 inspectors from the ...






Pune Mirror
However, to her surprise, she recently learned that the land had been sold to three people. After investigating further, she found that her Aadhaar card, ...






Firstpost
In other words, this is the latest privacy nightmare to hit India, before even the first draft of the Data Protection Bill is out, or the Aadhaar issue is ...






The Quint
The government has put the Air India privatisation on deep freeze citing the tough environment for the aviation industry, weeks after its attempt to sell ...






Times of India
If someone knows the Aadhaar number of a person, they can use it to ... and filling Aadhaar number would reveal the mobile number, name and other ...






MediaNama.com
... insurance status, and home addresses — on a state government portal, accessible with only an Aadhaar number, reported The Times of India.






Northeast Now
Kalita said that after a preliminary enquiry as to where the money had got transferred, it was found that the Aadhaar card of the person, residing in ...






The Arunachal Times
The concept of 'Rice Day' was envisaged by DC Sonal Swaroop in a meeting on 11 June in order to improve Aadhaar seeding of AAY/PHH ration ...