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

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

12084 - Why August 2017 May Well Have Marked The Beginning Of The End Of Modi’s Honeymoon - Huffington Post

The rot stood more clearly exposed than ever.

18/09/2017 8:32 AM IST | Updated 18/09/2017 1:52 PM IST

Policy analyst, author

                       DANISH SIDDIQUI / REUTERS


The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), given its penchant for headline hunting, might have thought August 2017 was nicely set up. July had ended with the swearing in of a Dalit President and Bihar's return to the National Democratic Alliance fold. The event line-up for August included Venkaiah Naidu's vice presidentship, Narendra Modi's Independence Day address and Amit Shah's Rajya Sabha (RS) entry. Plus, Ahmed Patel's RS bid was almost trumped. In sum, much excitement seemed to have been in store for party loyalists and friendly sections of the media.

August 2017 has served a reminder of how flawed Modi's governance model is, how his choices of policy and personnel are not infallible, and how dissenting voices are not necessarily conspiratorial in intent.

The above did gather headlines but public mindspace, contrary to plan, came to be occupied by other developments that prompted serious questions around the Modi Sarkar's priorities, capacities and methods. So much so that August 2017 could well go down as the month where things finally started unravelling for it.

Here's are some things that happened during the month.
  • Haryana, another BJP-ruled state, saw the BJP state chief's son being accused of stalking a woman. A few weeks later, followers of godman Gurmeet Singh ran amok on the streets protesting his rape conviction.
  • In other sidelights: Ahmed Patel made it to the RS despite the BJP's considerable exertions; and, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, manoeuvred out of power in Bihar, bounced back with a series of well-attended public events and the Srijan scam.
Apart from these events, the Modi Sarkar has been under fire before as well—for its woeful job creation record, failures on farmers' issues and the internal security front, and ambivalence to Hindutva brigade antics.

So, what makes last month's happenings potential course-changers?

1. The government's misplaced priorities stand exposed
With rail accidents and hospital deaths, the dangers that Modi Sarkar's misplaced priorities pose stood exposed like never before.

Warnings about how damaging the government's experiments could prove had been made with respect to sectors such as education (where history re-writing and nationalist observances have received disproportionate attention) or the economy at large (where small businesses have been at the receiving end of demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax), but their true import couldn't be gauged because the impacts were either too remote in time or not easily linked to government priorities.

The violence against Muslims in BJP-ruled states hasn't always rung the alarm bells it should have, but the rail accidents, hospital deaths, mob violence have legitimately raised fears of a descent into jungle raj...

Both these conditions did not apply to the rail accidents and hospital deaths. The rail accidents came at a time when a bullet train appeared—and still appears—to be the railway's sole preoccupation. In the case of the hospital deaths, the contrast between the BJP government's zeal for cow protection and neglect of human life escaped few minds.

2. The capacities of several of Modi's hand-picked men were called out
While Raghubar Das has "benefited" from being away from the national media glare in Jharkhand, his performance, ground reports suggest, has hardly been inspiring. Suresh Prabhu, drawn into the BJP from the Shiv Sena, had to be ejected from the Railways Ministry, and two other recently appointed BJP chief ministers (CMs) found themselves in the spotlight for the wrong reasons.

The deteriorating law and order situation in UP ever since he became CM and his insensitive reaction to the hospital deaths in the state, have only cemented early doubts about Adityanath's abilities as an administrator. Haryana CM Manohar Lal didn't acquit himself well in handling the aftermath of Gurmeet Singh's conviction. It was the third time in less than three years that Lal had failed to check mob violence in his state, the latest occasion being particularly concerning given evidence that emerged of proximities between the BJP and Gurmeet Singh's Dera Sacha Sauda.

Importantly, between # 1 and # 2 above, the fires of lawlessness and incompetence threatened to singe a wide cross section of the population.

The violence against Muslims in BJP-ruled states hasn't always rung the alarm bells it should have, but the rail accidents, hospital deaths, mob violence in Haryana and UP's mounting rape and murder count have legitimately raised fears of a descent into jungle raj across the social spectrum. Modi's good governance claims suddenly seem to have lost much of their lustre.

3. The SC judgment and RBI data have given credence to anti-government positions

Until recently, the BJP had dismissed criticism of Aadhaar and demonetisation, and pretty much everything else, as motivated, and found support for its line. The SC judgment and the RBI data may not have led to a nuanced appreciation of the many ways in which Aadhaar and demonetisation are anti-people, but carry enough weight to ensure that the BJP's word on these is no longer considered final.

Going forward, the official line may not be as accepted as readily as it has been in the past, and opposition noise won't always be dismissed as habitual naysaying.
On another level, it also means that going forward, the official line may not be as accepted as readily as it has been in the past, and opposition noise won't always be dismissed as habitual naysaying. It is a much needed recalibration.
***
A change in mood is discernible in several things. In everyday conversations that mock the bullet train project, dismiss Adityanath and Manohar Lal as inexperienced, quip at the desperation to deny Ahmed Patel space in the RS. In Amit Shah's surprising suggestion to not take stuff on social media seriously. In the organic attention Rahul Gandhi's speech at Berkeley has received. In the lukewarm reaction to Modi's New India pitch on Independence Day.

For now, these may just be straws in the wind, but August 2017 has served a reminder to many outside the Modi Sarkar's conventional critics' circle of how flawed its governance model is, how Modi's choices of policy and personnel are not infallible, and how dissenting voices are not necessarily conspiratorial in intent. The opposition will allow the events of August 2017 to be forgotten at its own peril.

The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of HuffPost India. Any omissions or errors are the author's and HuffPost India does not assume any liability or responsibility for them.