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, February 23, 2018

12854 - Aadhaar Articles Dated 22nd February 2018



IEEE Spectrum
In January, justices of the Supreme Court of India gathered to discuss the country's national identification system, called Aadhaar. Since 2010, authorities have enrolled 1.19 billion residents, or about 93 percent of India's population, in the system, which ties fingerprints, iris scans, and photos of Indian ...





Economic Times
2016 Aadhaar law can't cure right to privacy invasion since 2009: Supreme Court told. PTI| ... NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today said the alleged defect that citizens' biometric details under the Aadhaar scheme were being collected without any law, could be cured by subsequently bringing a statute.






Economic Times
While the petition challenging Aadhaar is still being heard by the Supreme Court, the government is continuing its drive to make it mandatory for more and more schemes. In its latest move in this drive, the government has issued a notification dated 15 February, 2018 asking all the postal life insurance ...






Economic Times
He argued that the Aadhaar architecture was too opaque, uncertain and disproportionate to the legitimate state interest sought to be achieved. It was way too invasive of a citizen's fundamental rights as it virtually destroys his identity in the process of identifying him for myriad state services, ranging from ...




Live Law
A curious case relating to the issuance of an Aadhaar card has come up before Calcutta High Court. One Majibar Rahman has filed the writ petition seeking issuance of Aadhaar card. Responding to his plea, the Union Government counsel contended that he allegedly impersonated his mother and gave ...






Times of India
Piloting the Karnataka Aadhaar (targeted delivery of financial and other subsidies, benefits and services) Bill 2018 in the legislative assembly on Wednesday rural development and panchayat raj minister H K Patil said the Bill will make Aadhaar card mandatory for all government services, schemes and ...






NDTV
According to the official website of UMANG- umang.gov.in, this government app provides seamless integration with popular customer centric services like Aadhaar, EPF, National Pension System (NPS), Digilocker, among others. UMANG will soon be providing integration with various other services such ...



The Telegraph
Guwahati: The Assam government has moved the Supreme Court for extension of the March 31 deadline for linking Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobile connections, with 92 per cent residents yet to be enrolled in the scheme. Parliamentary affairs minister Chandra Mohan Patowary told the ...






Hindustan Times
Now any family without an Aadhaar number is vulnerable to being simultaneously stripped of multiple survival lifelines. Sexagenarian widow, Etwariya Devi, died after her daughter-in-law was unable to authenticate her Aadhaar biometrics at the ration shop and the family was denied food grains for ...






Times of India
As per the statement of objects and reasons of the Karnataka Aadhaar (targeted delivery of financial and other subsidies, benefits and services) Bill 2018, the government has decided to make Aadhaar mandatory for “correct identification of targeted beneficiaries for delivery of various subsidies, benefits, ...






News18
HTET 2017 results have been delayed as the Board of School Education Haryana (BSEH) will complete the Aadhaar-based biometric attendance of all candidates who had appeared for the Haryana Teacher Eligibility Examination (HTET) held in December 2017, before declaring the exam result.






Times of India
Deewan Saheb Jaman Khan, state general secretary, Teachers' Association Madaris Arabia, Uttar Pradesh, said, “The registrar had directed me orally to ask all madrassa principals to seek Aadhaar cards for their Nepalese students. However, as there is no written order, many principals are reluctant to ...






Hindustan Times
The government has begun work on creating an Information Technology (IT) architecture for the Prime Minister's flagship health insurance scheme – the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) - that can eventually match the scale of the Aadhaar platform, two officials working on the project said on ...






News Today
New Delhi: The Supreme Court said the alleged defect that citizens' biometric details under the Aadhaar scheme were being collected without any law, could be cured by subsequently bringing a statute. A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, however, asked what the ...








Trak.in (blog)
ModiCare, which has been declared as world's largest healthcare system will now have an Aadhaar-like identification platform, which will make it the world's largest such healthcare IT platform. In a related news, AAP-led Delhi Govt. has decided to ditch Aadhaar for ration allocation and distribution, as it ...






Firstpost
Is hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia causing the country's lowest Aadhaar enrollment ratios in Meghalaya? Yes, and no. The term means a fear of the number 666, or the number of the beast, mentioned in the Bible and believed to be an ill omen by devout Christians. Many people in Meghalaya are ...






Free Press Journal
New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Wednesday said the alleged defect that citizens' biometric details under the Aadhaar scheme were being collected without any law, could be cured by subsequently bringing a statute. A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, however, ...






Times of India
Gehlawat said the tagging would help in giving Aadhaar cards for cows. She said, “The central government has plans to give Aadhaar cards for cows. A 12-digit unique number will be given for cows all over the country. The Aadhaar card will have complete details of each cow, including name of the ...






Greater Kashmir
In a scenario like and amid a national debate over the Aadhaar (national biometric identity database) the Supreme Court of India ruled unequivocally that privacy is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. It is now incumbent upon the government to enact a law protecting this right, ...






The Hindu
“We are the first bank to go for Aadhaar Pay and our interoperable micro-ATMs have become popular as people can make transactions including cash to any account. We have 13,000 micro-ATMs across the country and intend to take up to 25,000 or more for offering banking at the door step,” said Avtar ...






YourStory.com
Last December, Airtel was penalised by Aadhaar issuing body UIDAI, and the telecom major had to deposit an interim penalty of Rs 2.5 crore with UIDAI. At the same time, while telecom operators will be facing the heat of RBI's new ordeal, Paytm claims to have completed KYC for close to 55 million of its ...