288 - 742 - "Stop UID Campaign meeting in Delhi, 16 October".

WATCH THE VIDEO CLIP AND LISTEN TO SPEAKERS - KALYANI MENON SEN, SOMNATH BHARTI, USHARAMANATHAN, REETIKA KEHERA, RAVI SHUKLA, ANIL CHAUDHARY

STOP UID Campaign - Public Meeting in Delhi

Date: 16 October, 2010

Venue: Indian Social Institute 10, Institutional Area, Lodhi Road, New Delhi, Tel.: 4953400

Registration and tea – 10.00 am

1030-1045 . Introduction to the meeting. Wilfred D'costa

1045-1100. UID - claims and questions. Kalyani Menon-Sen

1100-1115. Legal issues and threats to rights. Usha Ramanathan

1115-1145. Questions and interventions from the floor

1145-1200. UID and NREGA – claims and facts. Ruchi Gupta (MKSS)

1200-1215. UID and PDS – claims and facts. Reetika Khera (Delhi University)

1215-1330. Questions and interventions from the floor

1330-1430. Lunch

1430-1445. Technological issues and implications for democracy. Ravi Shukla (JNU)
1445-1630. Way forward – questioning and resisting UID in Delhi. Open discussion, Anil Chaudhary to lead and moderate.

STOP UID Campaign
A124/6 Katwaria Sarai, New Delhi 110017
Tele-fax: 011-26517814

225 - The UID Project - Press Club Meeting in Delhi, 28th Sept 2010 at 12.00pm

Press invite

The UID Project
Venue: Press Club
Date: 28 September, 2010 Time: 12 noon

You are sincerely invited to the press conference on the UID Project, which will be addressed by Justice A.P.Shah, Upendra Baxi, Nikhil Dey, Uma Chakravarthi, Shohini Ghosh, Prof. Jagdeep S. Chhokar, Amar Kanwar, Reetika Khera, Praful Bidwai and Bezwada Wilson to discuss a project that has the potential to transform the state-citizen relationship and will affect every resident.

The UID project, to give every resident a Unique Identity Number, has been initiated without any prelude: there is no project document; there is no feasibility study; there has been no cost: benefit analysis; there are serious concerns about data and identity theft. The UID project has proceeded so far without any legal authorization, on the basis of an executive order, that could change the status of the people in this country, with effects on our security and constitutional rights, and a consideration of all aspects of the project should be undertaken with this in mind.

Concerned citizens have raised questions about the
 ·         Undemocratic process
 ·         Privacy (It is only now that the DoPT is said to be working on a draft of a privacy law, but nothing is out for discussion even yet)
 ·         Surveillance: where this technology, and the existence of the UID number, and its working, could result in increasing the potential for surveillance
 ·         Profiling
 ·         Tracking
 ·         Convergence, including by companies, which may be expected to collate information about each individual with the help of the UID number.

National IDs have been abandoned in the US, Australia and the newly-elected British government. The reasons have predominantly been:  costs and privacy. In the UK, the Home Secretary explained that they were abandoning the project because it would otherwise be `intrusive bullying’ by the state, and that the government intended to be the `servant’ of the people, and not their `master’. In the late nineties, the Supreme Court of Philippines struck down a biometric based national ID system as unconstitutional on two grounds – the overreach of the executive over the legislative powers of the congress and invasion of privacy. The same is applicable in India – UIDAI has been constituted on the basis of a GoI notification and there is a fundamental risk to civil liberties with the convergence of UID, NATGRID and the National Population Register.

Seventeen eminent signatories,  Justice VR Krishna Iyer, Retired Judge, Supreme Court of India, Prof Romila Thapar, Historian, K.G.Kannabiran, Senior Civil Liberties Lawyer, Kavita Srivastava, PUCL and Right to Food Campaign, Aruna Roy, MKKS, Rajasthan, Nikhil Dey, MKKS, Rajasthan, S.R.Sankaran, Retired Secretary, Government of India, Deep Joshi, Independent Consultant, Upendra Baxi, Jurist and ex-Vice Chancellor of Universities of Surat and Delhi, Uma Chakravarthi, Historian, Shohini Ghosh, Teacher and Film Maker, Amar Kanwar, Film Maker, Bezwada Wilson, Safai Karamchari Andolan, Trilochan Sastry, IIMB, and Association for Democratic Reforms, Prof. Jagdeep S. Chhokar , ex- IIMA, and Association for Democratic Reforms, Shabnam Hashmi, ANHAD, Justice A.P.Shah, Retired Chief Justice of High Court of Delhi, ask that:

·         The project be halted
 ·         A feasibility study be done covering all aspects of this issue
 ·         Experts be tasked with studying its constitutionality
 ·         The law on privacy be urgently worked on (this will affect matters way beyond the UID project)
 ·         A cost : benefit analysis be done
 ·         A public, informed debate be conducted before any such major change be brought in.

Warm Regards,

Usha Ramanathan
Anil Chaudhary
Shree Prakash

On behalf of "Campaign for No UID"
A 124/6 First Floor, Katwaria Sarai, New Delhi-110016
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If you have any queries, please mail at samvadik@gmail.com   or call Shree Prakash @ 09406614800

193 - UID an assault on individual liberty, say activists - Business Standard

Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi September 04, 2010, 0:39 IST

The Centre’s plan for a unique biometric-enabled number to every Indian resident is facing opposition from social activists who say it will impact civil liberties — state-citizen relations and privacy.
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Members of the National Advisory Council (NAC) and other organisations have expressed their dissent against the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) — the nodal agency responsible for implementing Aadhaar.

The Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC)) had also raised concerns, objecting to the linking of the UIDAI project to the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme.

In a letter addressed to Rural Development Minister C P Joshi last week, Jean Dreze and Aruna Roy, members of the CEGC and NAC raised objections to the ministry's decision to link UID to job cards without consulting the council.

The UID is to be experimented first with NREGA workers linking their payments to their numbers. “It would be particularly dangerous and inappropriate to proceed with any linking before the legislative framework of the UID project has been worked out. We suggest that decisions related to the linking of UID with NREGA are put on hold in the meantime,” said the letter.

Dreze told Business Standard that UID is a national security project in the garb of a social policy initiative. “I am opposed to the UID project on grounds of civil liberties. Let us not be naive. This is not a social policy initiative — it is a national security project.”

He said the underlying implications of the UID was what has been stated by former intelligence Bureau Chief A K Doval in an interview to Tehelka — it was intended to wash out aliens and unauthorised people. But the focus appears to be shifting and is now being projected as a development-oriented initiative, lest it ruffle feathers.

Dreze said the UID will help achieve unprecedented levels of surveillance on ordinary citizens and this may have dangerous consequences for privacy civil liberties and social justice. Echoing Dreze’s view, Roy said the project is a threat to democratic norms and civil liberties and it should be opposed.

Anil Chaudhury, a member of Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), said the UID scheme violates right to privacy and the state can misuse it for targeted attacks and discrimination against certain communities.

Wilfred Dsouza of INSAF argued that a centralised identity pool is always fraught with risks. It can be hacked and misused by terrorists. He said the Labour Government had faced opposition from the Tories on similar grounds when it tried to introduce the Identity Cards Act 2006.

The UK Home Secretary had been quoted as saying that the “The national identity card scheme represents the worst of government. It is intrusive and bullying. It is ineffective and expensive. It is an assault on individual liberty that does not promise a great good.”