O - AADHAAR AND ITS CREATOR

“Nandan Nilekani’s Aadhaar that is Compulsorily-Mandatorily-Voluntary” quoting MP Jairam Ramesh’s quip in Rajya Sabha

Nandan Nilekani published his thoughts in “Imagining India” in 2008 which was all about his “Ideas for the new century”. “A Sprawling book of Ideas and Idealism” praised India Today

At Infosys which he co founded in 1981, he has held many posts including CEO, MD, President, COO and finally Co Chairman of the Board of Directors. Nandan Nilekani highly successful as CEO of Infosys, is the only Infosys Founder member to become an instant billionaire; that is how smart he is.  He is a man who has always driven by success from the time he made it to IIT Bombay to do his B.Tech in Electrical Engineering. There was nothing he could not achieve if he set his mind to it. He is the most awarded and globally recognized IIT alumnus in my opinion, (perhaps second only to Prof Jayant Baliga from IIT Madras who was inducted into the National Inventors & Engineers Hall of Fame, an honour shared by the likes of Edison, Marconi, Tesla to name a few.)

Most people who read “Imagining India” saw Nandan Nilekani as a visionary & Godsend, the kind of man needed at the helm to transform India. Was he Prime Minister Material one wondered?

Imagining India was all about “Ideas that have arrived”, “Ideas in Progress”, “Ideas in battle” and “Ideas to anticipate”.  (Here we have to pause and ponder if “Aadhaar” Nandan Nilekanis Pet Project is an Idea in Progress or an Idea in Battle / Conflict”. Only time will tell as it is in turmoil right now.

“ A big reason for our struggle (in India) lies in our inability to push through and implement critical ideas” says Nandan in his book. This is how and when his insatiable desire to create a Unique ID for each and every Indian was born. The number is Unique in that each individual is given a randomly generated 12 digit number. Unique in the sense no two people can have the same number; yet nothing all that unique as each and every credit card or debit card has a unique 16 digits for the account holder.

This not-so-Unique ID was to help the GOI to efficiently give subsidies to the needy and to curb corruption in public distribution system. A very noble idea indeed but again not unique as it is more or less a bad copy of the US Social Security Number, which originally was not to be used for identifications but eventually became a defacto ID number in USA or ubiquitous as Nandan says Aadhaar will be.

History tells us that “Not all good ideas and intentions become good Govt policies.” We have to wait and see what happens to Aadhaar with time.

Aadhaar was certainly and truly a great idea, had its reach been limited by legislation to just Govt Subsidies for BPL- Below Poverty Line Population. Nandan Nilekani said it was not mandatory to have an UID or what is now known as Aadhaar Number, but it was ubiquitous, meaning indirectly the entire population would be coerced and forced to have an Aadhaar number. Very few parliamentarians understood what this “Ubiquitous” meant. Most UPA II MPs were struggling to understand if UID was a “Number” or “a Card”; leave alone if it was ubiquitous, what ever that meant.

Independent Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar is an exception for he fully understood the issues that Aadhaar was going to create in the long run.

He wrote: “To refer to Aadhaar as an anti corruption tool despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary is mystifying. That it is now officially a Rs.50,000 Crores  solution searching for an explanation is also without any doubt.” -- Statement by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP & Member, Standing Committee on Finance

He also wrote “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

His latest article in ‘Quint’ tables and exposes all the weaknesses of Aadhaar from lack of scrutiny, to the Aadhaar Bill that did not get through, to 100 crore unverified Aadhaar cards, to using Aadhaar as an ID, lack of audit of Aadhaar Database, depending on Aadhaar for Subsidy delivery, using a flawed Aadhaar to plug leakages in systems, lack of accountability of UIDAI as a Govt Entity, Privacy issues and lack of grievance redressal, Balancing Privacy rights vs National Security. Perhaps the most comprehensive article with clarity. Here is the link to original, which is a must read article https://www.bloombergquint.com/opinion/2017/04/12/rajeev-chandrasekhar-aadhaar-speech

UPA II cabinet was divided on Aadhaar from word go. It appears Nandan Nilekani convinced Planning Commission Chief Montek Singh who in turn Convinced Congress President Sonia Gandhi and PM Manmohan Singh.

But then a doubt arises if Aadhaar is in fact Nandan’s Brain Child at all like he wants the world to believe, as Wipro’s seems to have produced a document called “Strategic Vision: Unique Identification of Residents'” prepared by Wipro Ltd. and submitted to the Planning Commission in July 2006. This document is significant as UIDAI and UID/Aadhaar is a product of this Strategic Vision “ Unique Identification Of Residents of India. The Vision statement reads “ Creating a Unique Identification system of all residents in the country for efficient, transparent, reliable and effective delivery of various welfare and private services to the common person.

' The cover page of the document mentions the National Institute for Smart Government (NISG), Department of Information Technology (now named MeitY-Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology), and Wipro Consulting. Admittedly, Wipro was the consultant

for the design phase and programme management phase of the pilot UIDAI project.

Wipro had done all this footwork in 2006, when Nandan Nilekani was still the President of Infosys, explaining to Thomas Friedman why the World was flat. Yet in 2017 Nandan has become the sole defender of Aadhaar. It is unclear if he is doing so as Aadhaar is his Brain Child or if it is because he created the Aadhaar architecture as UIDAI Chief and wants to take full responsibility.

However UPA II Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh (who was also Nilekanis debating partner at IITB I am told) did not endorse Aadhaar whole heartedly and Home Minister Chidambaram was totally against issuing an Aadhaar to all residents of India as it had serious implications with National Security issues. He preferred the NPR for all Indians Citizens issued by the Census office.

Aadhaar does not distribute a "card" in the classical definition of a card. It is rather a 12 digit number that is provided against your biometric data "after" the same has been reduplicated. This means that the number is unique and associated with you and you alone. The Aadhaar number on its own does NOT provide any rights, citizenship or guarantees. It only assures that this is unique and belongs to you and you alone. No different to a tattooed bar code on your arm or embedded microchip behind the ears, as with pets.

The NPR  - or National Population Register on the other hand is a database of Indian Nationals - that uses the biometric reduplicated number of Aadhaar and provides one with a place in the National Population Register i.e. Indian National status.

Only in India can a major policy of issuing ID numbers or cards to the billion over population be decided without a debate in the parliament or a public debate of any kind. A clever man like Nandan Nilekani am sure would have known that his Critics would expose the flaws in his idea and hence shunned critics totally. He was like a man possessed.

He was so single minded that he ignored all requests for debates and went ahead as UIDAI Chief with the rank of a cabinet minister, without ever winning single vote from the public, for doing the ground work and setting up Aadhaar registries.

Home Minister Chidambaram said “Nilekani’s reporting structure is unprecedented in history; he reports directly to the Prime Minister, thus bypassing all checks and balances in government” - Home Minister Chidambaram.

But no one was listening as UPA II cabinet was too busy fighting endless number of corruption allegations that eventually saw UPA II lose elections in 2014.

Nandan is very humble & calls himself an accidental entrepreneur who had successfully proved to the business world that the “World was Flat”. He was no Bloomberg, who was CEO one day and became the Mayor of New York the next or for that matter Billionaire Donald Trump, (a rank outsider who hosted TV show “The Apprentice” that most viewers hated because of his arrogance) who became the President of USA in 2017. Nandan also said he was quite unelectable in India which was also very true as he lost miserably in the elections in 2014 to BJP’s Ananth Kumar. Yet he became UIDAI Chief, with the Rank of a Cabinet Minister without being elected. This is another first in India. UIDAI Chief was then given a Congress seat in Bangalore for the 2014 elections. Many wondered if Nandan was being groomed by Congress to be PM of India.

Making it clear that he would not take attacks on his pet Aadhaar project lightly, Congress candidate for Bengaluru South, Nandan Nilekani came out with guns blazing at the “irresponsible and inaccurate comments” of his opponent, senior BJP leader Ananth Kumar on the scheme. “There are some of us who are keen to do hard, honest work for our city and our country, while Mr. Kumar is busy politicking, embroiling himself in scams, and trying to demean other people or take credit for their work,” Nandan said in a statement.

“My opponent’s dishonesty on Aadhaar goes against the comments of his own party leaders,” Mr Nilekani added, recalling that political parties across the spectrum had accepted Aadhaar as a pro-development, anti-corruption effort.

Here are a few memorable quotations on Aadhaar and Nandan Nilekani and who said what:

“NPR & UID aiding Aliens” – Narendra Modi

"I don't agree to Nandan Nilekeni and his madcap (UID) scheme which he is trying to promote," Senior BJP Leader Yashwant Sinha, Sept 2012

"All we have to show for the hundreds of thousands of crore spent on Aadhar is a Congress ticket for Nilekani" Yashwant Sinha.(27/02/2014)

TV Mohandas Pai, former chief financial officer at Infosys and head of human resources, tweeted: "selling his soul for power; made his money in the company wedded to meritocracy." (Money Life Article)

Nilekani’s reporting structure is unprecedented in history; he reports directly to the Prime Minister, thus bypassing all checks and balances in government - Home Minister Chidambaram

Finance minister P Chidambaram’s statement, in an exit interview to this newspaper, that Aadhaar needs to be re-thought completely is probably the last nail in its coffin. :-) Financial Express

The Real Gem is this quote: “Nandan Nilekani's Aadhaar project a political gimmick with no vision: Narendra Modi” in 2014 during the elections ( Source: Economic Times April 9^th 2014)

The Rural Development Ministry headed by Jairam Ramesh created a road Block and refused to make Aadhaar mandatory for making wage payment to people enrolled under the world’s largest social security scheme NREGA unless all residents are covered.

One would have assumed that these barrage of attacks on Aadhaar and his humiliating Loss at the 2014 elections, Nandan Nilekani would have disappeared into the sunset or packed his bags and moved to his favourite New York City.

We have to hand it to Nandan Nilekani for his tenacity and perseverance in ensuring Aadhaar was not scrapped by Modi’s Govt. Nandan, a Congress Candidate who lost badly to Anant, his BJP opponent, took it upon himself to do his usual “TED Talk” style presentation on Aadhaar to PM Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

On 8th April  2014  Narendra Modi tweeted “On Aadhaar neither the team that I met nor the PM could answer my Qs on security threat it can pose. There is no vision, only political gimmick.”

By 24th July 2014: Nandan Nilekani impresses Narendra Modi & Arun Jaitley, gets Aadhaar a lifeline (ET Bureau) Jul 24, 2014.  There is enough evidence to suggest that the meeting between Nilekani, the PM and the FM, brought forth a volte face in the government stand on UIDAI.

Four days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his first public statement surprisingly backing the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), former UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani met with the PM and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and persuaded the new regime to persist with Aadhaar numbers and the Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) scheme.

This meeting — a life-saver for the Aadhaar programme — happened on the first of July 2014. On July 5, Modi sought a 100 crore enrolment target under Aadhaar at the 'earliest', casting aside earlier notions that the new government will go slow on the UIDAI project.

By Nov 2014 PM “Narendra Modi sees advantage for BJP government from UID scheme Aadhaar. PM Narendra Modi's belief that his party would gain politically in UP and Bihar assembly polls if central beneficiary schemes are rolled out using Aadhaar, has prompted him to strongly pitch for the UID scheme he had attacked until a few months ago. The Centre has been prompted to set a target of enrolling all Indians by next March also because of its growing realisation that Aadhaar's biometric features were a deterrence for terrorists and that it would help Modi's ambitious 'Digital India' plan. Aadhaar will help the government roll out it schemes like Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana and Direct Benefits Transfer effectively”

Nandans support for Modi Govt can be explained from a simple extract from the book  “Imagining India”. In terms of implementing policies that are good for you, whether you like it or not, Autocratic regimes are far better than democracies (Page 50); perhaps Nandan realised Modi was the perfect man to make Aadhaar happen as planned.

On 11th March 2016 Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, benefits and services) Act, 2016 was passed as Money Bill bypassing the Rajya Sabha

In Dec 2016 'Aadhaar' man Nandan Nilekani is roped in to steer PM Modi's digital payments drive. Believe it or not.

How ex PM Manmohan Singh, Planning commission Chairman Montek Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi and VP Rahul Gandhi who nurtured this UID idea and gave birth to what we now know as Aadhaar might have reacted to Nandans defection to Modis camp is anybody’s guess.

In 2017 Jairam Ramesh, Nandan Nilekanis debating partner at IITB takes Aadhaar Money Bill Row to Supreme court challenging the Modi Govt decision to treat Aadhaar Bill as a Money Bill effectively bypassing the Rajya Sabha.

In April 2017:  “ We are heading for an Orwellian state”, says P Chidambaram on widespread Aadhaar-seeding. Aadhaar is being linked to income-tax returns, public provident fund, old and new SIM cards, bank accounts and many more government services and schemes.

Jairam Ramesh says in Rajya Sabha in April 2017 “I know you will say it is not mandatory. But it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary”

At this juncture all that activists who have opposed UID/Aadhaar from the word go can do is to say to Chidambaram is “we said so and warned you from 2009 about the Aadhaar database getting into the wrong hands”. All objections fell on deaf ears then.

India the largest democracy in world was in fact a Monarchy of sorts where the Prime Minister took instructions from the President of the Congress Party. MPs in both houses under UPA II regime were dummies with very little voice to raise any objections.

No one in UPA II cabinet paid any attention to the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Finance on Aadhaar headed by BJP Leader Yashwant Sinha.

Here is what the Parliament Standing Committee on Finance, which examined the draft N I A Bill said.

1. There is no feasibility study of the project]

2. The project was approved in haste

3. The system has far-reaching consequences for national security

4. The project is directionless with no clarity of purpose

5. It is built on unreliable and untested technology

6. The exercise becomes futile in case the project does not continue beyond the present number of 200 million enrolments

7. There is lack of coordination and difference of views between various departments and ministries of government on the project

At the 2014 elections the Congress Party was annihilated having contested 462 seats and winning only 44. People had enough of scams and a PM who seldom spoke to the people or the media.

To people like me who have opposed UID from the word go for umpteen reasons, Congress defeat was seen as writing on the wall for Aadhaars total abolition, which was promised by each and every BJP politician during the 2014 election campaign. We were all wrong.

Supreme Court :

Countless PILs were taken against Aadhaar in High Courts of India nationwide by people who opposed Aadhaar  for very many reasons. To simplify matters all these PILs were bundled and sent to the Supreme Court of India.

In an interim order issued in September 2013, the apex court had said the Aadhaar card could not be mandatory for availing of government services and that nobody should be deprived of such facilities for want of the card.

In 2016 Supreme Court extends Aadhaar use to more schemes while saying it’s purely voluntary. Aadhaar can now be used for MGNREGA, all types of pension schemes, the Jan Dhan Yojana and the EPF.

A Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu said use of the Aadhaar card was purely voluntary and not mandatory. With this, the Supreme Court modified an August 11 order issued by its three-judge Bench restricting Aadhaar use to only PDS and LPG (cooking gas) distribution.

Fast forward to 2017, Aadhaar is a must for PDS, NREGA, LPG, Bank accounts, KYC, Driving Licence, Motor Registrations, SIM Cards, PAN Card, Rail Travel, Air Travel, EPFO, Health, Student Scholarships, Childrens Mid Day meals, Income Tax returns, University exams, Visiting Prisoners, Land records, Attendance, Pension; the list is endless making Aadhaar ubiquitous. Aadhaar is a “Must” if you wanted to live in India yet is not mandatory just voluntary. It is baffling to comprehend that over a Billion Indians have queued up voluntarily and registered for Aadhaar.

March 2017 Supreme Court ruling said “Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for welfare schemes: Supreme Court also said that the government cannot be stopped 'from using aadhaar in other schemes like opening of bank accounts'.

Next, hopefully soon a full constitutional bench will hear arguments on Privacy and whether Aadhaar Act fits the Money Bill route taken by the speaker of the legislative assembly.

Now let us take a look at Indias PDS for Food Grains

PDS : According to Wikipedia

Public distribution system (PDS) is an Indian food security system. Established by the Government of India under Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution and are managed jointly by state governments in India, it distributes subsidized food and non-food items to India's poor. This scheme was launched in India on June 1947. Major commodities distributed include staple food grains, such as wheat, rice, sugar and kerosene, through a network of fair price shops (also known as ration shops) established in several states across the country. Food Corporation of India, a Government-owned corporation, procures and maintains the PDS.

In coverage and public expenditure, it is considered to be the most important food security network. However, the food grains supplied by the ration shops are not enough to meet the consumption needs of the poor or are of inferior quality. The average level of consumption of PDS seeds in India is only 1 kg per person / month. The PDS has been criticised for its urban bias and its failure to serve the poorer sections of the population effectively. The targeted PDS is costly and gives rise to much corruption in the process of extricating the poor from those who are less needy. Today, India has the largest stock of grain in the world besides China, the government spends Rs.750 billion ($13.6 billion) per year, almost 1 percent of GDP, yet 21% remain undernourished.^[1] Distribution of food grains to poor people throughout the country is managed by state governments.^[2] As of date there are about 500,000 Fair Price Shops (FPS) across India.^[3]

Overview

The central and state governments shared the responsibility of regulating the PDS. While the central government is responsible for procurement, storage, transportation, and bulk allocation of food grains, state governments hold the responsibility for distributing the same to the consumers through the established network of Fair Price Shops (FPSs). State governments are also responsible for operational responsibilities including allocation and identification of families below poverty line, issue of ration cards, supervision and monitoring the functioning of FPSs^{[clarification needed]}. Under PDS scheme, each family below the poverty line is eligible for 35 kg of rice or wheat every month, while a household above the poverty line is entitled to 15 kg of foodgrain on a monthly basis.^[

A below poverty line (BPL) card holder should be given 35 kg of food grain and the card holder above the poverty line should be given 15 kg of food grain as per the norms of PDS. However, there are concerns about the efficiency of the distribution process.

This is perhaps what happened. UPA II saw Aadhaar as a fix for leakages and corruption in PDS and NREGA schemes. If this is true then Aadhaar is a Subsidy card or a social security card similar to USA and was meant for about 400 million people deemed to be below Poverty line Population.

The question is why did not UPA make Aadhaar mandatory for BPL population requiring Govt subsidies. The Govt could have given a long five year period for entire BPL population to enroll before it was made Mandatory. But then there was a problem. UPA II Govt did not have a database of BPL population to determine who needed an aadhaar and who did not nor did they have the numbers in Parliament to legislate Aadhaar as Mandatory to receive Govt subsidies

BJP leader L.K. Advani had considered a National Identity card way back in 2003 when NDA was governing India. On August 21^st 2003 minister Advani said “All citizens should be given a Multi-purpose National Identity Card (MNIC). When BJP got reelected in 2014 they saw the opportunity to make Aadhaar the national Identity card.

All that GOI had to do was look over the shoulder at Singapore’s National Identity Card – NRIC National Registration Identity Card that has been in place since 1965 and is compulsory for all lawful residents of Singapore. NRIC is used in Singapore to verify passports, at polling booths and for joining National Service and armed forces. It has many more uses than listed here. NRIC is Pink for Citizens and Blue for Residents. NRIC Card has a Unique nine digit number (was adequate considering Singapores small population)

Also indicated on the front side of the card, are the holder's name, race, date of birth, sex, country of birth, and a colour photograph. On the back of the card is the NRIC number and its bar code, a fingerprint, issue date of the card, and the holder's current residential address. The nationality of permanent residents is indicated on the card as well; this field is absent for citizens. NRIC captures only finger prints as of now but IRIS scans may be included soon.

It appears that UPA II did not make Aadhaar Mandatory for 2 reasons, one it did not have the numbers in Lok Sabha to legislate it and two did not want to take such a risk before elections.

In 2016, NDA II does not have the numbers in Rajya Sabha to make Aadhaar Mandatory so they went all out in making Aadhaar a must for LPG subsidy which is given to as many as 14.5 crore residences in India. (To this day I have not found an answer as to why LPG has to be subsidized and why this subsidy cannot be passed on to the LPG suppliers directly through reduced tax and regulate the LPG price per cylinder to the customer). It does not make sense that GOI has to make about 15 crores DBT payments every month. There has to be a better way, but let me not digress.

Activists objecting to Aadhaar have often been asked is, “Why should you worry about privacy, if you do not have anything to hide?” The corollary to this question is “People who have something to hide certainly do not want Aadhaar which is linked to their biometrics, meaning their fingerprints and iris scan.” Now that over 95% of India’s adult population has been given an Aadhaar the remaining 5% are (excluding the small group of activists) the extremely rich population like - businessmen and movie stars, criminals, money launderers, corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, terrorists, people with multiple identities leading double lives and in general people running from the law who are rejoicing over the fact that Aadhaar is still voluntary giving them the much needed escape route.

The day Aadhaar is made compulsory / mandatory for the entire population and lack of Aadhaar (after a set date ) becomes a punishable crime all Indians will be on an equal footing. Once this happens issues like personal Privacy will become non issues as people to whom Privacy matters most will be in the loop and helping with formulation of necessary legislation. Until Aadhaar is made mandatory Indians have to live in an Orwellian state where all people (with Aadhaar) are equal but some people are more equal than the others (Indians without Aadhaar).

A Billion Dollar Question: “Will Nandan Nilekani ever regret creating Aadhaar ?” assuming Aadhaar is truly his Brain Child

Here is a list of a few creators and inventors with regrets (Source: 10 Inventors Who Came to Regret Their Creations )

Victor Frankenstein’s reactions to his creation as it comes to life epitomize his instant regrets at his attempts to play God. “How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form?”.

It's J. Robert Oppenheimer who, as director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II, is credited with the creation of the atomic bomb. But Albert Einstein's work made it possible. Despite past associations with left wing organizations, Oppenheimer welcomed the opportunity to play a part in the war effort. Later, however, he had mixed feelings about the bomb. "I have no remorse about the making of the bomb… As for how we used it, I understand why it happened and appreciate with what nobility those men with whom I'd worked made their decision. But I do not have the feeling that it was done right. The ultimatum to Japan [the Potsdam Proclamation demanding Japan's surrender] was full of pious platitudes. ...our government should have acted with more foresight and clarity in telling the world and Japan what the bomb meant," he said.

Einstein was less equivocal. Years later he regretted having signed a letter to President Roosevelt urging him to support the research of physicists into nuclear chain reactions and their use as a weapon, because he believed the Germans were already working on it. "Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb," he said, "I would have never lifted a finger."

MIKHAIL KALASHNIKOV — AK-47.

Kalashnikov designed the rifle that bore his name for the Russian army at the end of the Second World War after witnessing terrible casualties in battle and being injured himself. Designed to be a simple automatic rifle that could be made cheaply using the mass production methods available at the time, Kalashnikov, who died in 2014, lived long enough to see his creation be responsible for more deaths than any other assault rifle.

"I keep coming back to the same questions. If my rifle claimed people’s lives, can it be that I…, an Orthodox believer, am to blame for their deaths, even if they are my enemies?" he wrote in a letter to the head of the Russian Orthodox church in 2010.

ETHAN ZUCKERMAN — THE POP-UP ADVERT.

If you've ever found yourself yelling at your computer screen in frustration as yet another pop-up ad leaps into view, obscuring the content behind it, Zuckerman is the person to blame.

Explaining that the intention had been to allow adverts to appear when users visited a page without necessarily associating the advert with the content of the page, Zuckerman explained, "We came up with it when a major car company freaked out that they’d bought a banner ad on a page that celebrated anal sex. I wrote the code to launch the window and run an ad in it. I’m sorry. Our intentions were good."

Conclusion: Not all Good ideas and intentions become good Government policies. Further you can bluff some people all the time and all the people sometimes but you cannot fool all the people all the time. IBM that sold a computer to Hitlers Germany never envisaged that the computer would be used to create a database of Jews to be exterminated.

God forbid if Aadhaar fails it is then when Nandan Nilekani will realize that he is, all alone and all the politicians from both sides meaning NDA and UPA and all people involved in UIDAI will blame him.

The Road to Perdition (hell) is paved with Good Intentions: Aadhaar may be one such Good intention gone wrong based on many false assumptions

1-     Poor people have no identities: Not true as all people do have identities in this ancient Indus valley civilisation of ours, what may be true is that the Govt does not have the means to identify people below poverty lines to provide them with subsidies. The Truth is that nearly 98% of the people who have registered for Aadhaar possessed identification papers.

2-     Aadhaar is a flawed system: Aadhaar is a Unique identification number, linked to a persons name, DOB, address, Photo and Biometrics based solely on information provided by the individual at the time of registration by thousands of private subcontractors sans verification by any standards as the emphasis was on getting large number of registrations and not on the validity of the information provided. One could even queue up and claim he or she had no identification document to provide and get some one to endorse that and get registered for an Aadhaar number

3-     A Land of Honorary Citizens: Aadhaar does not distinguish between Indian Citizens and Residents and illegal migrants and even tourists. It just is a number linked to a particular individual and his biometrics. As a stand alone Aadhaar cannot do any harm. It is there to authenticate you to the Government deptartments and tell them you are who you claim to be. Wonderful from the individual point of view; but take a look at the big Picture. An Indian with an Aadhaar could be any body, a Citizen, a resident, a refugee, an alien residing illegally in India, a tourist, a terrorist what ever. Indirectly Aadhaar makes every one who enrols and has an Aadhaar, an “Honorary Indian Citizen”. That is the Irony and the Flaw.  Aadhaar can now be used by every one to buy properties, get Ration cards, get passports, get Bank accounts, anything that aliens could not do before they got their Aadhaar. It is very doubtful if PM Modi clearly understands these implications in a nation that is facing constant threats of terrorism. Terrorists could enter India and find ways to get themselves Aadhaar numbers there by implying they are Indian residents to avoid detection.

4-     PDS or Public distribution system is corrupt and people are double dipping: Not true again it is not the poor people who are rorting the system (perhaps a small number nation wide). Whilst subsidising food grains for the below poverty line population is a very noble idea, PDS is a totally flawed system, where the central govt procures the food grains through the Food Corporation of India, stores it and distributes it to the States. The Central Govt has no further control to ensure the grains reach the poor and needy. The Corruption lies in the Distribution system adopted by different states govts. To start with Politicians and Govt Babus often are known to divert these subsidised grains for financial benefits. It is common knowledge that ship loads of GOIs subsidised grains have been exported. Often Lorries carrying these grains never reach the destination. Then we have lakhs and lakhs of Fair Price Ration shops nearly 500,000 I believe, run by the biggest crooks in the country. These are the people responsible for distributing Govt Rations to the Poor, yet these very same people cheat the poor by not giving them the right quantities or even sending the poor illiterate people home with some excuses whilst recording the sale to the particular customer and reselling in open market. They put aside bags and bags of grains denied to legitimate poor or issued to hundreds of bogus ration cards in the possession of ration shop owners of people who do not exist. Nexus between Corrupt babus who assist with issuing Bogus Ration cards and Rations shops owners is the real issue and not the last mile as assumed by Nandan Nilekani and GOI officials like R.S. Sharma. People with money can buy any amount of sugar or good quality rice and wheat at these govt ration shops. Some rich people buy subsidised ration to feed their dogs How is this possible? All this is possible because the PDS is a Flawed system and another flawed Aadhaar system is being superimposed to fix PDS. This is not going to work and is beginning to hurt the very poor and starving people this was meant to help.

5-     BPL – Below Poverty Line Population: One of the genuine hurdles GOI has, is that it has no means of establishing who is below poverty line and who is not. Generally this is to be determined by Ration cards that are coloured, like white and green. (different states use different colour cards to make it even more confusing). But then any man and his dog can get hold of a ration card or any number of Ration cards by using their influence or giving bribes. Further Ration cards are issued to families and not individuals which means every member of the family has listed on ration card has to have the Aadhaar number linked to the Ration Card.

6-     Aadhaar allows portability: Ground reality is that a lot of poor and illiterate people are denied their subsidy quota as their Aadhaar authentication fails, more often because of technical glitches, like lack of power, lack of internet connectivity etc and also issues with biometrics. It is not clear if an individual or a family can use the Aadhaar to buy their subsidies anywhere in India as PDS Databases are held by individual states. So what happens to a resident of say Tamil Nadu when he moves his entire family to say Poona. Can he just go and avail his monthly ration quota from any ration shop in Poona ? God only knows.

7-     NREGA(WIKI) - National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (or, NREGA No 42) was later renamed as the "Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act" (or, MGNREGA), is an Indian labour law and social security measure that aims to guarantee the 'right to work'. It aims to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. Since its inception in 2006, around ₹1,10,000 crore (about USD$25 billion) has gone directly as wage payment to rural households and 1200 crore (12 billion) person-days of employment has been generated. On an average, 5 crore (50 million) households have been provided employment every year since 2008. A major criticism of NREGA is that it is making agriculture less profitable. Landholders often oppose it on these grounds. The big farmer’s point of view can be summed up as follows: landless labourers are lazy and they don’t want to work on farms as they can get money without doing anything at NREGA worksites; farmers may have to sell their land, thereby laying foundation for the corporate farming. Economists like Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya have described NREGA as “an inefficient instrument of shifting income to the poor” – the general notion being that it takes five rupees to transfer one rupee to NREGA workers. Economists including Surjit Bhalla have termed it as unsuccessful suggesting that schemes such as the NREGA need to be junked, saying that any scheme with 85 percent leakages can’t be proclaimed to be “working successfully”. The workers points of view can be summed up as: labourers do not get more than Rs. 80 in the private agricultural labour market, there is no farm work for several months; few old age people who are jobless for at least 8 months a year; when farm work is available they go there first; farmers employ only young and strong persons to work in their farms and reject the others and hence many go jobless most of the time. Prof.  Jean Drèze (born 1959) is a Belgian-born Indian development economist and activist who has been influential in the economic policy making of India. His work in India include issues like hunger, famine, gender inequality, child health and education, and the NREGA. He had conceptualized and drafted the first version of the NREGA. NREGA is in fact work for the Dole Concept of Australia. Again looks like a Great Idea gone wrong and is directly affecting small independent farmers as they are unable to find day labourers and are all selling their agricultural land. In the long run this will hurt agriculture all over India. Not only that NREGA has very little to show on achievements having spent an equivalent of US$ 25 billion of Tax payer funds. Surely there has to be better way to assist the BPL population of India making them truly productive

8-     Nandan Nilekani and PM Modi: It is very commendable that PM Modi wants to eradicate corruption in all Govt subsidies like PDS, LPG, NREGA. Unfortunately PM Modi swallowed Nandan Nilekanis sales pitch for Aadhaar hook line sinker, despite the fact PM Modi and each and every BJP politician condemned Aadhaar before 2014 election. The question PM Modi has to ask himself is can all BJP politicians be wrong ? Can the Parliamentary Standing committee headed by BJP leader Yashwant Sinha be wrong ? It is strange that he just took one mans opinion to be true and rejected his entire BJP Party and never paid any attention to activist who opposed aadhaar for a number of reasons. Perhaps good intention on road to perdition. Amazing – Nandan Nilekani definitely qualifies as India's first Marvel superhero, Teflon Man. Nothing he does sticks to him, it is always somebody else's fault.

9-     Optional VS Mandatory: Both UPA led by Congress and NDA led by BJP do/did not have numbers in both houses to take the bold step to make Aadhaar Mandatory. To get around the problem both parties have maintained that Aadhaar is not mandatory. It is hard to believe that nearly over a billion people enrolled for Aadhaar voluntarily. They were indirectly forced to enrol so they do not miss out on Subsidised Rations, NREGA allowances, Govt pensions, Govt scholarships, LPG, and the list is endless almost 80 or more Govt depts, have made Aadhaar which is meant to be voluntary, compulsory to get drivers licence, to get passports, etc etc.

10-  FOMO: In modern youngsters terminology Aadhaar enrolment by a Billion people in India was driven by FOMO which is “FEAR OF MISSING OUT” Not because they understood the implications but because they did not want to miss out on their entitlements.

11-  LPG: It is not possible to understand why every one using LPG for cooking requires a Govt subsidy. People do not receive Govt subsidies in their bank accounts for Petrol and Diesel. So why should LPG require Govt subsidy? Why LPG is subsidised to all and sundry is a million dollar question.

12-  Optional Aadhaar : This allows an individual, for example, to live in Mumbai with his family as Ramesh who has no Aadhaar to have a second identity as Bupesh with an Aadhaar with biometrics for full identification. Not a bad idea for men with multiple wives and living in different states. The fact that Aadhaar is optional allows Criminals to stay off the radar by not enrolling for an Aadhaar. It can also give wanted criminals an opportunity to rebirth themselves in another city in India with a brand new name, address, DOB with a Photo and biometrics such as finger prints and iris scans.