MediaVigil, Journal of Global Communications and Justice

Public Statement on Prashant Bhushan's contempt case

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Mon, 17 Aug 2020 09:39:00 +0000

Statement to the Supreme Court and to the Public of India at large.

We, the below named, practicing members of the bar in India, have noted with dismay, the judgment of the Supreme Court, in Mr. Prashant Bhushan's contempt case. An independent judiciary consisting of independent judges and lawyers, is the basis of the rule of law in a Constitutional democracy. Mutual respect and the absence of coercion, are the hallmarks of a harmonious relationship between the bar and bench. Any tilting of the balance, one way or the other, is deleterious both to the institution and the nation.

An independent judiciary does not mean that judges are immune from scrutiny and comment. It is the duty of lawyers to freely bring any shortcomings to the notice of bar, bench and the public at large. While some of us may have divergent views on the advisability and content of Mr. Prashant Bhushan's two tweets, we are unanimously of the view that no contempt of court was intended or committed especially when contrasted with the normal standard that "Justice is not a cloistered virtue... She must be allowed to suffer the scrutiny and respectful, even though outspoken comments of ordinary men." 

While Mr. Prashant Bhushan as a lawyer of good standing of the Supreme Court, may not be an ordinary man, his tweets do not say anything out of the ordinary, other than what is routinely expressed about the court's working in recent years by many on public fora and on social media. Even some retired judges of the Supreme Court have expressed somewhat similar views.  

This judgment does not restore the authority of the court in the eyes of the public. Rather, it will discourage lawyers from being outspoken. From the days of the supersession of judges and the events thereafter, it has been the Bar that has been the first to stand in defence of the independence of the judiciary.  A bar silenced under the threat of contempt, will undermine the independence and ultimately the strength of the Court. A silenced bar, cannot lead to a strong court.

We also express a deep sense of disappointment about the Supreme Court’s utter disregard of the presence of the Learned Attorney General, a highly respected Lawyer of great eminence, and its refusal to seek his valuable opinion in the matter, which is mandated even as per contempt law. 

 We are of the firm view that the judgment must not be given effect to, until a larger bench, sitting in open court after the pandemic has the opportunity to review the standards of criminal contempt. We do believe that the Supreme Court will hear the Voice of the People expressed all around in last 72 hours on the subject and take corrective steps to prevent miscarriage of Justice and restore the confidence and respect that Citizens have generally reposed in it. 

Signed

Mr. Janak Dwarkadas
Mr. Navroz H Seervai
Mr. Darius J Khambata
Mr. Jayant Bhushan
Ms. Vrinda Grover
Mr. Bishwajit Bhattacharyya
Mr. Dushyant Dave
Mr. Huzefa Ahmadi
Mr. Arvind Datar
Mr. Mihir Desai
Mr. Anoop Feroze George Choudhary
Ms. June Choudhary
Mr. Ravindra Srivastava
Ms. Kamini Jaiswal
Mr. Prashanto Chandra Sen
Ms. R. Vaigai
Mr. Sattvik Verma
Mr. Amarjit Singh Chandhiok
Ms. Karuna Nundy
Mr. Sriram Panchu
Mr. Percy Kavina
Ms. Meenakshi Arora
Mr. Nakul Dewan
Mr. Ritin Rai
Mr. Anip Sachthey
Mr. Shekhar Naphade
Mr. Rajiv Nayyar
Mr. Shyam Divan
Mr. Lalit Bhasin
Mr. Pallav Shishodia
Mr. PP Khurana
Mr. Chander Uday Singh
Mr. Sanjay R Hegde
Mr. Ramji Srinivasan
Mr. Raju Ramachandran
Mr. Suhrith Parthasarathy
Mr. Kailash Vasdev
Dr. Menaka Guruswamy
Mr. Mustafa Doctor
Mr. Kirti Uppal
Mr. Pranjal Kishore

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Letter to PM and CM-Grievance regarding billing for COVID-19 treatment of K Laxmi Narasamma in Telangana:N Sai Balaji

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 14:27:00 +0000

Dear Sir/Madam,

Grievance regarding billing of patient Mrs. K Laxmi Narasamma (UMR20072800087) for COVID-19 treatment in violation of Telangana Government Order of 248 Dated 16^th June 2020

August 6, 2020

1. My aunt, Mrs. K Laxmi Narasamma (65 years old, UHID: 18082832) has been admitted in Mallareddy Narayan multi Speciality Hospital, Suraram, Hyderabad since 28th July 2020. She is currently admitted in COVID ICU -2. Through this letter I wish to register my grievance regarding the incorrect billing for my aunt COVID treatment in hospital, which is in violation of the Order issued by the Telangana Government on 16^th June 2020 prescribing maximum per day package rates for COVID related treatments in private hospitals in Telangana.

2. Through its GO No. 248 dated 16th June 2020, the Telanagana Government fixed the maximum rates, in an private hospital, for an admission in the ICU without need for ventilator care at Rs. 7,500 per day and for an admission in the ICU with ventilator care at Rs. 9,000 per day.

3. Further, the Order directs that:

2. “The rate included monitoring and investigating like CBC, urine routines, HIV spot, HCV, Hbs ag, Serum Creatinine, USG, 2D Echo X Ray, ECG, Drugs, Consultation, Bed charges,meals. Procedures like Rylestube insertion, urinary tract catheterisation”.

3. Private hospitals display these rates at prominent places in their premises. It is the duty of the hospital to explain the patient/relatives about the charges for various services.

4. Within these rates, the order didn’t specify any upper limit for PPE kits, other tests like MRI, CT scan, and other interventional procedures. However the present hospital is charging rs 12,000 per day for PPE kits, which is not only exorbitant but seems like extortion.

4. At the time of my mother’s admission on 28th July, my family was not informed about the rates fixed for COVID-19 treatment by the Telangana Government. We were told that the hospital had a COVID-19 package for ICU admission i.e. rs 50,000 per day excluding ventilators charges. We were asked to immediately deposit Rs. 5 lakhs but because it was too large a sum, we could only deposit Rs. 4 lakhs.

5. In the first few days of my mother’s admission in the ICU, she was receiving oxygen and non-invasive ventilator support. She has been on ventilator support since 5th July. We are not satisfied with reportsing regarding her treatment as its not being share with us by her doctors. It is only after repeated calls and requests, we were allowed for a twice a day video call with the patient. This didn’t include a phone call or virtual meeting with the doctor to understand what treatment they were giving.

6. On 5th August, the billing section called my cousin to deposit one more lakh as the previous money has been exhausted. But no provisional bill was given until we had to fight for it. It was only after a argument that a provisional bill of Rs. 4,26,243 for 9 days of admission (28^th July – 5^th August July) which was a huge amount.

The breakdown of the provisional bill is as follows:

ICU Isolation Bed Charges Rs 9000 per day	Rs. 72,000
Dr ER Physcian Rs 400 per day	Rs. 2,800
Dr Surapuraju Suresh rs 600 per day	Rs 4,200
Dr Nitya rs 600 per day	Rs. 6,00
Dietician Rs 75 per day	Rs 575
RFT test (4) per test rs 770	Rs. 3080
LFT rs 770 per test (2)	Rs. 1540
LDH	Rs. 230
GRBS blood sugar rs 80 per test (11)	Rs 880
ABG rs 1230 per test (2)	Rs 2460
ECG rs 230	Rs 230
COVID testing rtPCR	Rs 2200
CBC, CBP, PT/INR	Rs 2200
Ferritin 528 rs per test (2)	Rs. 1056

Pulse oximetry rs 390 per day	Rs. 3120
Oxygen Perday (Rs. 3080 per day)	Rs. 24,640
ICU isolation care charges per day rs 7000	Rs 56,000
PPE (Rs. 12,000 per day)	Rs. 96,000
Investigative Charges rs 2500 per day	Rs. 20,000
Medical Record Charges	Rs. 390
Doctor fees in isolation ward rs 8000 per day	Rs. 64,000
Administrative service charges for ICU isolation rs 1000 per day	Rs. 8000
Admission	Rs 260
Pharmacy chargers IP	Rs. 59,012

Total Rs 4,26, 243

7. During this time I came to know that the Telangana Government had capped the rates for COVID-19 treatment (specifically, Rs. 7,500-9,000 per day for ICU admission) and realised that the hospital charges were extremely high as compared to the government rates. In fact, the average charge per day was more than Rs. 60,000. My family was very concerned because we do not have the financial capability to cover such huge costs.

8. Because of the efforts of a concerned family friend who tried to contact government authorities for clarification about the rates, I raised the issue on twitter tagging government officials. Srinivas Rao, DHMO contacted me on twitter saying action will be taken. However, I was not contacted, hence I found out his number and lodged a complaint through watsapp on 31^st July and 4^th August requesting to take action. Yet there has been no response.

9. In spite of repeated requests and also informing the hospital about the government order, the billing section said the GO is not applicable to them. However the government order doesn’t give any exception. More surprising the hospital also included the costs that the Government of Telangana stipulated in its order in the provisional bill for example ICU Isolation bed charges rs 9000 per day includes ventilator charges also, however my aunt has not been administered with ventilator till now.

Similarly other exorbitant prices have been mentioned. The copy of the provisional bill is attached with the mail.

10. As you are aware, the Telangana Government rates are applicable in private hospitals on all COVID

11. We are not even receiving regular updates about my aunt’s medical condition from her doctors and we are unable to even understand her situation and no consent is being taken from us about the treatment. My family is facing difficulties in undertaking the expenses according to the hospital’s rates and I am therefore requesting the billing to be as per the rates fixed by the government.

I therefore request to take action against the hospital and demand the hospital to change the billing for my Aunt's COVID treatment according to the maximum allowable per day rates laid out in the Telangana Government Order of 16 June 2020, and to also provide me with a corrected provisional bill.

Looking forward to your positive response.

Sincerely,

N Sai Balaji

Nephew of K Laxmi Narasamma,

8-4-371/8/93, Saradhi Coop Housing society,

Mothinagar

Hyderabad-500018

Note: This letter has been sent to the following addresses:

pmoffice@gov.in

dr.harshvardhan@sansad.nic.in

pstohfm@gov.in

secyhfw@nic.in

cmo@telangana.gov.in

secy_cm@telangana.gov.in

prlsecy_hmfw@telangana.gov.in

rajbhavan-hyd@gov.in

dg_dca@telangana.gov.in

Supreme Court: Caregivers of Araria gang rape victim granted immediate release

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Tue, 04 Aug 2020 09:45:00 +0000

Supreme Court has ordered the immediate release of Tanmay Nivedita and Kalyani Badola who were sent to Dalsinghsarai jail, Samastipur in Bihar for their alleged misdemeanor while assisting and for supporting a gang rape survivor. The order was pronounced today.

The Court has issued notice to Bihar Government in this cass. Advocate Vrinda Grover was assisted by advocates Ratna Appnender and Soutik Banerjee and Liz Mathew appeared for the petitioners.

Earlier, the gangrape survivor from Araria in Bihar, who was arrested on the orders of a judicial magistrate while giving her statement about the incident, was granted bail on 17 July. However, the Araria Chief Judicial Magistrate Anand Kumar Singh refused bail to two social workers, who had helped the woman and were arrested with her on July 10.

The 22-year-old survivor was allegedly gang-raped on July 6 after which she sought help from members of Jan Jagran Shakti Sanghtan (JJSS), an Araria-based voluntary group with whom she was employed. An FIR was lodged at a women’s police station on July 9, accusing five men for sexually assaulting her.

On July 10, when the survivor was recording her statement before the Judicial Magistrate at the Araria District Court, she had requested that Tanmay Nivedita and Kalyani Badola from the , who had accompanied the voluntary group to the court, be allowed to help her as she was unable to comprehend the proceedings. When Nivedita and Badola requested the judge to explain the statement again, the judge got annoyed and ordered the police to take all three into custody. On the judge’s orders, a case was lodged against the three women under IPC sections for obstructing a public servant from discharge of duty, which is punishable with a prison term of two years. The police later sent all three to Dalsinghsarai jail in Samastipur district, 250 kms from Araria.

A bail petition was filed for all three women on July 15.

Responding to the widespread outrage, the Araria District and Session Judge asked the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) to look into the matter.

The court of CJM Anand Kumar Singh heard the case and granted bail to the gang rape survivor on a PR bond while, it rejected bail to two caregivers Kalyani Badola and Tanmay Nivedita. Advocate Debu Sen had appeared for them.

Some 400 lawyers across the country had written a letter to the Chief Justice and other judges of the Patna High Court in response to the unjust judicial action calling for “urgent and systematic changes in the treatment of survivors of violent sexual crimes in the Araria district court.”

This is one of the rare instances in the country where a gangrape victim was sent to jail along with her two caregivers.

Lawyers ask Patna High Court Judges to ensure just treatment of survivors of violent sexual crimes in Araria District Court, Bihar

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 11:52:00 +0000

Letter from Lawyers to the Hon’ble Chief Justice of Patna High Court and other Hon’ble Judges

Need for urgent and systemic changes in the treatment of survivors of violent sexual crimes in the Araria District Court, Bihar

15^th July, 2020

Hon’ble the Chief Justice of Patna High Court and other Hon’ble Judges:

Subject: Need for urgent and systemic changes in the treatment of survivors of violent sexual crimes in the Araria District Court.

Lordships:

We, the undersigned are lawyers practicing in different places across the country, who also believe in creating a robust criminal justice system, which is responsive to the needs of survivors of violent sexual crimes. We have received news of a very disturbing incident in distant Araria, and involving a 22-year-old, who was violently gang-raped on July 6th, and her two caregivers/friends. While recording her S.164 statement on July 10th, the learned magistrate perceived her disoriented state of mind as a personal affront and remanded her (and her two caregivers) into custody for contempt of court. The three have been remanded into judicial custody in Dalsinghsarai Jail, about 240Kms from Araria. The survivor’s details, including her father’s name and full address have also been disclosed in the local press. The news reports cite the Court staff as having provided the details.

At this stage, we submit that even without going into the various versions of the event that will invariably be brought before your Lordships, there is a need to infuse the incident with some sensitivity and view it from that perspective: it was the fourth day since the incident of gangrape. The survivor ‘A’ was completely distraught and also very disoriented. She was not eating or sleeping, and also in physical pain. In the course of the four days, she had had to repeat her experience to sundry personnel, often only for voyeuristic purposes. She had been totally dependent, emotionally, on her caregivers since the incident, and they were also traumatized and exhausted. We respectfully submit that any perceived disrespect must be viewed from this perspective. Victims and their caregivers deserve extra care and sensitivity.

Rather than understanding the fragile state of the three people, they were first remanded to police custody. It may be pointed out that no Covid test was conducted on the survivor, even though she had been gang-raped by several strangers. Within hours, and while the three were in police custody, exaggerated accounts of what had transpired during the proceedings were reported on electronic media, together with complete details about the survivor, including her father’s name and her complete address. Shockingly, one such report also carries a photograph of the reporter sitting in the filing section and inspecting her file, with the court clerk and other staff looking on. [Annexure A]

The Reports published on July 11th in the local papers also state that no FIR has yet been filed in the ‘contempt case’. It was only at around 12:30PM on July 11th that two witnesses were asked to sign on a blank arrest memo and they were informed that FIR no. 61/2020, Araria Mahila Thana, had been filed under the Contempt of Courts Act, which is not applicable to the magistrate’s court; also under S.353 of the IPC (which is most implausible, even if we accept the facts at face value that the survivor had repeatedly demanded that the S.164 statement be read out to her by her caregiver and not by the learned magistrate since she could not understand him); Ss. 228 and 188 (both bailable). The three were produced in court and remanded into judicial custody to the District Jail in Dalsinghsarai, 240Kms away.

We submit that the remand into judicial custody is excessive and harsh given the circumstances. The survivor’s emotional state is extremely fragile and we fear that the separation from her caregivers and incarceration will have an adverse affect on her health.

It has also resulted in the original case pertaining to gangrape (FIR 59/2020, ArariaMahila Thana) having been put on the backburner, while all attention is focused on the alleged contempt. In popular perception too, the survivor is being maligned: ‘if she is ‘bold’ enough to raise her voice at the magistrate, then of course she is ‘bold’ enough to invite attention’. We pray that your Lordships intervene into the matter as it displays a complete lack of sensitivity to a victim of violent sexual crime and to her caregivers.

Signed by,

Sl.No.	Name	City/ Place of practice
1	Sr Adv Indira Jaising	Delhi Supreme Court of India
2	Adv Prashant Bhushan	New Delhi
3	Adv Vrinda Grover	Delhi
4	Sr Adv Rebecca John	Delhi
5	Sr Adv Mukul Talwar	New Delhi
6	Sr Adv Basant Kumar Choudhary	Patna High court
7	Adv N D Pancholi	Delhi
8	Adv Ashok Agarwal	Delhi
9	Sr Adv Gayatri Singh	Bombay High Court
10	Adv Samir Ali Khan	New Delhi
11	Adv Veena Gowda	Mumbai
12	Adv Shomona Khanna	Supreme Court of India
13	Adv Amit Anand Tiwari	Supreme Court of India
14	Adv Sumita Hazarika	New Delhi
15	Adv Susan Abraham	Mumbai
16	Adv Rachana Joshi Issar	Delhi
17	Adv Roma Malik	New Delhi
18	Adv Indira Unninayyar	Delhi / High Court / Supreme Court / Trial Courts
19	Adv Anubha Rastogi	Mumbai
20	Adv Poonam Kaushik	Delhi District courts
21	Adv Flavia Agnes	Mumbai
22	Adv Vasudha Nagraj	Hyderabad
23	Adv Sheela Ramanathan	Bangalore
24	Adv MaharukhAdenwalla	Mumbai
25	Adv Nousheen Yousuf	Mumbai
26	Adv Nabeela Tareen	Srinagar
27	Adv Nanita Sharma	New Delhi
28	Adv Stanley John	Trivandrum
29	Adv Vinay K Sreenivasa	Bangalore
30	Adv Maitreyi Krishnan	Bangalore
31	Adv Raghavendra Kumar	Delhi
32	Adv Lara Jesani	Mumbai
33	Adv Mangla Verma	New Delhi
34	Adv Cheryl D'Souza	Delhi
35	Adv Apar Gupta	Delhi
36	Adv PyoliSwatija	Delhi
37	Adv Piyush Kumar Pandey	Advocate on Record, Patna High Court
38	Adv Bijaya Chanda	Alipore Court, West Bengal
39	Adv Shalini Gera	High Court of Chhattisgarh at Bilaspur
40	Adv Isha Khandelwal	Bombay
41	Adv Nikita Agarwal	New Delhi
42	Arunima Bhattacharjee	New Delhi
43	Anand Darshan	New Delhi
44	Bulbul Das	New Delhi
45	Mary Mitzy Mayne	New Delhi
46	Nazia Parveen	New Delhi
47	Omanakuttan K K	New Delhi
48	Adv Payal Gaikwad	New Delhi
49	Ishita Yadu	Lucknow
50	Raja Rabbi Hussain	New Delhi
51	Veena Gowda	Mumbai
52	Shahab Ahmad	New Delhi
53	Bhoomika D. Pandhare	Thane
54	Eklavya Vasudev	New Delhi
55	Burjis Shabir	New Delhi
56	Adv Ekta Verma	New Delhi
57	Tanya Sharma	New Delhi
58	Amit kumar	New Delhi
59	Remya Raj	New Delhi
60	Ayush	New Delhi
61	Chandan Kumar	New Delhi
62	Dipika Sahani	Mumbai
63	Bharathan Chandrasekaran	Delhi University
64	Dhananjay	Varanasi
65	Sagarika Parab	Mumbai
66	Priyamwada Sinha	New Delhi
67	Abdul Gaffar Advocate	Delhi
68	Raghav Kacker	Delhi
69	Kumaresh Trivedi	Ahmedabad
70	Shailza	Chandigarh
71	Prachi Jain	Delhi
72	Amala Dasarathi	New Delhi
73	Abu Nasar	Patna High Court
74	Khushboo Pareek	New Delhi
75	Annie Jain	Guwahati/Bombay
76	Nand Kumar Sagar	Patna
77	Prajwal K Aradhya	Bangalore
78	Samhita Mehra	Mumbai
79	Sangram Chinnappa	Bombay
80	Bhakta Patnaik	Mumbai
81	Aditi	Himachal Pradesh
82	Priyanka shukla	Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh
83	Pranav arora	Delhi
84	Zarif	Noida
85	Rachna Bahadur Advocate	New Delhi
86	Afreen Khan	Mumbai
87	PhilarisaNongpiur	New Delhi
88	Rashmi Priya	Mumbai
89	Anunayarsh	Delhi
90	VidushiSood	Chandigarh
91	Adv Rahul Shrivastava	M P Highcourt, Jabalpur
92	Puja	New Delhi
93	Poorna R	Bangalore
94	Reena Rao	Delhi
95	Sneh Lata	Delhi
96	Shivani Purohit	New Delhi
97	Shreshtha Das	Delhi
98	Namrata Kabra	Maharashtra and Goa
99	Rudrajit Ghosh	Delhi NCR
100	Deo Narayan Sen	Araria
101	Ashok Mishra	Araria
102	Geeta Sajjanshetty	Kalaburagi
103	Arun Kunar	Araria
104	Divya Jyoti Sen	Araria
105	Ananya Mukherjee	Delhi
106	Akshansh Ankit	Patna
107	Nidhi Rani	Mumbai
108	Rajni Soren	Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh High Court
109	Syed Tabeer Riyaz	Delhi
110	Ishani	New Delhi
111	Pranav Menon	Advocate, Delhi
112	Ad. Suresh rathaur	Varanasi
113	Rakesh Shukla	Delhi
114	Tanvi	Delhi-NCR
115	Sandhya	Delhi
116	Poorva	Chandigarh
117	Muskan Singhal	Chandigarh
118	Liz Mathew	New Delhi
119	Shobha	Delhi
120	Divya Srinivasan	Delhi
121	Agam Sharma	New Delhi
122	Amber Fatmi	Delhi
123	Surya Sanjay	Bangalore
124	Abhiti	Delhi
125	Anupradha Singh, Advocate	Supreme Court of India, Delhi
126	Harshad	Delhi
127	Zarif	Noida
128	Dushyant X	Delhi
129	Piyush Ranjan	Patna/Patna High Court
130	Shivani Mamgain	Uttarakhand
131	Jeevika S	Delhi
132	Rahul Maurya	Delhi
133	Alpana malik	New delhi
134	Disha Kharbanda	New Delhi
135	Disha Wadekar	Delhi
136	Gayatri Suman	Bilaspur ,chattisgarh
137	Shubhangi Singh	Lucknow
138	Mohammad Saad Khan	High Court of Delhi
139	Abeera Dubey	Mumbai
140	Qaseem	Lucknow
141	Shalu Nigam	Delhi
142	Rustam Kuraishi	Delhi
143	Kartavi	Delhi
144	Ishwarinishad advocate	Mahasamund
145	Shraddha	Hyderabad
146	Shruti	Delhi
147	Tanika Chandna	Delhi
148	WarishaFarasat	New delhi
149	Siddhartha Basu	Delhi/Bangalore
150	Shantanu	Delhi
151	Harsh Parashar	New Delhi
152	Soumya Mehrotra	Delhi
153	Sohail	Delhi
154	Kamlesh Kumar Mishra	Supreme court of India
155	Aarushi mahajan	Delhi
156	Adv Priyanka singh	Delhi,Saket court
157	Amita joseph	New delhi
158	SHYNA P A	High Court of Kerala
159	Kshatrshal Raj	Delhi/Supreme Court of India
160	Ritika chatterjee	Karnataka
161	Irshaan S. Kakar	New Delhi/ Chandigarh
162	Nishant Kumar	Patna and Delhi
163	Rachita Padwal	Mumbai
164	Kunal tiwary	Patna high court
165	Nayantara Roy	Delhi
166	Alka verma	Patna high court
167	Ranjana Vohra	Delhi
168	Saptashwa Singh	Patna High Court
169	Pulkit Prakash	New Delhi
170	Dev	Thrissur
171	Shubhashish Sharma	MUMBAI
172	Aishwarya Nabb	Delhi
173	LubnaNaaz	Supreme Court of India, Delhi
174	Harleenkaur	New Delhi and Punjab
175	Vivek Menon	Mumbai
176	Parijata Bhardwaj	Delhi
177	Devika.S	Chennai
178	Aditi	Mumbai
179	Abhishek Nath Tripathi	New Delhi
180	UjjainiChatterji	Delhi and Bombay
181	A.J. Jawad	Madras High Court
182	R Vigneshwar	Madras HC
183	Adv Mini Mathew	Mumbai
184	Leena Menghaney	New Delhi
185	Vishal Bhatia	Delhi
186	Shiv Bansal	Delhi
187	Rahul Beruar	Delhi
188	Rudrajyoti Nath Ray	New Delhi, Kolkata
189	Snigdha Tiwari	High Court Nainital
190	Karishma Maria	New Delhi
191	P C Tewari	Almora
192	Chandni Chawla	Mumbai
193	Malavika Parthasarathy	Bangalore
194	Nikita Sonavane	Bhopal
195	Ameya Bokil	Bhopal
196	Radhika	Delhi
197	Wasif Rahman Khan	Patna high court
198	Ankit Kulkarni	Bombay High Court
199	Talib Mustafa	Patna/ High Court of Judicature at Patna
200	Deepika	Faridabad
201	Adv Santosh Kumar Yadav	Patna civil court
202	Monika	Delhi
203	Runjun Dutta	Law Student
204	Hemant Ingle	Mumbai
205	S.Meenakshi	Chennai
206	Anshuman Upadhyay	Delhi
207	Sayed Imran Ghani	Civil court patna
208	Zaman Ali	Mumbai
209	Aditi Gupta	New Delhi
210	Mohit Singh	DELHI
211	Mitul Singh Rana	Hoshiarpur
212	Siddharth Seem	New Delhi
213	Gayatri Sharma	Delhi
214	Kumar Shashank Shekher	Delhi
215	Anne Panicker	Mumbai
216	Lousy George	Chennai
217	Prarthna Nanda	Mumbai
218	Saumya	Delhi
219	Anuj kumarroy	Civil court hazaribag
220	Adv Khemchand R Koshti	Guj. High Court, Ahmedabad
221	Brijesh Jasvantray Trivedi	Ahmedabad
222	Saurabh Bishwambhar	Patna High Court
223	Radhika Kolluru	Delhi High Court
224	Meera Sanghamitra	Hyderabad
225	Kamal Kishor	Patna
226	Brajesh Kumar	Delhi
227	Nawal kishor	Koderma
228	Md Modassir Shams	Patna
229	Nishant Sirohi	New Delhi
230	A P Josy	Sakti, Dt Janjgir-Champa, Chhattisgarh
231	Saumya Maheshwari	Delhi
232	Deepak Singh	Delhi High Court
233	Prathibha S	Delhi
234	Tarun Agarwal	New Delhi
235	Anoop Kumaran	Thrissur, Keralam
236	Roma	New Delhi
237	Anupam Kirti	Delhi
238	Malar GP	Delhi
239	Govind	Delhi
240	Sumeet Kumar singh	Patna High Court
241	Anurag Bindal	New Delhi
242	Shivangi Rai	New Delhi
243	Manali Singhal	Delhi
244	Nandini Mitra	High Court at Calcutta
245	Aditya Kumar	New Delhi
246	Adv Savita Ali	Session Court Patna
247	MohdShaqir Hussain	Jammu
248	Madhurima	Kolkata
249	Dharmendra Kumar Mishra	Delhi
250	P. Kumar	Delhi.
251	Renuka Sahu	New Delhi
252	Angkit Bharadwaj	Guwahati
253	Liyi	New Delhi
254	Manshi Jaiswal	Lucknow
255	Ritika chatterjee	Karnataka
256	Praavita	Delhi
257	Somesh Chandra Jha	Delhi
258	Priyanka	Patna
259	Sachin	Delhi
260	Bharti Ali	New Delhi
261	Manju Sharma	Patna High Court
262	Aryan Batra	Kolkata
263	Ritika chatterjee	Karnataka
264	Iman Calcuttawala (Ms.)	Mumbai/Bombay High Court
265	Anuvinda	New Delhi
266	Ankur Gulyani Panda	New Delhi
267	Adv. Ijas Muhammed	Kottayam
268	Preeti Dash	Delhi
269	Megha Mehta	Bombay
270	Ritika chatterjee	Karnataka
271	NS Tanvi	Chennai
272	Aarushi mahajan	Delhi
273	Sayanti	Kolkata
274	Harsh Bora	New Delhi
275	Adv. Suraj Sanap	Bombay
276	Ashish Kumar	Delhi
277	Adv Nasreen Khan	Calcutta High Court
278	Shreyashi Sharma	Delhi
279	SagrikaSemwal	Delhi
280	Rudraksh	Delhi
281	Nikhilesh	Mumbai
282	Adv Sheik Moulali Basha	Supreme Court Of India
283	Aman Golechha	Mumbai
284	Shashwat	Delhi
285	Persis Sidhva	Mumbai
286	Aniket Aggarwal	New Delhi
287	Ashutosh Kumar Mishra	Delhi
288	Sukriti Khurana	New Delhi
289	KezhosanoKikhi	Kohima
290	Sindhu Saikrishnan	Bangalore
291	Adv Jacinta Saldanha	Mumbai
292	Sumi Ann Varkey	Kottayam
293	Mansi Sood	Delhi
294	Farhat	Mumbai
295	Vishnu	Delhi
296	Nishant Sirohi	New Delhi
297	AvaniChokshi	Bangalore
298	Pradeep Mandhyan	Mumbai
299	Kaustubh Gidh	Mumbai
300	Adv Akhil Joshi	Delhi
301	Vivekananda N	India
302	Haridya	Delhi
303	Radhika Kolluru	Delhi High Court
304	Mandeep singh	Chandigarh
305	Siddhartha	Delhi
306	Renu Mishra	Lucknow
307	Asha singh	Gurgaon
308	PreranaPriyanshu	Chennai
309	Adv. Shruti Narayan	Delhi
310	Steffi	Mumbai
311	Asha Rodiyal	Mumbai
312	A.J. Jawad	Madras High Court
313	Margaret Dsouza	Mumbai
314	Adv.Mallika Verma	Mumbai
315	RUKHSANA CHOUDHURY	DELHI
316	Deependra Kumar Mishra	Pratapgarh
317	Jacqueline	Mumbai
318	Nupur Raut	Mumbai
319	Payoshi	Bombay
320	Ragini A	Mumbai
321	Adv. Jahangir Alam	Delhi
322	Yuvraj Rathore	New Delhi
323	Babu K Y	Kanyakumari
324	Ranvir Singh	Delhi
325	Adv. Chitra Sundar	Mumbai
326	IpshitaBhuwania	Mumbai
327	Adv Shivani Bhate	Mumbai
328	Naomi Chandra	New delhi
329	Adv. Sheebapaul	Mumbai
330	K. Padma	Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh
331	Anupchand K Minj	Guwahati
332	Adv Ritu Rajkumari	New Delhi
333	Adv. Mani Gupta	New Delhi
334	Prerna Raj	Delhi
335	Som Dutta Sharma	Delhi
336	Adv Richa verma	Delhi
337	Adv Payal Gaikwad	Delhi
338	Theresia Parakkadan	Mumbai
339	IkshakuBezbaroa	Bangalore
340	Shantanu	Delhi
341	Adv. Kokila Parmar	Delhi
342	Adv. Roshni shah	Nashik
343	Anjana Gosain	New Delhi
344	Shalini Nair	New Delhi
345	Kirti Singh	Delhi
346	Shubham Kaushal	Mumbai
347	Tanvi mane	Mumbai
348	Narender	Delhi
349	Adv K. Gayatri	Pune
350	Vivek Menon	Mumbai
351	Harleen Singh	New Delhi
352	Bidisha Mahanta	Assam
353	Arul	Bangalore
354	MV Swaroop	Chennai
355	UrmiChudgar	Delhi
356	Manishaa Thakur	Delhi
357	Adv Kriti Kakkar	Delhi
358	Sudha Ambastha	Patna High Court
359	Milinda Sharma	New Delhi
360	Clara	Guwahati
361	Aditi Kumar	New Delhi
362	Shashibala Verma	Patna High Court
363	Sumita Kapil	New Delhi
364	Pushpa Sinha	Patna High Court
365	Rahul Vardhan	Mumbai
366	Nalinu	Delhi
367	Fidel Sebastian	Delhi
368	Rohan Seth	Delhi
369	Irfan Engineer	Mumbai
370	Kruthika NS	Bengaluru
371	OlullahLaskar	Guwahati
372	Adv Kaushik Gupta	Kolkata
373	Sarada Mahesh	Bengaluru
374	Anirban Tarafder	Kolkata
375	Md. Alauddin	Barrackpore Court, Kolkata
376	Falakyar Askari	The High Court of Judicature at Patna

Also See:

Bihar: Gangrape survivor arrested after demanding the presence of social workers in district court

PUCL Statement on the attack against Journalists and Media in Covid period

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 09:51:00 +0000

The Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties condemns the attempt at criminalizing the writings of journalist Supriya Sharma, Executive Editor of the Scroll, the most recent victim of state attack on the media. The article, “In Varanasi village adopted by Prim Minister Modi, people went hungry during the lockdown" was published on June 5th, 2020. Among the people it reported on were Mala Devi and her family, who are Scheduled Castes from Domari Village. The Uttar Pradesh police filed a first information report on Scroll’s executive editor Supriya and the Editor-in-chief, on the 13th of June. Supriya Sharma wrote an 8 part series on the suffering imposed by the lockdown in Varanasi, exposing the loss of livelihoods and hunger faced by the marginalized: the Dalits, single women and informal workers.

The criminal provisions slapped on the Scroll journalists are bizarre and do not even apply to the complaint made by the aggrieved individual. These are: carrying out negligent acts likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life (Sec 269 IPC), defamation through print (Sec 501 IPC), intentionally insults or intimidates with intent to humiliate a SC or ST within public view (Sec 3 (1)(r)) and abuses any member of SC/ST by caste name in public (section 3 (1)(s) of SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act). In her police complaint Mala Devi denies saying she went hungry during the lockdown. Mala Devi has also alleged that Supriya has not accurately reported her employment status. The story says Mala is a domestic worker, while in the FIR Mala says she is a sanitation worker with the Varanasi Municipality. It is very conceivable that Mala Devi, being connected to the Municipal body, can be pressurised to state anything on threat of losing her job.

The FIR against Supriya is an attempt to harass her via the police machinery as she showed the failure of the state to protect livelihoods and provide for rations in the Prime Minister's constituency. It is well known by now, that nobody is allowed to be critical of the PM or show his constituency in bad light.

The FIR on Supriya is not the first. According to a report by the Rights & Risks Analysis Group titled India: Media’s Crackdown During COVID-19 Lockdown, “At least 55 journalists faced arrest, registration of FIRs, summons or show causes notices, physical assaults, alleged destruction of properties and threats for reportage on COVID-19 or exercising freedom of opinion and expression during the national lockdown from 25 March to 31 May 2020.” The highest number of attacks on journalists was reported from Uttar Pradesh (11 journalists), followed by Jammu & Kashmir (6 journalists), Himachal Pradesh (5), four each in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Odisha, Maharashtra, two each in Punjab, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh & Kerala and one each in Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Nagaland and Telangana.

The PUCL would like to highlight some of the cases, which exposes the motivated nature and political intention behind the prosecutions. In the case of Vinod Dua, when the Delhi High court gave a stay order, a second FIR was lodged in Himachal Pradesh forcing him to approach the Supreme Court. The police however was literally on his door step on the same day, despite the Supreme Court giving an order stating that no coercive action should be taken. It is obvious that a very senior journalist who has been critical of not just this, but all, governments, needed to be silenced through police action so as to send a chilling lesson to other younger journalists, not to dare attempt to write against the regime.

Similarly, on 10^th April, 2020, in the middle of the Lockdown period, a police team from Ayodhya reached the home of Siddharth Varadarajan, the editor of The Wire, to deliver a summons to appear before the UP police on 14^th April, for making an “objectionable comment” about the CM; this, despite the ban on travel during the lockdown period. Nearly 2 months later in the 2^nd week of June, 2020, a FIR was filed against Aakar Patel, a columnist and human rights worker, who when highlighting the ongoing civil unrest in America in the wake of George Floyd’s death due to police brutality, tweeted that dalits, minorities and adivasis should rise up against atrocities. His twitter account was shut down as a result based on legal demand by the Karnataka state officials .

In Gujarat, Dhaval Patel, the editor of a Gujrati news portal, Face of Nation, was booked and arrested on 11^th May, 2020, for sedition for allegedly publishing a “speculative” report on the possible change in leadership in the state due to criticism over the rising Corona count. Patel was booked under section 54 (Punishment for false warning) of Disaster Management Act, 2005 and section 124A (Sedition) of Indian Penal Code (IPC).

On 6^th April, 2020, Pawan Choudhary, a web journalist, was arrested in Munger in Bihar on the charges of spreading misinformation about the death of COVID-19 patient. The Station House Officer of Jamalpur, Ranjan Kumar stated that the journalist was found to be spreading rumours through his social media account. He was sent to judicial custody in Munger jail.

Mahender Singh Manral, an Indian Express reporter was asked to appear before the police on the same day after he reported that Delhi police had found that an audio clip of Tablighi Jamaat leader, Maulana Saad, may have been doctored.

On 27 April 2020, Zubair Ahmed, a freelance journalist, was arrested by the police in Andaman & Nicobar for posting a tweet questioning why families were placed under home quarantine for merely speaking over the phone with Coronavirus patients. His tweet reportedly referred to a news article which reported that a family was quarantined as one of the members spoke to a COVID-19 positive person on phone. Dependra Pathak, DGP, A &N Administration stated that the journalist “posted an inciting, false and instigating tweet to disrupt public harmony, violating government order and to create panic among the public.” On 28 April, he was released on bail by a local court.

Even television anchors, who spew hatred against minorities, intellectuals and dissenters on their primetime slots have had FIRs lodged against them. Arnab Goswami of Republic TV, Sudhir Chaudhary of Zee TV and Amish Devgan of News 18, to mention a few. Although the PUCL does not agree with their views, it stands by their right to freedom of expression, except when it incites hatred and violence. PUCL believes that the right platform of censure is the Press Council of India and the peer body called the News Broadcasters association. We would insist that the FIRs lodged should be expeditiously investigated by the police whi should fil chargesheet if there is sufficient evidence and proceed to ensure that the trial is speedily concluded and justice delivered. This will generate confidence in the impartiality, independence and fairness of the police.

The worst scenario for the press is in Jammu & Kashmir, where in April this year, the J&K Cyber Police fileda case against a Kashmiri author and journalist Gowhar Geelani for “glorifying terrorism in Kashmir” through social media posts, days after a photo-journalist Masrat Zahra was booked under the UAPA for publishing “anti-national” posts on social media. The Hindu reporter and senior journalist Peerzada Ashiq was also questioned in connection with an FIR filed against his report headlined ‘Kin allowed to exhume bodies of militants in Baramulla". With a new media policy in place the authorities will go to the extent of deciding on the content that can be reported and published, in the name of tracking fake and anti national news.

PUCL expresses concern at the concerted and continuous attack on journalism and its practitioners, in different parts of India. PUCL also condemns the attempts to intimidate media persons, thereby stifling the media from playing its role as an independent and critical watchdog of liberty, democracy and governance. The cosy relationship between the political executive and the police is highlighted by the brazen impunity with which the police routinely break the law to crush dissent and silence criticism of ruling governments; the casual indifference of political leaders of the ruling party to even acknowledge, let alone respond to, complaints of abuse of law is symptomatic of the deep rot in the body politic of India.

There is a difference between implementing penal laws in an independent, accountable and legal manner and the deliberate and motivated abuse of criminal laws by the police, including in the use of special legislations like the SC & ST (POA) Act, 1987. Ironically, actual victims of caste atrocities and hate crimes find their complaints rejected, whereas the same laws are used against dissenting activists and media persons. When the State and the police abuse the law through fabricated prosecutions, their aim is not eventual convictions, but to lock up people for long periods of time without bail. Unfortunately, in many instances, the judiciary has failed to play a watchdog role.

The media is a vital part of democracy and plays an important role in holding power to account. India has had a proud tradition of free and fearless journalism, which played a very important role in the freedom struggle and this should be nurtured. A pandemic and the subsequent lockdown should not be excuses to clamp down on the media.

Supreme Court Judgement on UID/Aadhaar is against mandatory UID/Aadhaar for admission

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Thu, 18 Jun 2020 16:47:00 +0000

Smt. Keshni Anand Arora

Chief Secretary

Government of Haryana

Chandigarh

Date: 18/06/2020

Subject-Urgent: June 18, 2020 letter of District Elementary Education Officer, Hisar, Haryana on the subject of mandatory submission of UID/Aadhaar Number in manifest violation of Hon'ble Supreme Court Judgement on UID/Aadhaar

Madam,

With due respect this is with reference to the attached June 18, 2020 letter of District Elementary Education Officer, Hisar, Haryana on the subject of mandatory submission of UID/Aadhaar Number which is in manifest violation of the 1448 page long verdict of Hon'ble Supreme Court's verdict on UID/Aadhaar.

We submit that the directions given at page numbers 401-402, paragraph 332 of the Hon'ble Supreme Court's verdict of 26 September, 2018 creates a compulsion for review and revision of the illegal and unjust order in question. It merits your urgent attention because the illegal order in question has fixed 3 PM, June 19, 2020 as the deadline requiring mandatory submission of UID/Aadhaar Number. The verdict is against mandatory UID/Aadhaar for admission. The relevant text of Hon'ble Court's verdict is as under:

" 332) After considering the matter in depth and having regard to the discussion aforesaid, we hold as under:

(a) For the enrolment of children under the Aadhaar Act, it would be essential to have the consent of their parents/guardian. (b) On attaining the age of majority, such children who are enrolled under Aadhaar with the consent of their parents, shall be given the right to exit from Aadhaar, if they so choose.

(c) Insofar as the school admissions of children are concerned, requirement of Aadhaar would not be compulsory as it is neither a service nor subsidy. Further, having regard to the fact that a child between the age of 6 to 14 years has the fundamental right to education under Article 21A of the Constitution, school admission cannot be treated as ‘benefit’ as well.

(d) Benefits to children between 6 to 14 years under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, likewise, shall not require mandatory Aadhaar Writ Petition (Civil) No. 494 of 2012 & connected matters Page 401 of 567 enrolment.

(e) For availing the benefits of other welfare schemes which are covered by Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act, though enrolment number can be insisted, it would be subject to the consent of the parents, as mentioned in (a) above.

(f) We also clarify that no child shall be denied benefit of any of these schemes if, for some reasons, she is not able to produce the Aadhaar number and the benefit shall be given by verifying the identity on the basis of any other documents. We may record that a statement to this effect was also made by Mr. K.K. Venugopal, learned Attorney General for India, at the Bar."

The verdict is available at https://main.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/2012/35071/35071_2012_Judgement_26-Sep-2018.pdf

Therefore, we submit that in view of the above mentioned directions of the Hon'ble Court, there is a compelling reason for the administration to rectify the error ridden order to ensure that no one is denied the fundamental rights recognized under Article 21 of the Constitution of India and reiterated by the Hon'ble Court.

We will be happy to share more information in this regard.

warm regards

Gopal Krishna

Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL)*

E-mail-krishnaruhani@gmail.com

Web: www.toxicswatch.org

*Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) has been working on the issue of Unique Identification (UID) Number branded as “Aadhaar” since 2010. CFCL appeared as an expert to give testimony in front of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance which examined the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 (Aadhaar Bill, 2010).

Delhi High Court case on non-disclosure of information of foreign firms by UIDAI pending for last 6 years

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 04:59:00 +0000

Something remains rotten in the state of Denmark, says Shakespeare in Hamlet. So is the case with Delhi High Court case on non-disclosure of info on foreign firms like ACCENTURE & SAFRAN Group. Notably, 13th judge heard it on 11th December, 2019 and adjourned it to May 1, 2020. No new date has been scheduled for hearing it so far.

Writ Petition (Civil) No. 9143/2014, Delhi High Court case on non-disclosure of information of foreign firms by UIDAI despite CIC's order has been pending since 2014. It has beeen listed 22 times before 10 different single judge benches It was listed for hearing on 19 November 2018 before Justice Vibhu Bakhru. 1st hearing too was before him.

But instead of Jusatice Bakhru, on November 19, 2018, another new judge, Justice Suresh Kumar Kait heard the matter and passed the order: “Mr Lalit Bhasin, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the proposed respondent M/s Accenture services Pvt.Ltd. seeks time to file reply to the instant application.Let needful be done within four weeks.On taking steps, let service be affected upon other non-applicants, returnable on 14.03.2019.”

On March 14, 2019, another fresh judge, Justice V. Kameswar Rao heard the matter and passed the order: “Let a copy of the application seeking impleadment be given to the counsels for the proposed respondent Nos.4 and 5. Reply to the application be filed within four weeks.Rejoinder, if any, be filed within two weeks thereafter.List on August 28, 2019.”

On August 28, 2019, yet another new judge, Justice Jayant Nath heard the matter and passed the order: “At request of the learned counsel for the petitioner, adjourned to 11.12.2019.”

So far 13 judges have heard the case within a span of 6 years. On 11^th December, 2019, the case came before Justice Jayant Nath. He passed an order saying, "On the request of the learned counsel for the respondents, adjourned to 01.05.2020".

Can one ask Hon’ble Delhi High Court Chief Justice & Hon’ble Registrar General as to why this national security related case is not getting the priority it deserves? Big Data foreign firms seem to have subverted this public institution as well, no?

Gopal Krishna

Unfolding Distress Migration: a view from Prayagraj

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Mon, 01 Jun 2020 06:40:00 +0000

authored by K. Nidhi

The distress migration which is underway due to draconian lockdown in response to COVID-19 crisis is an opportunity to bring the adverse realities of migration and migrants’ lives at the centre stage in the public discourse. For long their existence and plight have been on the periphery.

Migrants can be classified into two major categories-

1. Permanent/semi-permanent and
2. Seasonal/circular/temporary migration.

The circular/seasonal/ temporary migrants are more vulnerable in the pandemic-driven migration. It is essentially a case of forced migration. Their vulnerability is multi-dimensional in nature. The major reasons of their vulnerability include:

1. Occupational vulnerability- Majority of the circular migrants are engaged in informal sector-out of which a major chunk is of daily wage workers. Unmindful of the 3-D jobs-Difficult, Dangerous and Demeaning they do for their livelihood, the migrant woekers have been excluded from social security benefits.

2. Spatial vulnerability- The circular migrants usually stay in slums where public utilities such as housing, toilet, drinking water are used on sharing basis. This reflects the exclusionary practice. The issue of migration and migrants finds scant attention in the urban policy. The high population density of slums is one of prominent reasons for rapid spread of corona virus in the slums where social distancing formula to contain corona outbreak faces structural constraints.

3. Political vulnerability- Migrants are not able to use their voting rights- either at source or at destination. Although portability of voting rights has been under discussion, its execution has its own challenges. This is one of the fault lines which pushes migrants at the margins.

Challenges

Pandemic-driven migration crisis revealed that despite having formal citizenship, migrants are not able to exercise their social, economic and political rights. It raises questions of belongingness and displacement. It underlines the fact about their statistical exclusio. As a consequence, their existence itself is subjected to certain legitimacy tests. This prevailing condition puts the migrants into a psycho-social vaccum.

Stigma attached to the returning migrants as corona carrier constrains their mobility. Both their economic contribution in the cities and their remittances in their native homes have been undermined amidst unprecedented unemployment scenario in the country.

Measures

Provision of the basic income security to the migrants is an essential policy measure as an immediate response to the crisis until these migrants could get engaged in some economic activity.

Sustainable and inclusive urbanization policy in the aftermath of COVID 19 disaster will have to ensure social security for migrants in terms of public health, public transport and housing. It could certainly be helpful in regaining the faith of migrants in the cities given the fact that their reverse migration due to public institution engineered distress has changed their views about the positive features of cities.

----
The author is a research scholar at G.B.Pant Social Science Institute, Prayagraj

Lockdown life style amidst pandemic: An outlook from Goa

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Sat, 30 May 2020 11:25:00 +0000

authored by Neeta R. Torne

When a broken needy man was anticipating his next stomachful meal, when the filthy rich were planning their next vacation abroad, the forces of nature had something very different for them in store, an unseen, silent, impending disaster was awaiting and life was about to take a three sixty degree turn.

When the world got engulfed in a global pandemic, people across the world got confined to their homes. This seemingly unending holiday became an overwhelming curse on mental and physical well being of humans.

While the national and international news channels are reporting and covering cities around the world, providing an idea of how life has changed for the worse, I am going to tell you about the land that I call my home, a small but vibrant Goa.

When the nation-wide lockdown was imposed in India, Goa appeared relatively safer with no Covid-19 cases detected. Later, the situation changed. Immediately after the annoucement, the fear of running out of essential goods and services enveloped people. There was crowd at grocery stores to stock food and other supplies. The circumstances compelled the state government to put CISF jawans to force as to control the movement of people.

Goans began to worry, how they will manage to survive days without their much loved fish curry rice or purchase veggies that cannot be stocked for weeks. Goa began to face a shortage of vegetable supply as Belgavi discontinued its goods transport to the state. That's when the state's Horticulture Corporation turned to Goan villages for local produce.

Throughout the period of pandemic so far, the Chief Minister, Pramod Sawant kept addressing the people of Goa, not to take the situation lightly and take precautions at all times. He kept warning that COVID 19 cases exist but they are yet to be detected.

On 29th of March, the unexpected happened when a few people with a travel history abroad and their family members were detected to be suffering from the disease. A total of 7 cases were recorded by early April. The number was small but it shocked Goans.

The Chief Minister along with the Health Minister, Vishwajit Rane took actions to protect the state, taking all possible measures like building government quarantine facilities, a functioning Covid hospital to treat active cases and setting up of testing laboratories.

Amidst all this, what took back seat was the issue of jobs. While government servants with secure jobs and steady incomes remain unperturbed, the section of society relying on the informal sector for employment felt displaced by uncertainty. They exhausted their savings. Private company workers were either asked to leave or work for extra hours to make up for the lack of manpower.

A few were diligent enough to find alternative sources of income. A few days back, I heard the story of a garage mechanic who did not settle for this halt, he decided to do fishing.

The effect of lockdown in rural areas is quite different from the cities. Village communities are closely acquainted with each other, which makes them aware of the movement and well-being of other villagers, in contrast to cities where next door neighbours are strangers. City folks remain uninformed about community well-being.

Surrounded by all things sore and gloomy, there are a few who stand out like rose amidst thorns. Many people willingly volunteered to deliver essential services, help people find essentials, conducted surveys on health conditions of people, kept their shops, pharmacies, food delivery services open while risking their own lives and 'masked friends' .

Goa became a Covid free state as all patients who were detected, recovered. Soon, the state heaved a sigh of relief on May 1, when it got declared as a Green zone by the central government after no positive cases got detected for days together.

Things started relaxing as soon as Goans began enjoying the benefits of the Green zone protocol. Except for restrictions on social gatherings, places of worship, restaurants and malls, pretty much all economic activities resumed and started functioning like before. Public transport commenced, clinics opened, private vehicles were permitted on roads, few government and private offices also initiated but with strict protocol on social distancing. A few seafarers stranded abroad were also allowed in. Goa did not witness much migrant movements in and out the state.

Goa became one of the first states in India to be Covid-19 free. Now the state is in a financial slump, with only the fisheries and pharmaceutical industries functioning.

But just when things began to look normal, post Green zone declaration, with the opening state borders, 8 fresh positive cases got detected on the borders of Goa on 13-14 May. These were people travelling from parts of Maharashtra and Gujarat to Goa. One seafarer who was released after 14 days of quarantine in Mumbai is also among them. Fortunately, there was no danger of community transmission since the cases were examined on borders itself.

The state is striving to safeguard it's people from all threats. People are demanding that the government must close the borders to prevent transmission of the disease.

It is increasingly evident that only the spirit of humanity can combat this pandemic. It sems the "lockdown lifestyle' is going to be the way of living for at least for the next few months. This situation can continue till a cure is found.

Impact of COVID-19, a testimonial from Delhi

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Sat, 09 May 2020 10:27:00 +0000

authored by Vagisha

To find an allegory for the experience that the COVID-19 pandemic brought into my life, would be one of the most difficult literary hunts. Was it like the remains of a beautiful house crumbling with its weight, and breaking our backs? Yes! Was it like a mighty angry river swaying to the wilderness the very essence of our life? Indeed!

I recall the beginning of this catastrophe. Our offices supplied us with masks and sanitizers. On 22nd March, we were all given work from home permits. We brought our systems home with us.

On the way, my cab driver expressed his glee saying how happy he was at the prospect of being paid in cash as the travel companies pay only once in two weeks, and all of them have cash crunch due to lack of customers. That was my first interface with the cruelty that this disease was to bestow generously upon the lives of the poor.

I came home, and we went for ration buying like everyone else did! I had shifted to the new house only four months ago, and not a single thing was stocked. Thus, a lot of buying amidst social distancing!

During the three days that I have gone for ration shopping in the last 45 days, I have noticed a rude resistance among the housewives towards wearing masks and using gloves to protect themselves. It was not by the virtue of misinformation, illiteracy, or lack of maturity. The Indian public has a natural tendency of dismissing the urgency, be it political mishaps like a Shrijan scam, or the Coronavirus outbreak. In this country of believers, it is difficult to penetrate facts based on logic and reasoning.

Delhi's Uttam Nagar East saw people coming out of their houses in the evening as if it was some political trouble that had kept them shut in homes. The public used scooties, bikes, or simply walked up and down in their lanes. I was in disbelief. However, when I saw the same scenario the second day, I dialed 100 and inquired as to why there had been no sirens, or police rounds to build the deterrent. The reply was a casual dismissal after inquiring about my area and colony- “Madam, the people will buy the things they need. We can’t stop them.”

I wondered-had I been in the place of these officials I could have helped take better decisions! I sighed to myself and continued with the meritorious life constituting cleaning, cooking, and working from home. I gave paid leave to my pregnant cook on 21st March, which continues till date. I have decided to juggle between the chores myself.

As days passed by I discovered my terrace- a place rarely used before the lockdown! Every evening, I could see families spending time with their children and drinking tea on their terraces. Being a romantic from a small city in Bihar, a part of my soul was happy in this quiet environment away from the capitalism and pollution. In my six years of residence in Delhi, it was for the first time that the sky appeared to be oozing blue, with starlit clear nights. Every day, I would see the constellations as I saw them from my terrace back in my village. I wonder-how long will it last?

News has been pouring in from all quarters about Ganga and Yamuna being crystal clear, purged of their frothiness. I recollected the news from last year when UP Government had to put up red flags on the banks after the water was declared unfit for consumption, and how Yamuna smelled when I crossed Indraprastha Metro station. I also remembered the news from The Hindu regarding huge investments the companies would need to make in order to practice proper solid and liquid waste management for the purification of our rivers. I can visualize the desperation of industrialists while the moon is shinning brighter than ever.

Grappling with my regret about not being of any help in the face of the public health crisis, I kept paying my cook, and kept praying. Even as I was working under thirty percent salary cuts myself, I have enough to survive.

Amidst all this, one of my friends called and asked if I remembered the tailor, who had shut the shop when rumours of riots were floating in Uttam Nagar East. I did. He is selling vegetables now! Nevertheless, my vegetable vendor kept coming every day. I would buy vegetables, and inquire- “Is everything ok with you?” He would reply calmly- “Yes, just that we get very limited time in Mandi to pick stuff.” That is all he could think of! Selling vegetables and surviving on prayer.

It is not that I did not burn my finger while cooking, or was not faced with a cash crunch due to salary cuts. It is not that I did not miss my parents and was not worried about their safety. My family lives in five cities, and one of them is stuck in Abu Dhabi on a rig!

Vegetable vendor or the tailor will not be approached to write about their experiences. COVID-19 is their story, not mine. It is the story of every individual who has shown bravery on the roads, and not of the thinkers, philosophers, or IT personals who were working from home.

While the workers and migrants are struggling to survive, UP Government has shocked almost everyone by removing almost all the labour laws to allow the industries to exploit the work force in the name of boosting the economy. This news hurt my sensibility badly. It gave a disgusting and depressing feeling. I wrote an email to the CM, UP and Chief Justice, Allahabad High Court. I would like to quote an expert as my ardent appeal to fellow Indians post COVID-19:

“As an Indian, I would just like to bring it to your notice that we are ready for an average life. We do not want to live in a luxurious world devoid of any meaning and empathy at the cost of our workers. We also do not want you to compromise on their rights in our names. It is ok if we do not lead a grand life for the next ten years. We would still not want to take the lives of labourers from exhaustion, and propagate malnourishment in the poor of our country. It has been a failure on our part and on the part of government to give them a healthy life amidst this lockdown. Now, to expect them to work beyond 8 hours, not be paid the minimum wages, and be discriminated against on the basis of gender, caste, and religion is not something all of us wish upon them. In one of the YouTube videos of District Magistrate Deepak Rawat, we see how when he visits a factory in Uttar Pradesh, many labourers complain of not being paid the minimum wages according to the law in place. This was the situation, when all laws and the deterrents were in place. Imagine, if the governments sanctions exploitation indirectly through these erroneous laws, what will become of the marginalised poor in this country.”

As I always say, you will see these experiences as disjoined only if you do not wish to see the evident. It is sad that we are repeating the same story of oppression, callousness, and selfishness which is older than time.

Lots of Love and Stay Safe!

Covid19 related human suffering: Perspective from Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Sun, 03 May 2020 12:07:00 +0000

authored by A.Selvakumar and
W. Hamilton Jacob

As far as the issue of COVID-19 is concerned, it is nothing but a threat that has caused a very "panic-stricken" situation in people's lives. It evidently causes people to feel a complete isolation even amidst their own families relatives and neighbours. They feel as if they have been imprisoned in there own homes.

We are residents of Thalamuthu Nagar and Korampallam in Thoothukudi district,Tamilnadu. The people around our surrounding are facing corona related issues in difficult circumstances. The people of in our area are worried about their livelihoods more than the worry of corona virus which brings about a physical death, which they are not afraid of.

COVID-19 makes almost everyone an accused person and a suspect person in the society.We have lost not only our livelihood, but also our complete liberty in all aspects.

Some incidents narrated below provides a glimpse of the plight of the poor people in particular.

About 20 days ago, a man, who was taking his wife to the hospital in town from his village for a check-up since she is pregnant, was intimidated and struck by the police in front of his pregnant wife, without making any enquiry with them. Subsequently, they were allowed to go.

In another incident, a man who had gone to a shop during the relaxation hours, wearing handkerchief instead of face-mask was beatenn by the police standing nearby. He was then coerced to buy a face-mask at a mask-seller standing near them.

The economic hardship being faced by poor is not natural. A mobile tea-seller living nearby who usually goes from place to place to sell his ready-made tea among the people for the livelihood of his family that depends only on the daily-income he earns. But he has not been able to pursue is small tea business after the lock-down was enforced. Unable to sustain without any income, his impoverished condition compelled him to go out a few days ago to sell tea in order to escape severe poverty faced by his family. There was no other way for him to survive. While doing his business, one day he was stopped by a police. But after he told him his story to the police, he was pardoned. Two days after this incident, there he was again stopped by the police in the place where he had gone for his tea business. The police took his bike-key as he was caught selling tea outside. The man pleaded with him and informed the police about his poor condition. The police asked him to appear in the police station to get the key. He was sent away without the key. The tea-seller hasn't got his bike-key back till now!

These incidents indicate that similar similar situation prevails throughout the country.

ZEE Group's WION-German Deutsche Welle (DW) partneship story, fake news

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Sun, 03 May 2020 06:13:00 +0000

After the disclosure by German media, ZEE Group's WION channel has removed the misleading story it broadcasted and published.

Responding to a query from Telepolis on April 28, Christoph Jumpelt from Germany's state media Deutsche Welle (DW)'s Press Department revealed:

"There is no formal partnership with the WION broadcaster. We are currently serving requests from a wide range of broadcasters worldwide who want to include a European watchdog for their pandemic coverage. So far there has been a switching conversation with a DW reporter on the WION news program. The channel's publication of a partnership with DW is misleading. We have already asked for clarification.“

This German news story by Gilbert Kolonko sets the record straight: https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Hindu-Nationalisten-versuchen-auch-die-Deutsche-Welle-zu-instrumentalisieren-4713357.html

This twitter handle of Telepolis News corroborates it: https://twitter.com/telepolis_news?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Here is the disabled URL of WION's fake news-

https://www.wionews.com/world/wion-adds-another-feather-to-its-cap-partners-with-germanys-leading-broadcaster-dw-294624

Has WION's claim about it's partnership with Chinese CGTN and Russia Today been verified?

Unfairness of medical response and Covid19: View from Italy

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 06:04:00 +0000

authored by Prof. Benedetto Terracini

Unfairness of the medical response to the corona virus occurs also in my country, but not as much as in the US, thanks to a National Health Service, which guarantees universal access to medical care.

In Italy, social and economic consequences will be devastating.

Vittorio Foa, an Italian anti-fascist who spent 10 or more years in jail in the 30s, used to say that misfortunes during the dictatorship turned out to be opportunities for the subsequent reconstruction.

Let's hope this will happen also on this occasion.
----
Prof. Benedetto Terracini has worked for over 50 years as a physician, epidemiologist and a leader in environmental and occupational health. He worked as a Professor of Biostatistics at University of Torino, Italy. He is recognized as a pioneer of modern occupational and environmental epidemiology. He has been on Board of Italian Ministry of Health, the European Medical Research Council, WHO and European Union. He has served as the Scientific Editor of the Italian Journal of Epidemiology. In 2014, he was presented Ramazzini Award by the Collegium Ramazzini.

Imact of lockdown on migrant workers: View from Delhi

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 08:52:00 +0000

authored by Khushboo Singh

Manoj, a migrant labourer from Bihar was waiting for food standing in long queue outside Delhi's Badli government school like many others said:

“ई रिक्शा चलाता हूँ, घर में कमाने वाला अकेला हूँ,कुछ रुपया नहीं बचा पाता| आज अफ़सोस हो रहा है कि अगर कुछ और काम ही कर लेता तो थोड़ा पैसा ही बचा लेता जो इस वक़्त में काम आता| अभी तो बस जो यहाँ से मिल जाए वो ले जाता हूँ और घर में पहले का थोड़ा राशन है | उसको बना लेते हैं , क्या करें| 9 लोगों का परिवार है और राशन खरीदने के लिए पैसे नहीं हैं तो बस ऐसे ही काम चला रहे हैं|”

COVID-19, new disease of the coronavirus family has engulfed the entire world. This pandemic has brought almost the whole world to a standstill but it has brought many different challenges for those who were already on the margins. As the lockdown was announced on 24th March, lakhs of migrant labourers started moving towards their native villages by foot across the country. They were to cover a distance of 200 - 1000 kms or more. With no buses and/or trains running, they were forced to cover 1000 miles distance by walking. But many others who remained in the city were hoping that the lockdown would be over by 14th April and till then they would somehow manage.

But as the lockdown period was extended to 3rd May, it has added to their worries. The migrant labourers and the challenges they are facing during this lockdown are countless. These challenges include-

• It’s been a month of lockdown and people are running out of cash for fulfilling even basic needs like ration and gas cylinder.

• The food provided is proving increasingly insufficient at schools and many people have to return without any food or enough food. There are families in which some or the other member has been skipping one meal or the other. Many of those who are taking food from centres are complaining that quantity of food is not sufficient for a family of six or seven or ten. Many schools are reporting finishing up of ration before everyone could get it.

• No separate provisions have been made yet for providing nutritious food for children, weakening their immunity.

• Many people are not able to fill up e- coupons forms; either because they have no access to smart phones or because some or all the family members don’t have Aadhaar or some other issue. People have been spending Rs.50 - 100 at the Cyber Cafe to get their forms filled.

Sandeep, another migrant worker asked me-

“दीदी, ये lockdown 3 मई तक ख़त्म हो जाएगा न| अब यहाँ रूम का किराया नहीं दे पाऊंगा अपने परिवार को लेकर घर जाऊँगा| आप पता कर लेंगी क्या ट्रेन के लिए.. सिवान जाना है|”

Govind , 18 year old boy came out of queue of hundreds of people and asked me -

दीदी आपको पता है क्या ट्रेन कब से चलेगी मुझे घर जाना है मै दसवीं कक्षा की परीक्षा देकर यॅहा छुट्टी मे कमाने आया था, मै फर्रुखाबाद, उत्तर प्रदेश से हूँ, मेरे पापा किसान है, इसलिए हर गरमी की छुट्टी मे यहाँ कमाने आ जाता हूँ लेकिन इस बार लाकॅडाउन हो गया और मै यंही फस गया हूँ, आप बस मुझे घर पहुँचने में मदद कर दोगे क्या,आप सबकी मदद कर रहे हो,मेरी भी घर पहुँचने मे मदद कर दो बस दीदी।

Devandra, another migrant laborer from bihar called me to ask about the status of his e-coupon for ration-

मैडम हमारे पास राशन के लिए कोई मैसज नही आया है अभी तक, आपको कुछ पता है क्या कब तक मिलेगा राशन। अब तो स्कूल से भी खाना लाने मे भी डर लगता है क्योकि ये बीमारी तो बढ ही रही है और मै तो बिहार से यॅहा आया, मुझे कुछ हो गया तो घर वालों को कौन देखेगा ।

Amidst such despair, the middle class from the same locality holds the view that everything is fine. They are disseminating their prejudices against migrant workers from their balconies.

Middle class biased against migrant workers

A middle age man who introduced himself as a general secretary of a political party in Badli, Delhi told me not to help any migrant worker. When I asked him why? He said:

किसी को खाने की कमी नही है, इन सबके अकाउंट चैक करो ,सबके पास अकाउंट में 1,00,000-1,50,000 लाख पैसा होगा, लेकिन Free का मिल रहा है तो बस लूटने आ जाते है। कुछ बच्चे पास मे खेल रहे थे, उन बच्चो की तरफ इशारा करते हुए बोले की देखो कैसे खेल कूद रहे है, बिना खाना खाए थोड़े ही खेल रहे होंगे।

As in some nearby societies, the middle class is trying to isolate itself by locking the gates of localities and at some places blocking the entry passages with stones. It has truly internalized social distancing in a way that the norm of social distancing has become a combination of physical, psychological and human distancing itself.

The communal hatred against Muslim migrant workers is evident in the way middle class started blocking their entry passage. This has led to further marginalization of the already marginalized workers. Some middle class colonies are only allowing one or two vegetables sellers in the locality. This pandemic is revealing deeply ingrained hatred, selfishness and hierarchy.

The lockdown is affecting everyone financially, economically and physically. Those who were on margins are most affected by it as these people are going through a daily survival challenge. Some steps have been taken by the government to ensure food for migrant labourers but still a lot more needs to be done to ensure both good quality and quantity of food to every poor in general and migrant workers in particular.

Some suggestions:

• Supply at schools and number of disbursal centres should be increased

• Arrangement for disbursing free milk and fruits to children should be done

• Government should make arrangements at school centres for filling up forms for such people instead of leaving them on their own to do so

AarogyaSetu paves way for social policy driven by untested, opaque applications

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 12:24:00 +0000

authored by Gopal Krishna

On 2 April, 2020, Government of India launched a mobile app developed in public-private partnership (PPP) to bring the people of India together in a resolute fight against COVID-19. Amidst national security concerns, so far some 5 crore people have downloaded it. In the absence of the promised personal privacy andv data protection law, such apps do not inspire confidence.

According to the government, this App, called ‘AarogyaSetu’ enables people to assess themselves the risk for their catching the Corona Virus infection. It calculates this based on their interaction with others, using cutting edge Bluetooth technology, algorithms and artificial intelligence.

Unless there is transparency about this PPP app., its background ans its beneficial owners and unless Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology examines the national security and privacy consequences of this app and approved its use, there appears to be compelling logic against it's use.

As per government, "once installed in a smart phone through an easy and user-friendly process, the app detects other devices with AarogyaSetu installed that come in the proximity of that phone. The app can then calculate the risk of infection based on sophisticated parameters if any of these contacts is testedpositive. The App will help the Government take necessary timely steps for assessing risk of spread of COVID-19 infection, and ensuring isolation where required."

Prior to this biometric Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar scheme too had insincerely claimed that it will facilitate the delivery of basic health services. The allocation of less than 1.5 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) for health makes India as a country which has one of the lowest public expenditure on health in the world. According to World Health Organization (WHO), India ranks 184th out of 191 countries in terms of GDP% spent on health case. It means on an average India spends Rs 6044 per person per year. The decline in public investments over the years is happening along with growing subsidies to the private sector in health care in a myriad ways. As a consequence, India has the largest, and the least regulated, private health care industry. Access to health care has been on sharp decline. The policy of levying user fees has impacted negatively on access to public health facilities, particularly for the poor and the marginalised communities and women. Instead of addressing these fiscal needs, government seems to be misleading people by promoting applications like Aarogya Setu and UID/Aadhaar.

Can such apps be a substitute for poor public financing for health? India has one of the highest private medical expenditures in the world: out-of-pocket expenditure accounts for 83 per cent of the total health expenditure in the country.

Government itself has admitted that medical expenditure has emerged as one of the leading causes of indebtedness. At the same time, the proportion of people not availing themselves of any type of medical care for financial reasons has increased in both urban and rural areas. Some 20-25 per cent do avail of any type of medical care for this reason. Will Aarogya Setu like applications be of any help to them?

It may be recalled that a Working Paper on Public Health published by Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) noted that the UID/Aadhaar application will help create demand for public health. There is a huge unmet demand for supply of quality comprehensive health services amidst covid19 crisis. How does Aarogya Setu help with that?

The UIDAI's Working Paper on public health had referred to what it called the killer application to provide citizens an incentive to obtain a UID/Aadhaar in order to meet health needs. Some 10 years of UID/Aadhaar shows that such claims are bogus. Such insincere claims are made only to promote new apps.

UIDAI's Working Paper had highlighted lack of good-quality health data and vital statistics. UIDAI failed to rectify this because reliable health data comes from routine health check ups, not from IT applications. Most Indians fail to get quality health care. If they will get quality care, data quality will improve. Neither UID/Aadhaar nor Aarogya Setu are magic bullets. Notably, this paper seems to have disappeared from UIDAI's website.

Likewise, it is apparent that AarogyaSetu is not designed to meet the public health challenges in the face of covid19. Aarogya setu has the unique potential of increasing stigma by breaching the anonymity of health data collected. It use constitutes gross violations of health rights including patients' right to confidentiality.

App developers seem to be using covid19 disaster as a killer opportunity for their apps.

AarogyaSetu like apps has the potential to cause further marginalization of already marginalized groups. Instead of adopting universal health care model, government has been misled to undertake experiments for app based covid19 health care model. In times of pandemic, using humans as guinea pigs for such experiments is unethical.

Any proposal of making AarogyaSetu a condition for health care of present and potential covid19 patients constitutes denial of right to life and right to health.

Aarogya Setu seems legitimize clinical trials for the app. A government which had opened India as a market for clinical trials of apps and drugs cannot be trusted.

It emerges that AarogyaSetu based covid19 surveillance has little to offer for improvement in the public health situation in the country. Is it legitimate to create artificial demand for such applications?

If Aarogya Setu is supposedly the answer, there a compelling logic in finding out what is the question it set out to answer. A White Paper on Aarogya Setu revealing the chronology of its development, the identity of developers, potential for misuse of data, trans border flow of data, health rights violations and breach of confidentiality of health information and analysis of the costs and risks of the app is a must before citizens can give their consent. Till than resistance of some sovereign citizens appears legitimate. Although belated several of the concerns expressed by citizens in the matter of UID/Aadhaar has been endorsed by the Supreme Court. The struggle for redressal of other concerns is continuing. Such schemes and related apps promote digital casteism, discredited eugenic thinking, technological determinism. This contaminates social policies which increasingly begin to ignore social determinants of health. Gnawing concerns regarding Aarogya Setu is inherently linked to misgivings regarding unique identifers.

Gopal Krishna

The author is a law and public policy researcher.

E-mail: krishnaruhani@gmail.com

Covid19 disaster: View from Philadelphia, USA

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 07:03:00 +0000

authored by Prof. Arthur L. Frank, Philadelphia, USA

In the Philadelphia area of the USA we have one of the hot spots for the Covid-19 in our country. We see here too the unfairness of the response to the virus.

Our minority populations get sick and die at a higher rate, given issues such as poverty, which means more underlying disease, and that poorer people have essential jobs ie transport, food stores etc, and must work.

There is unfairness all over the world, but even so in our rich country, and we see how precarious life is here too with thousands lining up for food distribution.

May all this pass quickly, but I fear a longer than shorter time will be involved.

The current Covid-19 pandemic, as implied by the use of the word pandemic , has affected the whole world, Some countries have been more straightforward in recognizing the seriousness of this issue and more rather than less accurately reporting on the disease around the world.

Some countries have done especially well in protecting their populations such as South Korea and Germany. Any country that has advocated for widespread shutdowns and quarantine has done well. Others have come to that realization later than others and have not fared as well. We hear nothing from North Korea, Russia covered up its crisis for a long time, and Brazil’s leadership asks nothing of its scared population. When quarantines have been used before, going back to the Venetians keeping folks on ships for 40 days in the era of the plague, or those cities in the US in 1918 that did well we saw less disease.

The city I work in, Philadelphia, in 1918 held, against advice, a great parade and immediately after many thousands died. We risk the same with this virus if folks are allowed out to circulate too soon. Those that have not recognized and ACTED on the obvious hazard, such as Brazil, the USA with its current bizarre leadership, and places like Ecuador, have seen far more death than needed.

Ever since the work of Johann Peter Frank in the 1700s who advocated for the “police powers” of public health, regulating what happens in society during health crises has been shown to be useful. It is imperative that those with the training and experience to answer difficult scientific questions and give best available advice about how to proceed should be heeded. This would include epidemiologists, virologists, infectious disease experts, vaccine scientists and the like.

The problem we have with is now is the newness of this virus and absolutely no experience as to how it might act over time. We have new tools that allow us to sequence the virus components, and many, maybe too many, tools to respond. With poor regulation and oversight too many useless and inappropriate test are coming on line without adequate evaluation and testing. We can make things far worse going forward if we rush a vaccine that at the end of the day was not properly vetted and ends up causing more disease that would have otherwise occurred. Access to reliable information has been in short supply. It is a shame that it is not the Federal government through the CDC that is collecting data, that being left to the folks at Johns Hopkins University. Their data can be trusted, but is only as good as what comes in.

In the US, there is no single definition among States of what is a Covid-19 death has been promulgated and there is a great likelihood of underreporting. It is also unfortunate that government experts must navigate political minefields when they speak or risk firing or demotion. The CDC and the Surgeon General have lost credibility in the US, and variably around the world various leaders can be, or should not be believed.

Even the WHO has been called into question as to its behavior, although they do seem to be trying as well as they can. Many scientific organizations have been putting out information, and those trying to learn or report should turn to reading the literature coming from groups such as the American Thoracic Society and the New England Journal of Medicine, among others.

Several university folks in the US who have for years been at the leading edge of pandemic work and infectious disease are also reliable sources. We still have much to learn about the behavior of this virus, and these folks will accurately say what is known, what is unknown, and what is being done to gain the needed knowledge.

As complex as this situation is, the way forward is straightforward in some ways. There needs to be widespread testing with ACCURATE tests, contact tracing, and while this goes on and folks need to stay in quarantine, no matter the economic pressures, work on curative medicines and a TESTED and valid vaccine needs to move forward. Accurate measurements need to be made after infection as to immunity, and we need to understand if having the disease once is protective, and if so, for how long.

Lastly, there needs to be coordination to provide all those that MUST work now, health care personnel, transport workers, first responders, food related workers and others, to have the necessary protective equipment to keep them and their families safe as they work to assist the rest of us.

The model used in the US, a free-for-all, should not be how the world approaches the acquisition of such equipment. After the acuteness of the pandemic is all over then everywhere in the world should be trying to make the health care systems around the world more robust and more equitable.

--
A.L. Frank MD, PhD, Professor of Public Health and Professor of Medicine

The author is at Drnsife School of Public Health, Philadelphia, USA.

Frank's areas of research include agricultural safety and health, pneumoconiosis, occupational toxicology, occupational cancers, occupational lung disease and environmental pollution.

Frank received a medical degree from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and a doctoral degree in biomedical sciences from the City University of New York. He was trained in both internal medicine and occupational medicine and holds board certification in both fields. As a commissioned officer in the Public Health Service, he conducted research at the National Cancer Institute.

___,___

Covid-19 disaster: View from Hyderabad, Telangana

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 06:41:00 +0000

authored by Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy, Hyderabad, Telangana

During discussion on TV Channels on three different occasions from the start of Covid-19 case in Telangana state.

China: The virus spread to Wuhan City only and reported around 3000 deaths and later the deaths are few. China did not caution the world on the pros and cons to contain it. People started giving false theories – virus from bats; a virus contacted lady visiting market, etc. Bats are not new to the world or to China. Also, they are located 300 km away from the town. Reports state that the scientists collected the virus from bats long back. In fact I mentioned in my first TV debate that the virus entered the atmosphere while doing research. Such things happened in the past in the case of some viruses. China denied and some Chinese researchers do agree on this. WHO is in support of China and with this US stopped funding to WHO/UN similar to climate change. Now, reports are clear on this based on the past research reports from Chinese virologists. The virus must have entered accidentally or purposely released? This virus was carried to Iran and then to Italy through road project [India reject to join this project, other-wise we would have been the first country outside Wuhan]. From there to all free countries that were access through Aeroplanes-Ships. Great Tragedy!!!

India: Indian politicians never cared to follow the precautionary principle but are looking at post-mortem, particularly on the impact of calamities such as cyclones, floods, pollution, etc. on agriculture or viruses like Covid-19. This will help waste public money and pocket it under the disguise.

For example: Timely action by central government should have contained or stopped the spread of Covid-19 in India and thus the national disaster in terms of economy and in terms of agriculture. Here the central government should have applied precautionary principle by not allowing thousands of people from India and abroad coming to attend Tablighi Jamaat meeting at Markaj Nizamuddin in Delhi when Delhi was facing riots on citizenship bill with some states passing resolutions against the bill – shaky ground of ruling party. Or at least the central government should have stopped the people in Markaj Nizamuddin leaving the building.

In the case of two Telugu states the virus entered & spread from those people who came from Markaj Nizamuddin. However, in both the counts central government failed the rule of precautionary principle and now trying post-mortem action. By that time the national economy was in scramble and farmers suffered severe blow in the timely completing harvest and unfortunately at this time untimely rains affected the harvest also. The ruling party might have gained politically but failed miserably in running the nation.

Here the basic problem was the past & present government’s policies of encouraging rural to urban migration to meet the real estate needs at the cost of agriculture in rural India faced severe return migration with Covid-19. The urban labour force created problems with migration back to their villages illegally. The virus spread in urban areas to some pockets where the infected people joined the locals. Thus it became a socio-religio problem or fantasy..

Some people are talking reduced pollution. They failed to understand the pollution in residential areas increasing with the burning of domestic waste, plant material, hut dwellers using wood for heating and cooking; odour from cocking of food in open. These created severe breathing problems to old and children. Nobody bothered on this vital issue. On one side officials-politicians talk of lock down but they themselves are violating – TV Channels telecast them but they try to blame certain political party only.

__,_._,___

Environmental Journalism and Advocacy

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Fri, 24 Apr 2020 06:12:00 +0000

If people destroy something replaceable made by mankind, they are called vandals; if they destroy something irreplaceable made by God, they are called developers.
- Joseph Wood Krutch, American Naturalist

Our ecological world is under assault from global warming, toxic chemicals and threats to water resources, wildlife and biodiversity. This plight of earths ecosystem is intrinsically linked to global development policys assumption that economic growth and development are synonymous. Consistent environmental communication has underlined how environmental conservation is co-terminus with human security more than with national security. The former is concerned with reducing and when possible removing the insecurities that plague human lives and abrupt penury related to economic downturns.

Environment advocates pose stark questions and prophesy almost in an alarmist tone that people who remain silent and passive are exposed to toxic emissions and gases. If this is not true then, how does one love all the children and toxify their mothers milk? When we know something and do nothing about it, whats our liability? Did we intend to toxify the planet?

Be it blood contamination, congenital disorders, preventable but incurable cancer or extinction of known and unknown living species on our planet, environmental journalism deals with them and creates a compelling logic to reexamine the premises of the Industrial Revolution and design a new one, respecting relations between spirit and matter. One way was to eliminate the concept of waste. Things should be designed to go either safely back to the soil or back to industry. There is design crisis. What else can explain that it took 5,000 years to put wheels on our luggage! It is not efficiency alone that can provide remedy. This entails changing the current model of development since even doing the wrong thing more efficiently can be more dangerous. Isnt an efficient Nazi more dangerous than an inefficient Nazi?

Even as the world is taking a journey towards becoming a global village, we have stopped being people with lives and have become consumers with lifestyles unworthy of inhabiting a community life. The fundamental perception of our own selves has shifted. The million-dollar question that stares the humanity in its face is: do we want an efficient and sustainable life or an efficient and sustainable lifestyle?. The former requires changing the present model of economic growth and the latter entails maintaining the status quo. In both the cases, governments and corporations can be taking the right steps but what distinguishes one from the other is the direction in which steps are taken. Public interest advocacy underlines this stark truth and articulates the compelling rationale for making governments, corporations and peoples choices accountable and liable for their acts of omission and commission.
In the last few decades, awareness of industrial impact on ecosystem has grown to the point where ecological issues seem to be at the center of public discourse.

Besides nature and science writing, environmental movement that began in 1962 with the publication of Rachel Carsons Silent Spring provided a stimulus to environmental journalism. Especially since the UN conference On Environment in 1972, journalistic endeavours have advanced public understanding of environmental issues by highlighting adverse impact on public and environmental health.

Environmental Journalism & Corporate Accountability

As a result of the public interest advocacy and environmental reporting, the new UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations (RTC) that has emerged from UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights, which are mandatory. The United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights approved the Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights in August 2003. The Norms were considered by the UN Commission on Human Rights in at its 56th meeting in April 2004 and recommend it to UN Economic and Social Council and asked the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to submit the report to the UNCHR at its sixty-first session in order for it to identify options for strengthening standards on the responsibilities of transnational corporations and related business enterprises with regard to human rights and possible means of implementation.

Prof. David Weisbrodt, one of the main authors of the RTC Norms says, these UN norms essentially represent a restatement of existing international law on human rights, humanitarian law, international labour law, environmental law, anti-corruption law, consumer protection, etc. What they essentially say is that any company that wants to respect the law and be socially responsible would want to follow the norms. Weisbrodt adds, "The states have the primary responsibility to protect human rights, and that's what the norms say. But within their spheres of activity and influence, transnational corporations also have obligations. And this document really does help governments, because after all, when faced with the considerable power of transnationals, this document helps set a sort of international minimum standard that governments can refer to." Clearly, environmental rights are human rights as well. At the 61st session in April 2005, the UNCHR requested the United Nations Secretary-General to appoint a Special Representative on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises to identify and clarify standards of corporate responsibility and accountability with regard to human rights. Public interest advocacy led to the appointment of Prof. John Ruggie as the Special Representative on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises in July 2005. His mandate included identifying and clarifying standards of corporate responsibility and accountability with regard to human rights. In February 2007, Prof. Ruggie in his report to the UN Human Rights Council stated, even among the leaders, certain weaknesses of voluntarism are evident.
His mandate is: (a) To identify and clarify standards of corporate responsibility and accountability for transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human rights;
(b) To elaborate on the role of States in effectively regulating and adjudicating the role of transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human rights, including through international cooperation;
(c) To research and clarify the implications for transnational corporations and other
business enterprises of concepts such as complicity and sphere of influence;
(d) To develop materials and methodologies for undertaking human rights impact assessments of the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises;
(e) To compile a compendium of best practices of States and transnational corporations and other business enterprises.

But there are limitations since the UNCHR has not established a special rapporteur or expert working group to receive complaints and urgent appeals, conduct field investigations, and report findings back to the relevant governments and the Commission itself. Many such mandates exist on other subjects. Prof. Ruggies is on a part time assignment that leaves a lot to be desired. There is a need to make efforts to operationalize the RTC Norms in its original form.
In a communication with this author, Prof. Wessibrodt cited provisions of the UN human rights norms for transnationals and other businesses: "Transnational corporations and other business enterprises shall respect the right to a clean and healthy environment in the light of the relationship between the environment and human rights; concerns for intergenerational equity; internationally recognised environmental standards, for example with regard to air pollution, water pollution, land use, biodiversity and hazardous wastes; and the wider goal of sustainable development, that is, development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Transnational corporations and other business enterprises shall be responsible for the environmental and human health impact of all of their activities, including any products or services they introduce into commerce, such as packaging, transportation and by-products of the manufacturing process. In decision-making processes and on a periodic basis (preferably annually or biannually), transnational corporations and other business enterprises shall assess the impact of their activities on the environment and human health including impacts from siting decisions, natural resource extraction activities, the production and sale of products or services, and the generation, storage, transport and disposal of hazardous and toxic substances. Transnational corporations and other business enterprises shall ensure that the burden of negative environmental consequences shall not fall on vulnerable racial, ethnic and socio-economic groups."

The critics of the norms adopted by the UN human rights sub- commission -almost exclusively business interests - say these norms contradict the voluntary approach of the UN Global Compact. Environment journalists and activists welcomed, the RTC norms adopted by the UN Human Rights sub-commission since it exposed the glaring loopholes of the non-binding and non-enforceable Global Compact for corporate code of conduct. Even Prof Ruggies desire to interpret (by) taking the victims perspective seriously does leave scope for hope but time seems to be running out to protect environment and human rights in right earnest.

Climate Crisis and Advocacy

Environmentalists including environmental journalists across the globe are seeking more radical measures to combat adverse climate change. By 2030, the cost of stablising greenhouse gases at levels that are considered the maximum for avoiding catastrophic climate change would cost 0.2 per cent to 0.6 per cent of global wealth, according to the recent report of the UNs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The proposed technocentric solutions to the crisis give a sense of déjà vu. World Food Conference 1974 in Rome titled World Hunger: Causes and Remedies proposed technical solutions like Green Revolution, transfer of technology and population control for the food crisis which had proven failures over several decades. Now the proposal to mitigate possible adverse climate change includes solutions like a major expansion in nuclear power, the use of GM crops to boost biofuel production, and reliance on unproven technologies which has put the UN's climate group on a collision course with those who argue that simply replacing one set of technologies with another set of technologies won't work, especially when there are such big downsides with some of them. Nuclear reactors are dangerous and land clearance and chemical pesticides and fertilisers used to grow fuel crops can cause huge environmental damage.
Structural change to the economy and culture change is a must for decarbonisation, in a context where over 1 billion people live on less than $1 a day with nearly half the world's population (2.8 billion) living on less than $2 a day as per UNDP 2003 report. The adoption of United Nations Millennium Declaration by the General Assembly in 2000 is significant which resolved, To halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of the worlds people whose income is less than one dollar a day and the proportion of people who suffer from Hunger for it leaves one wondering as to whether UN would follow the same yardstick to mitigate the problem of global warming by half only and if so would it be really sane.
Public interest advocates argue, Climate change is a great deal about hard-headed corporate finance, and not just either academic concern over externalities or golden-hearted environmentalism. This is a message that comes through from what companies and consultants in the developed world are doing in relation to climate change. Indian companies and the Indian government cannot afford to ignore this message. There are considerable commercial opportunities as well as costs associated with efforts to contain climate change.

The emerging adverse climate condition is a result of modern economic development. Before the Industrial Revolution began in 1750, the concentration of CO2 in the earths atmosphere was about 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv). By 1994 it was 358 ppmv and rising by about 1.5 ppmv per year. If emissions continue at the 1994 rate, the concentration will be around 500 ppmv, nearly double the pre-industrial level, by the end of the 21st century. The effect of such CO2 concentration along with other green house gases is that the atmosphere retains more of the suns heat, warming the earths surface. It is likely that changes of this magnitude and rapidity could pose severe problems for many natural and managed ecosystems, as well as important economic sectors such as agriculture and water resources. Indeed, for many low-lying and deltaic areas and small islands, a sea level rise of one meter could threaten complete loss of land and extinction of habitation. Rapid economic development through Green Revolution in agriculture and production of chemical inputs required in India for instance was adopted because there was a need to feed the poor and hungry masses and as a preventive approach towards disease since the problem of undernutrition is more fundamentally linked to agricultural policy, pricing and the public distribution system. It soon became evident that these early development plans did not result in the well-being of the poor and doubts were expressed regarding such strategy because it did not yield the promised benefits but the pattern of development was not changed.

Toxic Legacy

In the West on the other hand the model of development was questioned because of environmental problems. The biggest growth in the world economy took place after World War II, the post-war economic boom but within 15 years, it was difficult to breathe in any big western city, be it Tokyo, London or Los Angeles. Rivers like the Thames or the Rhine became stinking sewers like the Yamuna today. This is precisely what is happening with economic growth in Asia. China is in a horribly polluted state, and Taiwan, Korea, Thailand are in a similar predicament. India, with its newfound liberalization in economic matters, faces the same kind of problem. A World Bank study indicated that when the Thai economy doubled, its pollution went up ten-fold. When the same model was used for India it was found that while between 1975 and 1995 the Indian economy grew 2.5 times, industrial pollution went up four-fold, and vehicular pollution went up eight-fold. This analysis seems factually correct but it has ended up internalizing the pollution and adopting a reductionist approach resulting in endorsement of technocentric view.

In such a context, health indicators of a deteriorating environmental is witnessed in terms of a double burden of disease. Although there is acknowledgement of pre-existing serious problems of vector-borne diseases, water-borne diseases and emergent non-communicable diseases like cancer, it ignores the social gradient and economic polarization inherent in it. There is acceptance that a few million people will die as a result of atmospheric and water pollution in the same way as so many have died of poverty but in doing so it appears to have ignored the contribution of instances such as adoption of Intensive Agricultural District Programme, which turned out to be unsustainable. Changes in climate, vegetation, and land use in any region impacts human health besides pollution related illnesses, change in climate as a result of massive land use change will also affect infectious diseases. These diseases are sensitive to temperature as well as land-use changes, which may interact in a complex manner. The distribution of vector-borne diseases is restricted by climatic tolerance and weather pattern. The visionless nature of the current political economy has encouraged techno-centric approach in the economic development, which has consistently ignored the environmental concerns of different sections of society. Therefore, it has adversely impacted the natural, physical and socio-economic components of environment.

Towards ecological thinking

Environment and development-related health effects have become an increasing concern in both developing and developed countries. Environmental communication has played a crucial role in hammering the frozen passivity of status quo advocates. Although it is difficult to develop core indicators that are both universally applicable and universally measurable as goal in itself but human healths dependence on the physical and biological environment is such that human health cannot be conceived in the absence of human environment. Therefore, any threat to the integrity of the natural systems is a threat to human heath. This underlines the need for maintaining a stable climate and the continued availability of environmental resources. The environmental crisis requires not only rhetoric or cosmetic solutions, but a death and rebirth of modern man and his worldview that acknowledges sacred.

While legislative safeguards for environmental protection do exist in almost all the countries, the role of environmental journalism in exposing and illustrating homicidal ecological lawlessness that has led to rampant industrial pollution, soil erosion, agricultural pollution, genetic erosion of plant resources is quite crucial and merits more acknowledgement. In their absence, one would never know the havoc wrecked by seemingly good intentions of developers, fundamentalism of omniscient planners and tyranny of technocrats that refuses to take note of what Mahbub-ul-Haq, Special Advisor to UNDP and author of Human Development Report 1993 forewarned saying, The concept of sustainability raises profound questions about distribution and character of future global growth, but it sets no physical or technological limits to such growth. Environmental communication has brought the cannibalistic propensities of illegitimately totalitarian scientism and its linear, piecemeal and closed technological thinking in public domain and has put in the mirror of holistic and open approach of ecological sciences that no unlimited development is possible in the nature of things.

Gopal Krishna

The author is with www.toxicswatch.org

"NPR and NRC =CIDR and UID/Aadhaar= Electoral database"

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Wed, 22 Apr 2020 16:56:00 +0000

“I have a file on you.” - MK Narayanan’s routine threat to his adversaries as National Security Adviser (NSA) quoted in Sanjay Baru's book 'The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh'
“One way to ensure that the unique identification (UID) number is used by all government and private agencies is by inserting it into the birth certificate of the infant. Since the birth certificate is the original identity document, it is likely that this number will then persist as the key identifier through the individual’s various life events, such as joining the school, immunizations, voting, etc.” - A confidential document of UIDAI titled ‘Creating a unique identity number for every resident in India’, leaked by Wikileaks on 13 Nov 2009 As per majority order of the Supreme Court’s 5-Judge Constitution Bench’s order of September 26, 2018 in Justice K S Puttaswamy v Union of India in the Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar Number project and National Population Register (NPR) project are part of the one database convergence project. NPR has been mentioned at least on eight occasions in the order to underline the same. One of the earliest documents that refer UIDAI is a 14-page long document titled ‘Strategic Vision: Unique Identification of Residents’ prepared by Wipro Ltd for the government envisaged the close linkage that the UIDAI’s Aadhaar would have with the electoral database. The use of electoral database mentioned in Wipro’s document remains on the agenda of the proponents of UID/Aadhaar. In the 41 page long Wikileaked document titled ‘Creating a unique identity number for every resident in India’ that declared itself to be a ‘Confidential- property of UIDAI’ states, “The Unique ID or UID will be a numeric that is unique across all 1.2 billion residents in India. The UID number will not contain intelligence. In older identity systems, it was customary to load the ID number with information related to the date of birth, as well as the location of the person.” This document reveals that from day one the Prime Minister wanted to create a file on each of “1.2 billion residents”, the division of work between Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA)’s NPR and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY)’s UID/Aadhaar was/is merely an attention diversion tactics to outwit citizen’s scrutiny. The ongoing merger of the electoral database with UID/number debunks UIDAI’s claim that UID/Aadhaar number “will not contain intelligence” and “the location of the person.” From these disclosures, it seems that the government has adopted an adversarial role vis-à-vis Indians and acting beyond its constitutional mandate in order to pander to the interests of the commercial czars, non-state actors, and foreign intelligence companies. In a RTI reply dated October 25, 2013 UIDAI shared a truncated contract agreement with Ernst & Young. The contract agreement states that “the Unique ID will be a random 12-digit number with the basis for establishing uniqueness of identity being biometrics”. It announces that “we will provide a Unique Identity to over 113.9 crore people.” This is evidently a fraudulent announcement because UIDAI with which the agreement has been signed had mandate to provide Unique Identity to only 60 crore residents of India, and not to 113.9 crore people. It is evident that while the government kept Ernst & Young informed about its motive, it kept states, citizens, the parliament and the Supreme Court in the dark. The contract agreement reveals that “biometric systems are not 100 % accurate” and “uniqueness of the biometrics is still a postulate.” This admission pulverizes the deceptive edifice on which MEITY’s UID/aadhaar and MHA’s NPR rests. Section 57 of un-amended Aadhaar Act, 2016 stated that “Nothing contained in this Act shall prevent the use of Aadhaar number for establishing the identity of an individual for any purpose, whether by the State or any body corporate or person, pursuant to any law, for the time being in force, or any contract to this effect”. It implies that UID/Aadhaar of “over 113.9 crore people” has been shared with foreign private body corporates like Ernst & Young. It is only after the horse had escaped the barn that door has been closed through Section 25 of Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Act, 2019 in compliance of the Court's order dated September 26, 2018. Section 25 of the Amendment Act 2019 states that Section 57 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 has been omitted with effect from July 24, 2019. As apprehended, the convergence of the initiatives of MHA and MEITY has been part of the design from the very outset. At paragraph 8 of the majority order authored by Justice A K Sikri, it is recorded that “a Processes Committee was set up on July 03, 2006 to suggest the process for updation, modification, addition and deletion of data and fields from the core database to be created under the Unique Identification for BPL Families project. This Committee, on November 26, 2006, prepared a paper known as ‘Strategic Vision Unique Identification of Residents’. Based thereupon, the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) was set up on December 04, 2006, to collate the National Population Register under the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Unique Identification Number project of the Department “of Information Technology. Subsequently, “a Committee of Secretaries was formed. The said Committee gave its recommendations which were discussed by EGoM. After approving the Aadhaar Scheme in principle, it instructed the Cabinet Secretary to convene a meeting to finalise the detailed organisational structure of the UID. After considering the recommendation of the Cabinet Secretary, Notification No. A-43011/02/2009-Admn.I was issued on January 28, 2009 by the Government of India which constituted and notified the UIDAI.” Annexure 1 of this notification that constituted UIDAI deals with the Role and Responsibilities of UIDAI. The fourth point in this notification reads: "implementation of UID scheme will entail” taking “necessary steps to ensure collation of NPR with UID (as per. approved strategy)”. Section 59 of this law has endorsed the activities of UIDAI since the notification of January, 2009 that dealt with convergence of UID/aadhaar and NPR. NPR finds mention in the Sub-rule (4) of Rule 3 of the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003 under Citizenship Act, 1955 for country-wide National Citizenship Register (NRC). The minutes of a meeting of Committee of Secretaries held under Chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary November 23, 2015 talks of “integrating the twin approaches under NPR and Aadhaar.” The “integrating the twin approaches under NPR and Aadhaar” which is referred here is the same as taking “necessary steps to ensure collation of NPR with UID (as per. approved strategy)” underlined in the notification mentioned in the Aadhaar Act. A communication of MHA’s RGI dated July 19, 2019 states that “The National Population Register (NPR) thus prepared, was seeded with Aadhaar number during its updation exercise in 2015 along with collection of demographic details of new household members. Approx. 60 mores Aadhaar numbers have been seeded in NPR Database.” This communication discloses that “It has now been decided by the Ministry of Home Affairs to update the existing NPR database during April 2020 - September 2020 along with House listing & Housing Census of phase of Census 2021. While updating the NPR, the Aadhaar number of all the individuals whose Aadhaar number is not available in the NPR Database will also be collected along with various other items. Necessary notification for updating NPR in 2020 will be issued shortly.” The Court’s order reveals that “A core group was set up to advice and further the work related to UIDAI…. The core group, inter alia, decided that it was better to start with the electoral roll database of 2009 for undertaking the UIDAI project.” There was never an occasion wherein there was any all party meeting to seek the consent of all the political parties with regard to such use of “electoral roll database”. This framework tantamount to rewriting the political geography of the country with hitherto unknown consequences for political rights. MHA’s NPR and MEITY’s UIDAI's Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) of UID/Aadhaar numbers are aimed at creating an architecture for indiscriminate mass surveillance of the present and future voters who are being structurally coerced to give their consent to the immoral and illegitimate exercise of their profiling for countless times. It has turned every newborn into a suspect. There is a file being created to track and profile him for good. Like Indian NSA’s threat to his adversaries about having a file on them, having a UID/Aadhaar number and NPR automatically creates a file of the Indian residents in question. Even infants are not spared in this cruel scheme of things. In a country where no intelligence chief or official has held accountable for the assassination of two of its Prime Ministers and for betraying nation’s secrets, can it be hoped that all those who compromised India’s data security will made liable for their treacherous acts of transferring the sensitive data of present and future citizens including ministers, soldiers, judges and ministers. There is a compelling logic for setting up a High Powered Commission of Inquiry to probe the ongoing bartering of citizen’s databases and transfer of national data assets to foreign entities. This creates a compelling logic for the States to un-sign the MoUs they have signed with UIDAI and to discontinue both UID/Aadhaar and NPR exercise to resist emergence of an unlimited government, unlimited by the Constitution of India and Constitutionalism.

Gopal Krishna
The author is the co-founder of MediaVigil. MediaVigil was formally formed in March 2004. Launched in 2010, Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) is an initiative of Mediavigil.

Protest against UIDAI’s proposal of 360 degree view of Citizens through Aadhaar database

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Sat, 13 Jan 2018 04:00:00 +0000

PUBLIC STATEMENT

Joint Citizens Protest demands scrapping of biometric UID/Aadhaar number database project

Speakers spoke against UIDAI’s proposal of 360 degree view of Citizens

The planned Joint Citizens Protest against world biggest Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) of 12 –digit biometric Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar numbers happened at the Parliament Street from 3 pm onwards on 12th of January, 2018. More such protests are planned across the districts and cities in the country. Several speakers at the protest site demanded immediate stoppage of the biometric UID/Aadhaar number database project. There were concerns expressed at the decline in the number of citizens of the country due to citizen’ deaths as a consequence of UID/Aadhaar menace. There was talk about how disclosures about breach of UID/Aadhaar database by The Tribune reveal something similar to what Edward Snowden did albeit in an Indian context. It has compromised national security and the personal sensitive information of present and future Presidents, Prime Ministers, judges, legislators and officials handling sensitive assignments besides all the Indians. This has compromised both the right to privacy of citizens and nationals security

The current UIDAI chief Satyanarayana finds mention in the report Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology that examined the work of Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, asked about the surveillance by National Security Agency (NSA) of the US. It states that in the context of privacy of data, the Committee desired to know the Department’s stand on the issue of surveillance by US and interception of data sent through e-mails. To this, Satyanarayana, as Secretary, DeitY, responded during the evidence as under:-“Sir, about the US surveillance issue, there has been a debate, as you are aware, this morning in the Rajya Sabha itself and the hon. Minister has addressed this issue. He also emphasised that as far as the Government data and Government mails are concerned, the policy, the copy of which I have given to the Committee earlier, is going to address a large part of it. Hopefully, by the end of this year, if it is implemented, the things will be absolutely safe and secure…x.x.x.x…In the reply, the Hon. Minister also said that we have expressed our serious concern about the reported leakages and in the name of surveillance, the data that has been secured from various private sources, internet resources by the US Government. We have expressed it formally to the Government of the US and also during the Secretary of State’s visit a few weeks ago in India, this has been reinforced on a person to person basis.”

He added, “We have been assured that whatever data has been gathered by them for surveillance relates only to the metadata. It has been reiterated and stated at the highest level of the US President that that only the metadata has been accessed, which is, the origin of the message and the receiving point, the destination and the route through which it has gone, but not the actual content itself. This has been reiterated by them, but we expressed that any incursion into the content will not be tolerated and is not tolerable from Indian stand and point of view. That has been mentioned very clearly and firmly by our Government.” In effect, the Government of India has formally communicated to Government US that India has no problem if they conduct surveillance for metadata in fact it is acceptable and tolerable but “incursion into the content will not be tolerated and is not tolerable.”

Contrary to the claims of the promoters of biometric Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar like Nandan Nilekani that “Millions of people without any ID, now have an ID”, the fact is that of all the Aadhaar numbers issued to Indian residents till date – 99.97 per cent had pre-existing identification (ID) documents. This has been revealed in a reply to an application under Right to Information (RTI) Act by Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The enclosed reply reveals that out of the 83.5 crore UID/Aadhaar numbers issued till then, only 2.19 lakh residents (0.03 per cent) have been given numbers based on the introduction by the introducer system because they did not have a pre-existing ID. This proves that that ‘an inability to prove identity” has not a major barrier to access benefits and subsidies. Now it has emerged that UIDAI’s project and its proponents have been complicit in engineering free flow of data to US and its allies contrary to government’s written submission on e-commerce opposing free access to citizen’s data base at 11^th WTO Ministerial. Notably, companies like Accenture (USA), Safran Group and Ernst & Young have been given access to sensitive data of present and future Indians.

At the protest site there was reference to the presentation of J Satyanaraya, the chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on People Hub: …the Core of DBT dated 22^nd, July 2016 wherein he revealed the purpose of People’s Hub is to have “Getting a 360 degree view of Citizens” that alters the relationships between citizens, government and the business enterprises. As per IBM, a “Single View of a Citizen” is required because it “Provides authorized access to citizen master data as a service.” It “supports security and privacy requirements for the access and control of data”. It “provides data quality management to establish a “enterprise” record for a party.” It “Performs as a synchronization point to control the distribution of citizen master data in a standardized way.” It “Increases service and accuracy, and decreases the cost of serving the public.”It provides “flexible platform capable of supporting multiple data formats and allowing for new sources to be readily added as requirements change. It also “provides analysis and discovery services to resolve identities and discover relationships.”

It may be recalled that Edwin Black’s book IBM and the Holocaust revealed IBM's strategic alliance with Nazi Germany. IBM and its subsidiaries helped create enabling technologies, “step-by-step, from the identification and cataloging programs of the 1930s to the selections of the 1940s.” Notably, IBM was in the census business. The book reveals that IBM technology was used to organize nearly everything in Germany and then Nazi Europe, from the identification of the Jews in censuses, registrations, and ancestral tracing programs to the running of railroads and organizing of concentration camp slave labor. Coincidentally, IBM is involved in UID/Aadhaar project as well.

Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) participated in the protest to express its solidarity.

For Details: Gopal Krishna, Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL)*, E-mail:krishnagreen@gmail.com, Mb: 9818089660, 08227816731

* Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) had appeared before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance that examined and trashed the Aadhaar Bill, 2010, which was reshaped and introduced in Rajya Sabha and it remain pending there till 3rd March 2016 when it was withdrawn and supposedly a new Bill was introduced as Money Bill that got enacted as Aadhaar Act 2016 amidst vociferous objection by Rajya Sabha and peoples movements. It faces constitutional challenge before Supreme Court's Constitution Bench.

Edward Snowden’s Statement on UID/Aadhaar Database & police case welcomed

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Tue, 09 Jan 2018 07:34:00 +0000

Public Statement

Edward Snowden’s Statement on UID/Aadhaar Database & police case welcomed

Supreme Court’s Right to Privacy verdict refers to Snowden’s disclosures

Wikileaks leaked a document showing that UID/Aadhaar database is “the key identifier through the individual’s various life events”

Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) welcomes the statement of Edward Snowden on police case against the journalist who revealed colossal breach in Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) of 12-digit biometric Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar Numbers of Indian residents who have lived in India for at least 182 days.

On the police case against the reporter for reporting about breach in UID/Aadhaar database, Snowden said, “The journalists exposing the #Aadhaar breach deserve an award, not an investigation. If the government were truly concerned for justice, they would be reforming the policies that destroyed the privacy of a billion Indians. Want to arrest those responsible? They are called @UIDAI”, in his tweet. https://twitter.com/Snowden

Notably, Snowden also retweeted the statement of Harish Khare, The Tribune Editor-in-Chief on FIR filed against disclosure of breach in Aadhaar Database by The Tribune reporter. Snowden joined the Twitter on 29 September, 2015.

Prior to this, he tweeted, “It is the natural tendency of government to desire perfect records of private lives. History shows that no matter the laws, the result is abuse.”

Snowden is known for his ethical position against mass surveillance saying, “I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things ... I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.”

India’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology that examined the work of department of electronics and information technology, now called ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) asked about the surveillance by NSA of the USA. It desired to know the department’s stand on the issue of surveillance by the US and interception of data sent through e-mails in its 27^th Report. Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) has written at length about Snowden’s disclosures and judicial and parliamentary observations about them.

It is in such backdrop that a committee was set up by MeitY midway through the hearing on the UID/Aadhaar in Supreme Court wherein MeitY’s position that right to privacy is not a fundamental right was unambiguously debunked. This committee has been set up to “suggest a draft data protection bill.” The terms of reference (ToR) of the committee does not pay heed to the verdict of the court’s 9-Judge Constitution Bench of Supreme Court as it was set up hurriedly ahead of the verdict to outwit the Court.

The ToR pertains to the “study of various issues relating to data protection in India” and “to make specific suggestions for consideration of the central government on principles to be considered for data protection in India and suggest a draft data protection bill” after personal sensitive data of the residents of India has contractually been handed over to foreign transnational companies like Accenture, Mongo DB, Safran Group and Ernst & Young for up to seven years only.

MongoDB (formerly called 10gen) is a technology company from the US and a NoSQL database startup. In 2012 it raised funding from the CIA-backed In-Q-Tel, an independent non-profit venture backed by the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. This company is a Palo Alto and Manhattan-based database software provider in the $30 billion relational database market.

Relational databases commenced in the 1970s when computers were moving away from punch cards (that facilitated the Holocaust in Germany using census data) to terminals. UIDAI’s relationship with MongoDB (extracted from "huMONGOus," meaning"extremely large") remains under cloud. It is apparent that UIDAI has compromised vital data of Indians by such tie-ups.

In response to a question as to the names of UIDAI officials who met MongoDB’s CEO during all the meetings, the UIDAI said, “DDG Tech Centre and ADG IT-II, Tech Centre” met him.

In reply to the query about the copy of the full contract signed between UIDAI and MongoDB, and/or any of its previous or successor names / titles / agents, UIDAI and IBM, UIDAI and Oracle and UIDAI and In-Q-Tel, the UIDAI has written, “No contract signed” between UIDAI and MongoDB, and/or any of its previous or successor names / titles / agents and “No contract signed” between UIDAI and IBM.

With regard to the query about contract between UIDAI and Oracle, UIDAI has stated, “Production support for MySQL is provided by Oracle; not contact signed.”

This reply reveals that UIDAI is engaging companies like Oracle and others without signing any contract. As to contract agreement between UIDAI and In-Q-Tel, UIDAI has written “No contract signed” between them. Oracle too is also in the business of ‘cloudifying’ database that seems to have the potential to turn governments into puppets at least as far as control over database is concerned.

In response to the query about “the country of registration of above listed companies and the names and profile of the persons as the Board of Directors”, UIDAI has given an evasive reply stating, “No Information is known”. The RTI reply is dated February 14, 2014, by UIDAI but it was received on February 21, 2014, by Speedpost.

The reply states that the point-wise response to the RTI application was given by the Tech Centre, Bangalore, UIDAI. It has not been explained as to what transpired at the meeting of UIDAI officials like DDG Tech Centre and ADG IT-II, Tech Centre, Bangalore, with Max Schireson, CEO of MongoDB. It is inexplicable as to why there is obsession with ensuring benefits for private/NGO sector using citizens’ personal sensitive information. This reply merits a probe by a high powered parliamentary committee or a Supreme Court constituted committee.

The proceedings on record make it abundantly clear that the office memorandum dated July 31, 2017, was issued under the signature of Rakesh Maheshwari, group coordinator, Cyber Law and Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), ministry of electronics and information technology ahead of the court verdict as part of their argument underling that right to privacy is not a fundamental right.

It is not surprising that the ToR of the committee has failed to encompass all aspects of privacy and data protection in the era of e-commerce, drones, Google maps, Facebook, Twitter, smartphones, Ola-isation and Uber-isation in the aftermath of revelations by Snowden, Chelsea Manning and Wikileaks.

Notably, the Parliamentary Committee was perturbed by the government’s unpardonable callousness towards the security ramifications of storing UID/Aadhaar data on cloud and the failure to enact a legal framework for right to privacy.

The tenure of Nandan Nilekani as the first chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India commenced in July 2009 and ended in March 2014 as a member of the Indian National Congress but the promised right to privacy bill did not see the light of the day. In effect, he took all the residents of India for a ride. The tenure of V S Madan, second chairman of UIDAI, too commenced and ended without the enactment of the right to privacy bill. The tenure of J Satyanarayana as the third chairman too has not been able to do anything about it.

It is apparent that the government is attempting to change the goalpost now by talking about the proposal of “draft data protection bill” to ignore the existing right to privacy bill.

It is noteworthy that the government has admitted before Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance that examined the issue of UID/Aadhaar numbers may involve certain issues, such as (a) security and confidentiality of information, imposition of obligation of disclosure of information so collected in certain cases, (b) impersonation by certain individuals at the time of enrolment for issue of unique identification numbers, (c) unauthorised access to the Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR), (d) manipulation of biometric information.

The Parliamentary Committee observed, “There is no law at present on privacy, and data protection”. The government told the committee that “collection of information without a privacy law in place does not violate the right to privacy of the individual.”

The committee recommended that legislation on UID/Aadhaar would be appropriate “only after passing the legislation on privacy, and data protection so as to ensure that there is no conflict between these laws.”

The parliamentary committee recorded what the Philippines Supreme Court said in a similar context. It said, ‘The data may be gathered for gainful and useful government purposes; but the existence of this vast reservoir of personal information constitutes a covert invitation to misuse, a temptation that may be too great for some of our authorities to resist.’

It is noteworthy that the National Informatics Centre had pointed out that the issues relating to privacy and security of UID data, in case the data is not hosted in a government data centre requires consideration.

But UIDAI opined that the hosting of data in a private data centre does not necessarily lead to a violation of privacy or security. Appropriate contractual arrangement shall be put in place with the data centre space provider to ensure security and privacy of the data. This reply was given in the Rajya Sabha and is reproduced in the committee’s report. Snowden’s disclosures reveal that government has been misleading the parliamentary committee and the citizens.

The parliamentary committee recorded the findings of the Report on UK’s Identity Project by London School of Economics stating that ‘…..identity systems may create a range of new and unforeseen problems……the risk of failure in the current proposals is therefore magnified to the point where the scheme should be regarded as a potential danger to the public interest and to the legal rights of individuals’. Snowden’s disclosures demonstrate these dangers.

Taking cognisance of this report the United Kingdom shelved its identity cards project for a number of reasons, which included: (a) huge cost involved and possible cost overruns; (b) too complex; (c) untested, unreliable and unsafe technology; (d) possibility of risk to the safety and security of citizens; and (e) requirement of high standard security measures, which would result in escalating the estimated operational costs.

Notably, at the outset, the government, Wipro Ltd and UIDAI had cited the United Kingdom’s identity cards project as an example for the CIDR of the UID/Aadhaar number scheme.

It also noteworthy that Wipro Ltd had submitted a 14-page long document titled ‘Strategic Vision: Unique Identification of Residents’ to the processes committee of the Planning Commission.

Its 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.’

It is inexplicable as to why there is obsession with ensuring benefits for private/NGO sector using citizens’ personal sensitive information.

Meanwhile, the use of electoral database mentioned in Wipro’s document remains part of the agenda. A confidential document of UIDAI titled ‘Creating a unique identity number for every resident in India’, leaked by Wikileaks on November 13, 2009, revealed, ‘It is likely that this number will then persist as the key identifier through the individual’s various life events, such as joining school, immunizations, voting etc.’

Wipro’s document envisaged the close linkage that the UIDAI would have to the electoral database. This paves way for all-round surveillance adversely impacting political rights of present and future generations and making right to have civil rights extinct.

It also has the potential to hijack India’s democratic system by converging CIDR with electoral database, and EVMs. Admittedly, EVMs too have a UID Number. Such convergence can make the secret ballot system a party of history.

After the UK abandoned its’ biometric identification based identity project Wipro Ltd and others have maintained a deafening silence. Besides being a consultant of the Planning Commission for preparing the vision document on UID of Residents, Wipro Ltd has also been among the companies were awarded contracts by UIDAI.

In such a scenario, the composition, of the Committee on “draft data protection bill” has been crafted in such a manner that it is packed with personalities who have consistently been found to be on the wrong side of the constitutional position.

These personalities representing their institutions include current members of the committee, namely, CEO of UIDAI Dr Ajay Bhushan Pandey; National Cyber Security Coordinator Gulshan Rai; Additional Secretary in MeitY, Dr Ajay Kumar; IIT Raipur director, Prof Rajat Moona; IIM Indore director, Prof Rishikesha T Krishnan; DSCI’s Rama Vedasree; Research director of Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, Arghya Sengupta; and secretary, department of telecommunications, Aruna Sundararajan.

The position of these members has been contrary to constitutionally recognised right to privacy as the fundamental right for over four decades.

There is not even an iota of confidence in most of members of the “draft data protection bill” committee because their role in misleading the court about the constitutional position on right to privacy is now a matter of record.

Snowden is a computer professional, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee, and former contractor for the USA’s National Security Agency (NSA) who revealed classified information in public interest in 2013. Citzenfour, a documentary by Laura Poitras about his story, won an Oscar in 2015. A biopic directed by Oliver Stone with Snowden's cooperation and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the lead role has been released in the US.

During her acceptance speech for Academy Award in 2015, Poitras and the winning team was joined onstage by Snowden's girlfriend Lindsay Mills. During her acceptance speech, she said, "When the decisions that rule us are taken in secret, we lose the power to control and govern ourselves."

It may be recalled that Snowden went on a medical leave from NSA and on May 20, 2013, he took a flight to Hong Kong, China, where he spoke to Glenn Greenwald, a journalist and Laura Poitras, a filmmaker. Following which secret documents obtained from Snowden were published on June 5, 2013. These documents showed that USA’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court implemented an order that required Verizon to release information to the NSA on an "ongoing, daily basis" extracted from customers' phone activities. Later, The Guardian and The Washington Post published information on PRISM, an NSA program that allows real-time information collection electronically leaked by Snowden.

In an interview Snowden said, “I'm willing to sacrifice [my former life] because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building,"

On June 14, 2013, federal prosecutors in USA charged Snowden with "theft of government Property," "unauthorized communication of national defense information" and "willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person." US President ordered review of the country's surveillance programs. Snowden got temporary asylum in Russia and has been there since then.

Snowden says, "the problem with mass surveillance is when you collect everything, you understand nothing." He also stated that government spying "fundamentally changes the balance of power between the citizen and the state."

Snowden has underlined that "This really isn’t about me. It’s about us. It’s about our right to dissent. It’s about the kind of country we want to have."

In an interview on 5 January 2018, he said, “Privacy’s not about having something to hide, privacy’s about something to protect. Privacy is the fountainhead of all other rights. Privacy is where rights are derived from, because privacy is the right to the self. Privacy is the right to a free mind. Privacy is the ability to have something, anything, for yourself, for you.”

It is significant that his revelations have found mention in the unanimous verdict of 9-Judge Constitution Bench of Supreme Court of India delivered on 24 August, 2017. The verdict reads: “Edward Snowden shocked the world with his disclosures about global surveillance.”

For Details: Gopal Krishna, Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL)*, E-mail:krishnagreen@gmail.com, Mb: 9818089660, 08227816731

CFCL condemns SLAPP cases against Tribune journalist & whistle blower who reveal flaws in UID/Aadhaar system

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Sun, 07 Jan 2018 14:52:00 +0000

Public Statement

Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL)* denounces and disapproves SLAPP case/FIR against reporter of The Tribune for exposing the project of Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) of 12-digit biometric Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar Numbers

CFCL supports the Public Protest across districts of India on 12th of January to “Break the Aadhaar Chains” that enslaves Indians

CFCL condemns the SLAPP cases against journalists and whistleblowers who reveal flaws in UID/Aadhaar system

Media should be vigilant about promoting citizens’ surveillance in the name of promotion of innovation in digital economy against data nationalism

New Delhi, 7 January: Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL)* denounces & disapproves SLAPP case/FIR against reporter of The Tribune for exposing the truth about Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) of 12-digit biometric Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar Numbers of residents of India who have lived in India for at least 182 days. It appreciates the statements of the Editors Guild of India and Media Association of Punjab that has expressed deep concerns over registration of a case by Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), in the Crime Branch, Delhi Police gains the reporter. This SLAPP case is a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) which is intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics of UID/Aadhaar in the 8^th year of UIDAI’s existence.

This act of UIDAI appears to be guided by its diffidence ahead of the hearing in the Supreme Court on 17 January by the Constitution Bench on the constitutionality of world’s biggest database of UID/Aadhaar Numbers merit greater scrutiny given the fact that countries like UK, Australia, China, France, USA, Germany and others have abandoned similar efforts to build citizen’s databases, which becomes one the most vulnerable assets of the country.

Besides several other provisions of law, reporter of the The Tribune has been booked under Section 36 and 37 of Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 because under Section 47 (1) of the Act only a complaint made by the UIDAI or any officer or person authorised by it for any punishable offence.

It is noteworthy that Aadhaar Act does empower any reporter or any person who comes to know of the misuse and abuse of the UID/Aadhaar or related demographic or biometric information to file an FIR herself. This Act has disabled citizens in general and journalists in particular. It is evident that had she undertaken the task she did the government and citizens could have remained in dark about the unprecedented breach of national security and security of citizens. CFCL appreciates the exemplary journalistic work done by The Tribune and its reporter which serves supreme public interest and national interest.

As per Section 36 of the Aadhaar Act “Whoever, not being authorised to collect identity information under the provisions of this Act, by words, conduct or demeanour pretends that he is authorised to do so, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with a fine which may extend to ten thousand rupees or, in the case of a company, with a fine which may extend to one lakh rupees or with both.”

A joint reading of Section 47 (1) and Section 36 reveals that government and UIDAI wants to remains in dark about unauthorised collection of identity information because no one other than UIDAI itself is authorized to do so and no one other itself can file complaint against unauthorised collection.

As per Section 37 of the Act “Whoever, intentionally discloses, transmits, copies or otherwise disseminates any identity information collected in the course of enrolment or authentication to any

person not authorised under this Act or regulations made thereunder or in contravention of any agreement or arrangement entered into pursuant to the provisions of this Act, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with a fine which may extend to ten thousand rupees or, in the case of a company, with a fine which may extend to one lakh rupees or with both.”

A joint reading of Section 47 (1) and Section 37 reveals that government wants to remain in dark about intentional disclosures, transmissions, copying and dissemination of any identity information because no one other than UIDAI itself is authorized to take note of such illegal activities and no one other itself can file complaint against unauthorised collection.

The case has also been filed under Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 which deals with hacking with computer system. This Section of the IT Act reads: “ (1) Whoever with the intent to cause or knowing that he is likely to cause wrongful loss or damage to the public or any person destroys or deletes or alters any information residing in a computer resource or diminishes its value or utility or affects it injuriously by any means, commits hack: (2) Whoever commits hacking shall be punished with imprisonment up to three years, or with fine which may extend upto two lakh rupees, or with both.”

If the relevant provisions of Aadhaar Act and IT Act are read together, it is abundantly clear that as far as CIDR of UID/Aadhaar numbers of residents of India is concerned, government and the UIDAI do not wish anyone other itself to file a complaint against any person causing “wrongful loss or damage to the public or any person destroying or deleting or altering or diminishing or affecting or hacking UIDAI’s database injuriously.

While UIDAI has filed cases also under sections 419 (punishment for cheating under impersonation), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery) and 471 (using a forged document) of Indian Penal Code, the fact is that UIDAI itself has handed over data of all those who have enrolled to foreign companies like Accenture, Safran Group and Ernst & Young who are subservient to laws of their country and under legal compulsion to share it with their governments and other unauthorized private entities. CFCL’s demands disclosure of all the contract agreements which UIDAI has signed with private entities and public institutions.

It is noteworthy that UIDAI awarded contracts to three companies namely, Satyam Computer Services Ltd. (Mahindra Satyam), as part of a “Morpho led consortium”, L1 Identity Solutions Operating Company and Accenture Services Pvt. Ltd of USA for the “Implementation of Biometric Solution for UIDAI”. Sagem Morpho Security Pvt. Ltd of French Safran Group was awarded contract for the purchase of Biometric Authentication Devices on February 2, 2011 by the UIDAI. On July 30, 2010, in a joint press release, it was announced that “the Mahindra Satyam and Morpho led consortium has been selected as one of the key partners to implement and deliver the Aadhaar program by UIDAI. UIDAI Chief was given ID Limelight Award at the ID World International Congress in 2010 held in Milan in November 2010. One of the two Platinum Sponsors of this Congress was Morpho (of Safran group), a French high-technology company with three core businesses: Aerospace, Defense and Security in which French Government has a 30 % stake. This company has a 40 year partnership with China. Coincidentally, this Global Summit on Automatic Identification in 2009 had awarded Tariq Malik, Deputy Chairman of Islamabad based National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA) too for implementing UID project in Pakistan.

It is alarming to note that Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will have residents/ citizens of India believe that the three transnational biometric technology companies working with foreign intelligence agencies namely:1) Mahindra Satyam Computer Services/Sagem Morpho, 2) L1 Identities Solutions and 3) Accenture Services who have been awarded contracts by UIDAI that “There are no means to verify whether the said companies are of US origin or not” in a reply to Right to Information (RTI) application. Didn’t UIDAI know the country of origin of the award and their sponsors who were awarded contract by UIDAI prior to taking the award inform UIDAI Chief the “means to verify” the country of the origin of three companies in questions?.

The first company Morpho’s website is: http://www.morpho.com/qui-sommes-nous/implantations-internationales/morpho-en-inde/?lang=en

It Press Release at http://www.morpho.com/evenements-et-actualites-348/presse/mahindra-satyam-and-morpho-selected-to-deliver-india-s-next-generation-unique-identification-number-program?lang=en reveal its partnership with Mahindra Satyam. Its parent company’s website is www.safran-group.com

The second company, L1 Identities Solutions is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S website and its press releases at http://ir.l1id.com/releases.cfm?header=news reveal that the company received $24.5 Million in Purchase Orders in the Initial Phase of India's Unique Identification Number Program for Certified Agile TP(TM) Fingerprint Slap Devices and Mobile-Eyes(TM) Iris Cameras. (http://ir.l1id.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=509971).

On July 19, 2011, L-1 Identity Solutions and Safran, Paris announced that in connection with the pending acquisition of L-1 by Safran, the parties have reached a final agreement on the terms of a definitive mitigation agreement with the United States government. L-1 and Safran were notified by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) on July 19, 2011 that the investigation of the merger transaction is complete and that there are no unresolved national security concerns with respect to the transaction. With CFIUS approval for the merger, and having satisfied all other conditions required prior to closing, the parties completed the merger transaction. As a consequence of Safran’s purchase of L-1 Identity Solutions, the de-duplication contracts of UIDAI’s CIDR which was given to two companies, both contracts are with one company now.

While Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) resolved national security concerns, has the same been done in India?

Following Central Information Commission (CIC)’s intervention in the matter of application filed by Col Mathew Thomas, an octogenarian defence scientist, and submissions by the author on his behalf, UIDAI shared its contract agreement with French and US biometric technology companies but crucial pages are missing from the contract agreement after the CIC heard the matter on 10 September 2013. After examining these documents with regard to the Accenture for Biometric Technology, it has come to notice that the first 237 pages appear to be in order but after that there is a one pager titled Annexure J Technical Bid (Technical Bid as submitted by M/s Accenture Services Pvt Ltd). The Technical Bid document is missing. After that there is a one pager titled Annexure K Commercial Bid Commercial (Bid as submitted by M/s Accenture Services Pvt Ltd). The Commercial Bid document is missing.

With regard to the L-1 Identity Solutions for Biometric Technology, one noticed that the first 236 pages appear to be in order but after that there is a one pager titled Annexure I non-disclosure agreement as submitted by L-1 Identity Solutions Operating Company Pvt Ltd. But this document is missing. After that there is a one pager titled Annexure J Technical Bid as submitted by L-1 Identity Solutions Operating Company Pvt Ltd. The Technical Bid document is missing. After that there is a one pager titled Annexure K Commercial Bid as submitted by L-1 Identity Solutions Operating Company Pvt Ltd. The Commercial Bid document is missing.

When this was pointed out to the new Information Commissioner, he ordered the Registrar, CIC to check compliance by UIDAI’s earlier order. The Registrar then informed that the new Information Commissioner has allowed UIDAI to furnish limited financial information. In effect, he changed the earlier order of the CIC without authority to do so. The Writ Petition (Civil) No. 9143/2014 (Mathew Thomas V Union of India and Ors) in this regard is pending in Delhi High Court. The next date of hearing has been fixed for 4 May, 2018 by Justice Vibhu Bakhru’s order of 15 September, 2017. Till 21 February, 2017 it was before Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva. So far there have been 10 hearings in the case since December 22, 2014. The companies in question have argued that the copies of their technical bids should not be given to the petitioner. Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva’s order of 22 December, 2016 revealed that M/s. L-1 Identity Solutions Operating Company Private Limited and M/s. Accenture Services Private Limited have been impleaded in the case.

In the aftermath of 11^th Ministerial of WTO which concluded in December 2017, media should be vigilant about the forces which are promoting citizens’ surveillance in the name of promotion of Innovation in the Global Digital Economy and e-commerce. It should take note of the fact that ministries that drafted India’s written position on e-commerce opposed demand for negotiations on e-commerce by US and its allies have not been kept in loop in the matter of database of Indian residents. US and its allies who are deeply interested in access to Aadhaar database are have been demanding access to citizens’ database for free as per their written submissions. The WTO has a 1998 Work Programme on e-commerce. This Work Programme provides for the discussion of trade-related issues relating to e-commerce to take place in the relevant WTO bodies like the Council for Trade in Services; the Council for Trade in Goods; the Council for TRIPS; and the Committee for Trade and Development. The WTO’s General Council was envisaged to play a review or oversight role.

In recent times, proposals are being pushed by some developed countries to negotiate new rules in addition to the existing ones in the WTO Agreements with regard to e-commerce amidst vehement opposition by many developing countries including India because it goes beyond the 1998 mandate. Since the 1998 WTO Ministerial Conference when Members adopted a temporary moratorium of not imposing customs duties on electronic transmissions, this moratorium has been renewed at the WTO Ministerial Conferences. Global trade remains open and closed for strategic reasons. It is increasingly evident that trade in services and non-agricultural products is going to acquire electronic route in near future in a dramatic manner. This will result in huge financial losses when investors, rather than establishing local presence, prefer to provide services online. Countries like India will experience losses from taxation foregone.

The online databases including CIDR of UID/Aadhaar is admittedly on cyber cloud beyond the jurisdiction of India which will facilitate foreign investors and compromise Indian’s economic interest of Indians. Unmindful of such imminent economic disruptions the proposed data protection law framework by Government of India remains foreign digital entrepreneur centric, not citizen centric and is not geared up to keep pace with emerging future Internet which is going to be invisible and which is being embedded into everything.

In such a backdrop, The Tribune report of January 3 by Rachna Khaira has exposed the vulnerability of UIDAI’s database in great public interest and Editors Guild of India has aptly described the FIR as “unfair, unjustified and a direct attack on the freedom of the press. Instead of penalising the reporter, UIDAI should have ordered a thorough internal investigation into the alleged breach and made its findings public.” CFCL endorses Guild’s demand that the concerned Union Ministry to intervene and have the cases against the reporter withdrawn apart from conducting an impartial investigation into the matter.

Due to all around concerns about denial of right to life and personal liberty by UIDAI and related agencies, a Joint Citizens Protest is planned in cities and districts across the country. In Delhi, the protest is planned on 12 January, at 3 PM on Parliament Street by concerned citizens, trade unions and student organizations. CFCL expresses its solidarity with the Joint Citizens protest.

For Details: Gopal Krishna, Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL)*, E-mail:krishnagreen@gmail.com, Mb: 9818089660, 08227816731

Seven years of a memorable Press Conference on UID, an anti-UID/Aadhaar event not covered under external influence

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 12:14:00 +0000

Seven years of research, advocacy and campaign on surveillance through Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) of UID/Aadhaar numbers

If once people become inattentive to the public affairs, “you and I, Congress and Assemblies, judges and Governors shall become wolves.-Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of USA in a letter, 16 January, 1787

Who arrogates the power to spy on the entire earth-every single of us-and when he is caught red handed, explains to us that “we’re going to have to make a choice. Who is that person? Let’s be careful about who we call “traitor”.

-Statement of Julian Assange of Wikileaks, who may have to stay in Eucadorian Embassy until 2022 (22 June 2013)

Tolerably early in life I discovered that one of the unpardonable sins in the eyes of most people is for a man to go about unlabelled.

-TH Huxeley, a British biologist and a prominent defender of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution

We have maintained a silence closely resembling stupidity.

- a Proclamation from La Paz, capital of Bolivia, 16 July 1809

On completing seven years of its work on surveillance through Panopticon called Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) of UID/Aadhaar numbers, Citizens Form for Civil Liberties (CFCL) recollects a memorable press conference on “The UID Project” which was held at the Press Club, New Delhi on 28 September, 2010 from 12 noon onwards. As concerned citizens the eminent speakers raised questions about the UID project and undemocratic process, Privacy, Surveillance, Profiling, Tracking and Convergence which can happen with the help of the UID number. The conference was attended by print and electronic media wherein the speakers shared details about how this has the potential to violate citizens’ right to privacy and transform the state-citizen relationship and will affect every resident using Unique Identity (UID) Number. This number has been branded as Aadhaar.

Coincidentally, there was a "Bangalore based Adhar Trust that Nilekani and Rohini Nilekani set up to fund their initiatives into a government function." Adhar Trust was in news in August 2003. It was reported in financial newspapers and business magazines. It was reported that Adhar Trust donated 4.75 crore to the initiatives of Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) at that point in time. Bangalore based researchers confirmed it when Aadhaar name was chosen as the brand name of 12 digit unique identification (UID) number. The coincidence of NGO of Rohini Nilekani & Nandan Nilekani having 'Adhar' name and UID getting "Aadhaar" name remains inexplicable and quite stark. The UID project was renamed the Aadhaar project after the UIDAI avowedly had a nationwide competition to find a logo and a brand name. Curiously, Aadhaar name echoes the name of based Adhar Trust.

The journalists present at the press conference on 28 September asked many questions of concern. The conference continued for a long time. Even after the press conference several journalists stayed back to speak to the speakers for long. After the press conference, the organizers Campaign for No UID and Citizens Form for Civil Liberties (CFCL) found that the attendance sheet of all the journalists who attended the conference was missing. On 29 September there was no coverage of the anti-UID/Aadhaar event under some external influence through a public relations agency. Some journalists informed that they had filed the story but it was not published. The lesson from the incident is that when there is a contest between journalists and public relations professionals, the latter prevails through media owners. This was the day one which biometric UID/Aadhaar number was launched by Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh in Maharashtra in the presence of Nilekani as Chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India, (UIDAI).

On 24 August, 2017, when 9-Judge Constitution Bench of Supreme Court gave its verdict on Right to Privacy, the statement of concern issued at the press conference on 28 September 2010 signed by seventeen eminent signatories was vindicated. The signatories included personalities like Late Justice VR Krishna Iyer, Retired Judge, Supreme Court of India, Justice A.P.Shah, Retired Chief Justice of High Court of Delhi, Prof Romila Thapar, Historian, Late K.G.Kannabiran, Senior Civil Liberties Lawyer, Bezwada Wilson, Safai Karamchari Andolan, Aruna Roy, MKKS, Rajasthan, Late S.R.Sankaran, Retired Secretary, Government of India, 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, Trilochan Sastry, Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore, and Association for Democratic Reforms, Prof. Jagdeep S. Chhokar , ex- IIM Ahemadabad, and Association for Democratic Reforms, Kavita Srivastava, PUCL and Right to Food Campaign, Shabnam Hashmi, ANHAD and Deep Joshi, Independent Consultant. The statement asked the government to halt the project. It demanded that 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, a cost : benefit analysis be done and a public, informed debate be conducted before any such major change be brought in.

The speakers addressing the press conference informed the media that the UID project is supposed to give every resident a Unique Identity (UID) 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.

The speakers at the press conference on 28 September 2010 drew the attention of the media towards the fact that 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.

For Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) it all began with a late night lecture on the subject of 12-digit biometric Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar based surveillance by Dr Usha Ramanathan, a noted scholar of jurisprudence at Godavari Hostel in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi in April 2010. This was the first lecture on the subject in JNU. This lecture inspired the launch of CFCL as an initiative of MediaVigil, a forum of old students of Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), which comprises of media practitioners, scholars, researchers and social activists. Since the CFCL has been working relentlessly on the subject of UID/Aadhaar and related implications of surveillance technologies, big data and artificial intelligence on natural rights.

A brief chronology of CFCL”s work is as under:

2010-CFCL issued an Open Letter to Fellow Citizens Against Unique Identification Number &
National Population Register (NPR) seeking scrapping of Unique Identification Number (UID)/ Aadhar project involving biometric data collection linked to National Population Register (NPR) because it has the potential to facilitate mass violence of the kind witnessed in Nazi Germany. It briefed them about Sam Pitroda’s public information infrastructure (PII) is tagging people, tagging places, tagging programmes etc to connect 2.50 lakh Panchayats all over the country. UID/aadhaar and NPR of Chandramouli are subsets of this program. Ever wondered as to why the votaries of privatization of every imaginable natural resource ‘for public welfare’ have become advocates of centralization of biological information of Indians ‘for public welfare.’ The rationale for the stateization of personal sensitive information of Indian residents and citizens appears dubious. CFCL critiqued the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010.

Nilekani was given ID Limelight Award at the ID WORLD International Congress, 2010 in Milan, Italy on 16^th November wherein Safran Morpho (Safran group) was a key sponsor of the ID Congress. Its subsidiary, Sagem Morpho Security Pvt Ltd has been awarded contract for the purchase of Biometric Authentication Devices on 2 February 2011 by the UIDAI.

Earlier, on 30 July 2010, in a joint press release, it was announced that “the Mahindra Satyam and Morpho led consortium has been selected as one of the key partners to implement and deliver the Aadhaar program by UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India).” This means that at least two contracts have been awarded to the French conglomerate led consortium. Is it a coincidence that Morpho (Safran group) sponsored the award to chairman, UIDAI and the former got a contract from the latter?

Nilekani was given the award "For being the force behind a transformational project ID project in India...and "to provide identification cards for each resident across the country and would be used primarily as the basis for efficient delivery of welfare services. It would also act as a tool for effective monitoring of various programs and schemes of the government."

It may also be noted that UIDAI awarded contracts to three companies namely, Satyam Computer Services Ltd (Mahindra Satyam), as part of a “Morpho led consortium”, L-1 Identity Solutions Operating Company and Accenture Services Pvt Ltd of US for the “Implementation of Biometric Solution for UIDAI” on 30 July 2010.

The award was given within less than one month of the launch of biometric UID/Aadhaar number by Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh on 29 September 2010. Nilekani joined UIDAI in July 2009 and got the award within 14 months. What miracle did he perform in such short span? How will anyone justify the contract awarded by UIDAI under Nilekani to Safran’s subsidiary, Sagem Morpho Security Pvt Ltd for the purchase of Biometric Authentication Devices on 2 February 2011 after getting the ID Limelight award from them?

In 2009, Pakistan’s vice chairman of National Database Registration (NADRA) was also given an award at this very summit for successful implementation of UID/Aadhaar like project in his country. In an interview, Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks informed Imran Khan about the grave act of omission and commission. Assange said, “…we discovered a cable in 2009 from the Islamabad Embassy. Prime minister Gilani and interior minister Malik went into the (US) embassy and offered to share National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) – and NADRA is the national data and registration agency database. The system is currently connected through passport data but the government of Pakistan is adding voice and facial recognition capability and has installed a pilot biometric system as the Chennai border crossing, where 30,000 to 35,000 people cross each day. This NADRA system is the voting record system for all voters in Pakistan. A front company was set up in the United Kingdom – International Identity Services, which was hired as the consultants for NADRA to squirrel out the NADRA data for all of Pakistan. What do you think about that? Is that a…? It seems to me that that is a theft of some national treasure of Pakistan, the entire Pakistani database registry of its people.” The interview is available here.

In the contract agreement between the President of India, as purchaser and L-1 Identity Solutions Operating Company, as a "Biometric Solution Provider" it has been officially admitted that the latter is a corporation of US based in Delaware as of 24 August 2010. L-1 has since been bought over by French corporate conglomerate, Safran Group after the US Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) was convinced that there are no unresolved national security concerns with respect to the transaction. L-1 Identity Solutions announced agreement to be acquired by Safran on 20 September 2010.

From the contract agreement between the President of India, as purchaser and Accenture Services Pvt Ltd as a "Biometric Solution Provider" dated 1 September 2010 it is evident that it has not been disclosed that Accenture Services Pvt Ltd is a subsidiary of Dublin, Ireland based Accenture plc, a US company. Till 1 January 2001 it was known as Andersen Consulting. As a consequence of French corporate conglomerate Safran’s purchase of US company L-1 Identity Solutions, the de-duplication contracts of UIDAI’s Centralized Identities Data Repository (CIDR) and Home Ministry’s National Population Register (NPR) which was given to foreign companies on 30 July 2010 to three companies now lies with two companies of French and US origin namely, Safran Group and Accenture.

UIDAI has not disclosed whether there has been any fresh agreement between UIDAI and Safran Group and its subsidiaries and who all are the biometric solution providers after the expiry of the “contractual obligations” with L-1 Identity Solution and Accenture. The contract agreement with Accenture Services Pvt Ltd at clause 15.1 it reads: "By virtue of this Contract, M/s Accenture Services Pvt Ltd/Team of M/s Accenture Services Pvt Ltd may have access to personal information of the Purchaser and/or a third party or any resident of India, any other person covered within the ambit of any legislation as may be applicable." The purchaser is President of India through UIDAI.

CFCL noted that coincidentally, World Bank launched its eTransform Initiative in Washington to unleash a Transformational Government project through convergence in 14 developing countries which focuses on e-identity as well.

2011- Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) appeared before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance that examined and trashed the Aadhaar Bill, 2010, which was reshaped and introduced in Rajya Sabha and it remain pending there till 3rd March 2016 when it was withdrawn and supposedly a new Bill was introduced as Money Bill and got enacted act Aadhaar Act 2016 amidst vociferous objection by Rajya Sabha. It faces constitutional challenge in the Supreme Court's original three judge bench.

The multi-party Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) on Finance comprised of Yashwant Sinha, Shivkumar Udasi Chanabasappa, Jayant Chaudhary, Harishchandra Deoram Chavan, Bhakta Charan Das, Gurudas Dasgupta, Nishikant Dubey, Chandrakant Khaire, Bhartruhari Mahtab, Anjan Kumar Yadav M, Prem Das Rai, Dr Kavuru Sambasiva Rao, Rayapati S Rao, Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy, Sarvey Sathyanarayana, GM Siddeswara, N Dharam Singh, Yashvir Singh, Manicka Tagore, R Thamaraiselvan, Dr M Thambidurai, SS Ahluwalia, Vijay Jawaharlal Darda, Piyush Goyal, Raashid Alvi, Moinul Hassan, Satish Chandra Misra, Mahendra Mohan, Dr Mahendra Prasad, Dr KVP Ramachandra Rao and Yogendra P Trivedi. Few members had given a dissent bit without providing credible reason for it.

CFCL informed fellow citizens about a report “Biometrics: The Difference Engine: Dubious security” published by The Economist in its 1st October 2010 issue which observed “Biometric identification can even invite violence. A motorist in Germany had a finger chopped off by thieves seeking to steal his exotic car, which used a fingerprint reader instead of a conventional door lock.” This reveals the frightening ramifications of using biometrics as a basis for identification. It briefed them about another report “Biometric Recognition: Challenges and Opportunities” that concluded that the current state of biometrics is ‘inherently fallible’. That is one of the findings of a five-year study was jointly commissioned by the CIA, the US Department of Homeland Security and the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency.

2012- CFCL filed a complaint in the National Human Rights Commission seeking pre-emptive intervention to stop dangerous erosion of privacy by DNA profiling of citizens. The proposed human DNA profiling is linked to biometric UID Number. CFCL wrote about the prayers in the PIL filed against UID/Aadhaar in the Supreme Court. It briefed several legislators about the impact of UID/Aadhaar. It filed an RTI in Lok Sabha Secretariat seeking the presentation of Nilekani before the Parliamentary Standing Committee but was denied the same. CFCL noted that in September 2012 former foreign minister Jaswant Singh said, "I don't agree to Nandan Nilekeni and his madcap (UID) scheme which he is trying to promote".

A letter of Ajit Seth, cabinet secretary, Government of India dated 18 July 2012, which was sent to all secretaries stated, “There is an urgent need to bring rich data assets into the public domain for the use by civil society for scientific, economic and developmental purposes.” The urgency has not been explained till date.

2013-Based CFCL’s research a case was filed in Punjab & Haryana High Court that found application of Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar legally questionable following which Union Territory of Chandigarh’s Executive order for mandatory Biometric UID ‘Cards’ was withdrawn. It revealed the support of a business tycoon for illegitimate biometric UID/Aadhaar. Supreme Court passed an order saying UID/Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory. CFCL raised questions like: Is there a biological material in the human body that constitutes biometric data immortal, ageless and permanent? Besides working conditions, humidity, temperature and lighting conditions also impact the quality of biological material used for generating biometric data. It established how UID/Aadhaar is based on the unscientific and questionable assumption that there are parts of human body likes fingerprint, iris, voice etc” that does not age, wither and decay with the passage of time. Following it efforts an RTI application was filed whose reply dated October 25, 2013 from UIDAI shared UIDAI’s contract agreement with Ernst & Young states in a most startling disclosure from the contract agreement is its admission that “biometric systems are not 100 % accurate”. It admits that “uniqueness of the biometrics is still a postulate.” In an admission that pulverizes the very edifice on which UID/aadhaar and the NPR rests, it writes, “The loss in information due to limitations of the capture setup or physical conditions of the body, and due (to) the feature representation, there is a non-zero probability that two finger prints or IRIS prints coming from different individuals can be called a match.” This is underlined in bold letters in the contract agreement. In simple words, “non-zero probability that two finger prints or IRIS prints” turning out to be a match means that there is a probability that biometric data of two different individuals can be identical.

The contract agreement states, “the Unique ID will be a random 12-digit number with the basis for establishing uniqueness of identity being biometrics”. The agreement further states, “we will provide a Unique Identity to over 113.9 crore people.” This is evidently a fraudulent claim because UIDAI with which the agreement has been signed has mandate to provide Unique Identity to only 60 crore residents of India and not to 113.9 crore people.

For long UIDAI refused to share copy of all contracts given to French and US biometric technology companies, namely, L-1 Identity Solutions and Accenture respectively. L-1 was a US company till recently.

Sushma Singh, the Information Commissioner gave UIDAI’s letter written to CIC submitting that "contractual obligation in respect of BSP (Biometric Solution Provider) contracts has expired. Therefore, UIDAI has no objection in sharing the following contract details:-a) Copy of contract of UIDAI with M/s L-1 Identity Solutions for Biometric Technology; and b) Copy of contract of UIDAI with M/s Accenture for Biometric Technology".

After examining these documents with regard to the Accenture for Biometric Technology, it has come to notice that the first 237 pages appear to be in order but after that there is a one pager titled Annexure J Technical Bid (Technical Bid as submitted by M/s Accenture Services Pvt Ltd). The Technical Bid document is missing. After that there is a one pager titled Annexure K Commercial Bid Commercial (Bid as submitted by M/s Accenture Services Pvt Ltd). The Commercial Bid document is missing.

The reasoning of UIDAI in its letter to CIC dated 10 September 2013 stating that "contractual obligation in respect of BSP (Biometric Solution Provider) contracts has expired” is flawed in the light of the previous judgment of CIC.
Under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the PIO cannot deny information citing commercial confidence for agreements between a public authority and private party. While giving this judgment, CIC said “The claim of 'commercial confidence' in denying access to agreements between private parties and the masters of the public authorities—citizens—runs counter to the principles of the Right to Information.” It stated, “Any agreement entered into by the government is an agreement deemed to have been entered into on behalf of the and in the interest of ‘We the people’. Hence if any citizen wants to know the contents of such an agreement, he is in the position of a principal asking his agent to disclose to him the terms of the agreement entered into by the agent on behalf of the principal. No agent can refuse to disclose any such information to his principal,” the CIC said in its order dated 27 July 2009.

The Commission was of the view that “The objectives of the RTI Act would be defeated if public authorities claim exemption based on a claim that ‘terms and condition were much more favourable to the government’, and therefore these must be kept away from the Public. In fact public feels that quite often the contrary is the case,” the Commission noted. The CIC observed, “Any so called imaginary moral or reciprocal obligation cannot be permitted to subvert a solemn constitutional and legal obligation” and directed the PIO to provide copy of the agreement.

CFCL critiqued the amendments proposed in the National Identification Authority of India Bill.

CFCL wrote a letter to prime minister Manmohan Singh, defense minister AK Antony who is also the head of the Group of Ministers (GoM) which oversees the issue of resident identity cards under scheme of National Population Register (NPR) and to Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of Planning Commission as well as special invitee on the Cabinet Committee on UIDAI-related issues and who is also on the GoM on the issue of resident identity cards under NPR scheme, and Dr C Chandramouli, Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India.

It wrote that “Supreme Court has revealed that although the attached enrolmentform of Aadhaar/unique identification (UID) number promises on top of the form that it is free and voluntary, several central ministries and uninformed state governments attempted to make it mandatory, in a manifest case of breach of citizen's trust." The Strategy Overview document of the UIDAI says that "enrolment will not be mandated" adding, "This will not, however, preclude governments or registrars from mandating enrolment". "It must be noted that Mr Nilekani headed several committees whose recommendations made Aadhaar mandatory," he said.

Here is the list of Committees and groups, which decided to make Aadhaar mandatory and are linked with Nilekani:

1) He headed Technology Advisory Group on Unique Projects (TAGUP) that proposes "private company with public purpose" and with "profit making as the motive but not profit maximising".

2) He headed of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which is functioning without legislative approval either at the centre or in the states and has signed contracts with companies that work with Intelligence agencies.

3) He headed of Committee on Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) technology for use on National Highways that proposes Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).

4) He headed of Inter-ministerial task force to streamline the subsidy distribution mechanism

5) He headed of Government of India's IT Task Force for Power Sector

6) He was member of National Knowledge Commission

7) He was member of Review Committee of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission

8) He was member of National Advisory Group on e-Governance

9) He was member of Subcommittee of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) that dealt with issues related to insider trading

10) He was member of Reserve Bank of India's Advisory Group on corporate governance

11) He was member of Prime Minister's National Council on Skill Development

12) He was member of Prime Minister headed National Committee on Direct Cash Transfers

13) He was an invitee to the Cabinet Committee on UID related matters

14) He was an invitee to Group of Ministers (GoM) regarding Issue of Resident Identity Cards under NPR Scheme

15) He was a member of the board of governors of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER)

16) He is the president of NCAER

17) He was chairman, Empowered Group, IT Infrastructure for Goods and Services Tax (GST)

The list is not exhaustive. Nilekani has many more identities as a shareholder and as head of a corporation.

CFCL noted that the 'rift between Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and Planning Commissions’, the UIDAI on UID and NPR was motivated and meant to take legislatures, citizens, states and media for a ride. CFCL has been proven right.

CFCL wrote, "...it was reported on 6 October 2011 that Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi wrote to the prime minister questioning the need for National Population Register (NPR) by Registrar General of India and Census Commissioner. Gujarat then stopped collection of biometric data for creation of the NPR."

In his letter to the Prime Minister, Mr Modi raised objections over both the UIDAI, which is creating UID/Aadhaar number and Registrar General of India, which is creating the NPR, collecting biometric data.

In his letter Mr Modi wrote, “…there is no mention of capturing biometrics in the Citizenship Act or Citizenship Rules, 2009”. In the absence of any provision in the Citizenship Act, 1955, or rules for capturing biometrics, it is difficult to appreciate how the capture of biometrics is a statutory requirement. Photography and biometrics is only mentioned in the Manual of Instructions for filling up the NPR household schedule and even in that there is no mention of capturing the iris”.

After Gujarat stopped collection of biometric data, the then Union Minister of Home Affairs, P Chidambaram sent a letter to Mr Modi in August 2011, pointing out that creation of the NPR was a “statutory requirement” under the Citizenship Act, 1955, and “once initialised, (it) has to be necessarily completed”. The MHA had also requested the chief minister to instruct state government officers to cooperate in creation of the NPR. This was when the entire media, citizens and the political class was hoodwinked into believing that there was a rift between Mr Nilekani’s UIDAI under Planning Commission and Dr C Chandramouli’s NPR under MHA when Mr Chidambaram headed it, said Mr Krishna.

CFCL wrote, "It appears that Mr Modi chose to side with UIDAI in an apparent rebuff to Mr Chidambaram. Mr Modi kicked off UID/Aadhaar project in Gujarat on 1 May 2012 by giving his biometric information and enrolled under the UIDAI project. Strangely, Mr Modi did not object to his biometric identification under UID as he did with regard to NPR. Mr Modi did so despite the fact that Yashwant Sinha (BJP leader) headed Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance that rejected the UID project and the UID Bill in its report to the Parliament on 13 December 2012. However, it may be noted that one sentence of its report appears to endorse biometric NPR. Is it a case of Mr Sinha was trying to side with Mr Chidambaram? It appears that Mr Modi has been taken for ride with regard to the UID/Aadhaar and Mr Sinha with regard to NPR as they failed to see through the strategy. Now Mr Chidambaram is wearing the hat of minister of finance. This is how both Mr Modi and Mr Sinha were outwitted by Mr Chidambaram."

CFCL noted that “Mr Nilekani met the then deputy chief minister of Bihar, Sushil Kumar Modi at Bihar Bhawan in New Delhi in August 2011 to ensure a centralized IT infrastructure for GST across the states through GST Network, a National Information Utility, a private company with public purpose having profit making as the motive but not profit maximising. This is meant to take away the sovereign function of tax collection from the state." CFCL pointed out the link between UID/Aadhaar and Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN). The appointment of current UIDAI DG as Chairman of GSTN underlines the same.

2014- CFCL pointed out that Nandan Nilekani, who was Chairman of UIDAI till 13 March 2014 had joined Indian National Congress on 9 March 2014 and thus violated the service rules for government servants. He had sent his resignation on 13 March 2014 to the then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, which was accepted on 18 March 2014 by the “competent authority” with retrospective effect from 13 March 2014.

BJP defeated Nilekani and his party, which he joined as the chief of Aadhaar implementing authority. Nilekani lost by 2.29 lakh votes but he came second with 4.05 lakh votes. It is noteworthy that he polled these many votes due to misuse of official machinery and the unprecedented support of almost all the commercial czars, who unsuccessfully attempted to manufacture consent in his favour. His Aadhaar project was supported by some key leaders of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) too. The new regime has failed to defeat Congress’s regressive ideology rooted in biometric determinism at the behest of foreign military and intelligence companies by abandoning both Aadhaar and NPR.

In a book ‘The Problem of Party Government’ published in 1974, its author Prof Richard Rose writes, “Office-holding is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of governing.” He added, “Where life of party politics does not affect government policy, the accession of a new party to office is little more significant than the accession of a new monarch; the party reigns but does not rule.” Clearly, with the change in regime, pre-existing orders have not changed.

Hearing the Special Leave to Appeal (Criminal) No(s).2524/2014, which has been linked with the previous case Writ Petition (Civil) 494 of 2012, the Supreme Court bench of Dr. Justice B.S. Chauhan and Justice J. Chelameswar passed an order asking Government of India to delink all programs from biometric aadhaar. Non-Congress political parties have denounced biometric aadhaar as a case of fraud and a national betrayal. CFCL informed the fellow citizens about the contract agreement between the President of India for UIDAI, as purchaser and L-1 Identity Solutions Operating Company, and Accenture Services Pvt Ltd accessed through RTI at clause 15.1 it is stated, “By virtue of this Contract, M/s Accenture Services Pvt Ltd/Team of M/s Accenture Services Pvt Ltd may have access to personal information of the Purchaser and/or a third party or any resident of India, any other person covered within the ambit of any legislation as may be applicable.” The purchaser is President of India through UIDAI. The clause 15.3 of the agreements reads, “The Data shall be retained by Accenture Services Pvt Ltd not more than a period of 7 years as per Retention Policy of Government of India or any other policy that UIDAI may adopt in future.” This clearly implies that all the biometric data of Indians which has been collected so far is now available to US Government and French Government.

It informed fellow citizens that human body came under assault as a result of forced vasectomy of thousands of men under the notorious family planning initiative of Sanjay Gandhi. Nilekani and his ilk have acted worse than Sanjay Gandhi in putting Indians’ body under the assault of biometric surveillance.

CFCL drew on the findings and disclosures of whistleblowers like Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning who have joined the ranks of hall fame as the defenders of privacy as a basic human right and contrasted their work with those of likes of Nandan Nilekani, C Chandramouli and Sam Pitroda who have joined the hall of infamy with entities like USA’s National Security Agency as killers of privacy. The latter are admittedly in the business of ‘cloudifying’ databases that has the potential to turn governments into puppets at least as far as control over database is concerned. Following efforts of peoples protest against UID/Aadhaar BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate denounced this project as threat to national security. Arun Jaitley wrote about the dangers of entering to Aadhaar era.

After the election, CFCL pointed out how Narendra Modi betrayed the democratic mandate by choosing to endorse and promote UID/Aadhaar.

2015- CFCL issued a Public Statement in August 2015 recalling the words of the Dalit activist and an eminent citizen who said, “This project wants to fix our identities through time. Even after that we are dead. The information held about us will be fixed to us by the UID number. Changing an identity will become impossible. We are working for the eradication of the practice of manual scavenging, for rehabilitation of those who have been engaged in manual scavenging, and then leaving behind that tag of manual scavenger. How can we accept a system that does not allow us to shed that identity and move on? How can a number that links up databases be good for us?”

The 21 signatories of the Public Statement reiterated the demand that Bills like Human DNA Profiling Bill 2015 and projects like biometric aadhaar “should be halted before it goes any further” recalling the September 2010 statement of concern. The concerned citizens who are its signatories include:

Prof. Anil Sadgopal, Scientist, All India Forum for Right to Education (AIFRTE), Bhopal
Prof. Kalpana Kannabiran, Director, Council for Social Development, Hyderabad
Prof (Dr) Mohan Rao, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health (CSMCH), Jawaharal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi
Dr Meher Engineer, Scientist, former President, Indian Academy of Social Science, Kolkata
Ram Bahadur Rai, noted senior journalist
Dr Babu Rao Kalapala, Scientist, formerly with National Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad
Kavita Krishnan, Secretary, All India Progressive Women Association (AIPWA)
Prof D M Diwakar, Professor of Economics, A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Patna
Arun Kumar, former Member, Press Council of India, Indian Journalists Union, General Secretary, Bihar Working Journalists Union & President, The Times of India Newspaper Employees Union, Patna
Sankar Ray, veteran journalist
N D Jayaprakash, Disarmament Researcher & veteran activist seeking justice for victims of Bhopal disaster
Qaneez Sukhrani, urban affairs analyst, Pune
Kshetrimayum Onil, Lead Coordinator, REACHOUT, Manipur
Shabnam Hashmi, social activist, Anhad
Irfan Ahmed, General Secretary, All India Tanjin-e-Insaf, Bihar
Guman Singh, Himalaya Niti Abhiyan, Himachal Pradesh
Dr Umakant, Human rights advocate & independent scholar, New Delhi
PT George, Intercultural Resources, Delhi
Wilfred D’ Costa, Indian Social Action Forum, Delhi
Prakash K Ray, Editor, bargad.org
Gopal Krishna, Member, Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL)

CFCL briefed fellow citizens about “Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the surprising failure of Anonymisation”, a 77 page long study by Paul Ohm Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Law School illustrates how central identity databases facilitate the reverse audit trail of personal information. This paper underlines that the assumption of robust anonymization of electronic identity has been blown up, “casting serious doubt on the power of anonymization, proving its theoretical limits…”

CFCL brought the alarming significance of the letter of Secretary Government of India, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology written to the Secretary, Department of Defence Production, Ministry of Defense asking him to introduce Aadhaar enabled Biometric Attendance System in the department of defence production. The system would enable an employee with an Aadhaar number to register his/her attendance (arrival/ departure) in the office through biometric authentication. It also says that a web based application software system will enable online recording of attendance and that the dash board relating to real time attendance and related statistics, can be viewed by everyone. It is clear that this transforms a “voluntary” project into a mandatory project.

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) [formerly Ministry of Communications and Information Technology] has been misleading the State Governments, media and the citizens.

Meanwhile, Ajay Bhushan Pandey, Chief Executive Officer, UIDAI has claimed that “At least from the UIDAI side, we have not said it shall be mandatory.” If it indeed true that UID/Aadhaar is not being made mandatory by UIDAI then MeitY should withdraw its letter to Secretary Department of Defence Production and other departments, agencies and State Governments. If it does not do so with immediate effect else it will demonstrate that it is fibbing by articulating equivocal and questionable statements.

CFCL sent a legal notice to the Central Government. It responded stating, “Aadhaar is being used for Biometric Attendance System and this does not form part of Defence application”.

In its response, Government will have us believe that there is no difference between “age-old attendance register” and UID/Aadhaar enabled Biometric Attendance System. It is eminently clear that UIDAI is sharing half-truths with State Governments, media and the citizens.

In order to comprehend the sophistry involved in such averments, it is germane to recall the intervention of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in the case wherein Indian students in USA were made to wear radio collars. NHRC ensured that the government acted to ensure that the human rights of students are protected. It is germane to note that radio collar is based on biometric data like voice print. If making Indian students wear biometric radio collar constitutes an act which Government of India admitted as an act of violation of human rights, indiscriminate biometric profiling is also an act of violation of human rights. As per Section 2 (G) of Aadhaar Act 2016, “biometric information” means photograph, fingerprint, Iris scan, or any other biological attributes specified by regulations. Thus, it clearly includes biological attributes like voice print and DNA.

If UID/Aadhaar enabled Biometric Attendance System is indeed a “digital equivalent” of “age-old attendance register”, why did NHRC object to radio collar which can also be argued by sophists to be “digital equivalent”. If the “digital equivalent” means biometric equivalent as well then it makes DNA based identity and attendance will also be deemed equivalent to “age-old attendance register”. It is quite evident that such is deeply misleading.

Coincidentally, NHRC’s views on National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 (Aadhaar Bill, 2010) helped Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance in its recommendation to trash the Bill and the biometric data based UID/Aadhaar programme.

The fact is that the application of biometric UID/Aadhaar was restricted to ‘civilian application’ and was not meant for defence application. Central Government’s Biometrics Standards Committee had categorically stated that UID/aadhaar’s is meant only for “civilian application” but the order on aadhaar enabled biometric attendance system has been extended to defence employees as well.

2016- CFCL critiqued the Aadhaar Bill, 2016 which became an Act and came into force in September 2016.

CFCL noted that on 30 November, 2016 NITI Aayog constituted a Committee of Chief Ministers representing different political parties to examine and promote the use of digital payment systems across the country including Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog, CEO, NITI Aayog and Nilekani, the former Chairman, UIDAI as a special invitee and Chandra Babu Naidu as Committee’s convener. NITI Aayog has been entrusted with the task of popularizing different modes of digital payment which are currently available viz. Cards, USSD, digital wallets, Aadhar Enabled Payment System (AEPS) and Unified Payment Interface (UPI). Other special invitees included likes of Sharad Sharma, Co-founder, iSPIRIT, Janmejaya Sinha, Chairman, Boston Consulting Group and Rajesh Jain, Managing Director, netCORE.

CFCL addressed a 2-days workshop titled “Understanding Aadhaar and Its New Challenges” organized by Centre for Studies in Science Policy, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on 26-27 May, 2016 deliberated on how the JAM Number Trinity– Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar and Mobile numbers— is a fish bait to trap unsuspecting citizens into the world’s biggest transnational biometric database.

Responding to letters of Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) to Chief Justice of India, Union Minister of Human Resource Development and Secretary, University Grants Commission (UGC) and contempt applications in the Supreme Court, UGC has “clarified that any student who have applied or wishing to apply for scholarship/fellowship shall not be denied benefit thereof due to non availability of Aadhaar No./Card.” The revised public notice dated September 14, 2016 is available HERE.

CFCL had sent the attached letters on August 26, 2016, July 12, 2016 and 2nd July, 2016 drawing their attention towards order dated 15.10.2015 passed by the Supreme Court of India in the ‘UID/Aadhaar’ matter, i.e. Justice (retd.) K.S. Puttuswamy v. UOI & Ors., WP (C) No. 494/2012 and related petitions. The order is attached for your perusal and consideration. The circular of UGC which is in manifest violation of Hon’ble Court’s order is available HERE.

CFCL wrote to Chief Justice of India on “Why Constitution Bench should urgently hear the 12 Digit Biometric Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar Number case?” CFCL underlined that September 14, 2016 order of Supreme Court came after the September 12, 2016 the date on which Aadhaar Act 2016 came into force. Therefore, Court’s order will prevail.

2017-CFCL brought to light the fact that during the tenure of Niekani at UIDAI, Yashwant Sinha Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance its Sixty-Ninth Report on the ‘Demands for Grants (2013-14)’ observed, “A provision of Rs. 2,620 crore has been allocated in Budget Estimate (2013-14) for Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and a major part of the budget provision for Rs. 1,040 crore is earmarked for ‘Enrolment Authentication and Updation’, out of which an amount of Rs. 1,000 crore has been earmarked under the head ‘other charges’.” The total budgetary allocations made for UIDAI since its inception upto 31 March 2014 was Rs 5440.30 crores. For the year 2009-10, it was Rs 120 crores. For 2010-11, it was Rs 1,900 crores. For 2011-12, it was Rs 1,470 crores 1,200. For 2012-13, it was 1,758 crores and for 2013-14, it was Rs 2,620.00 crores. For the year 2014-15, the budget estimate was Rs 2,039. The budget estimate of expenditure on the project being implemented by UIDAI was Rs 2,000 crore in 20015-16. For the year 2016-17, the budget estimate was Rs 990 crores (that included 190 crore first supplementary). As of February 2017, UIDAI has incurred a total cumulative expenditure of Rs 8,536.83 crores. This includes undefined “other charges” pointed out by the Parliamentary Committee. Shouldn’t UIDAI provide the details of the expenses incurred under “other charges”? Take the case of the year 2009-10 when the budget estimate was Rs 120 crores. The final expenditure was Rs 26.21 crores. In the year 2015-16 the budget estimate was Rs 2,000 crores but the final expenditure was Rs 1679 crores. In 2016-17, when budget estimate (BE) was Rs 990 crores, the final expenditure is Rs 877.16 crore upto February 2017.

The Parliamentary Committee on Finance has wondered in its report as to why inflated targets were consistently being given. It observed, “the total budgetary allocations made for UIDAI since its inception upto BE 2013-14 is Rs 5440.30 crore, out of which Rs. 2820.30 crore has been utilized upto 31.03.2013 and the remaining amount of Rs. 2620 has been allocated in BE 2013-14. The Ministry have informed that the average cost per card is estimated to range from Rs 100 to Rs 157. Taking the average cost per card to be Rs. 130, the total expenditure for issue of 60 crore cards is estimated to about Rs 7800 crore. Thus, the expected requirement of funds during 2013-14 is Rs. 4979.70 crores, whereas only Rs. 2620 crore has been kept for BE 2013-14, which is thus grossly inadequate.” It is apparent that there is more to it than meets the eye.

CFCL exposed the factual misrepresentation of Nilekani. When asked about why India chose to go with the UID/Aadhaar model when several countries like France, Britain and Germany have disbanded such identification projects, Nandan Nilekani, a former official of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) replied, “Their purpose was not development, inclusion, saving government money or curbing corruption. How can you compare Aadhaar with the smart card project in some other country? Even I would have disbanded those” in an interview with BusinessLine. His reply is a classic case of outright fibbing, misrepresentation and sophistry. It represents a sample of all the replies UIDAI’s has provided to concerned Indians since its inception.

Take the case of Britain mentioned by Nilekani, a 15-page Wipro document, titled 'Does India need a Unique Identity Number?’ cited the example of the United Kingdom's Identity Cards Act, 2006, on page no. 6 to advance the argument for a biometric UID/Aadhaar number in India. If it was not comparable as Nilekani will have us believe, why did Wipro cite Britain’s identification project to make a case for UID/Aadhaar for Indians.

Wipro’s document is significant because UIDAI and UID/Aadhaar is a product of a 14-page long document titled 'Strategic Vision: Unique Identification of Residents' prepared by Wipro Ltd and submitted to the Processes Committee of the Planning Commission which was set up in July 2006. Its 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. The Hyderabad-based NISG is a not-for-profit company incorporated in 2002 by the Government of India and Nasscom. NISG aims to 'establish itself as an institution of excellence in e-governance and to leverage private sector resources through a public-private-partnership mode in establishing eIndia.'

But when the UK government stopped its biometric National Identity Cards Scheme neither Wipro nor its donors and promoters in the government examined as to why the UK did so and why this decision too is relevant to India. The decision was announced in the British parliament, the same legislature which passed the India Independence Act, 1947.

It must be recalled that under Nilekani’s tenure UIDAI extended “undue favour” to Wipro Ltd. As a consequence UIDAI incurred an avoidable expenditure of Rs.4.92 crore on an annual maintenance contract, according to the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India presented to the Parliament. UIDAI also incurred a loss of Rs.1.41 crore by not routing advertisements through the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity. Unmindful of manifest conflict of interest UIDAI had entered into a contract with Wipro in May 2011 for supply, installation and commissioning of servers, storage systems, security systems and accessories with incidental services in the data centres of the authority in Bengaluru and Delhi/NCR at a cost of Rs.134.28 crore.

This is not the only case of irregularity and corruption by UIDAI. It awarded projects to several companies without issuing tenders. In a RTI reply UIDAI itself disclosed that total project contracts worth Rs.13,663.22 crore were awarded without any tenders of which an amount of Rs.6,563 crore has been already spent on issuing 90.3 crore Aadhar cards till May 2015. It also informed that a total 25 companies were awarded different responsibilities for the massive project and their empanelment was done under the process guidelines of Request For Empanelment dated May 19, 2014. The companies which have been awarded more than one project works include: Tata Consultancy Service, Mac Associates, Wipro, HCL, HP India Sales Pvt. Ltd., National Informatics Centre, Sagem Morpho Securities Pvt. Ltd (French Safran Group), Satyam Computer Services Ltd, L1 Identity Solutions (earlier US company now part of Safran Group), Totem International Ltd., Linkwel Telesystems Pvt. Ltd. Sai Infosystems India Ltd, Geodesic Ltd, ID Solutions, NISG, SQTC, Telesima Communications Pvt. Ltd. The companies that were awarded a single contract include: Reliance Communication, Tata Communications, Aircel, Bharati Airtel, BSNL and Railtel Corporation of India Ltd. Notably, companies like Accenture (USA), L1 and Ernst & Young has been given access to sensitive data of present and future Indians.

When Nilekani was asked about “concerns that the Aadhaar could be used in surveys such as the Socio-economic Caste Census (SECC) for racial profiling, or be linked to EVMs to determine voting patterns”, he gave an evasive reply saying, “The SECC or EVM machines have nothing to do with Aadhaar.”

Election Commission of India on its website has provided answer to a question about the “system of numbering EVMs”, it states “Each Control Unit has a unique ID Number (UID), which is painted on each unit with a permanent marker. This ID Number will be allowed to be noted by the Polling Agents and will also be recorded in a Register maintained for the purpose by the Returning Officer. The address tag attached to the Control Unit also will indicate this ID Number.” A careful perusal of UIDAI documents reveals that it is linked to the electoral database too. A confidential document of UIDAI titled ‘Creating a unique identity number for every resident in India’, leaked by Wikileaks on 13 Nov 2009 reads: “One way to ensure that the unique identification (UID) number is used by all government and private agencies is by inserting it into the birth certificate of the infant. Since the birth certificate is the original identity document, it is likely that this number will then persist as the key identifier through the individual’s various life events, such as joining school, immunizations, voting etc.”

The proponents of world's biggest citizen identification scheme aims to converge electoral photo identity card (EPIC) numbers of electoral database, the UID/Aadhaar number database called Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR). In their myopia, political parties in particular and citizens in general have failed to fathom its ramifications for voting by electors in a democracy.

In a letter dated 7 June 2011, the Director General and Mission Director of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) wrote to Chief Election Commissioner saying, “The Election Commission of India (ECI) may also like to leverage Aadhaar infrastructure in cleaning/ updating their existing electoral data base. Aadhaar numbers issued by the UIDAI can also be included in the list of valid proof of identity (POI) and proof of address (POA) documents of the Election Commission during the polls for identity verification.”

The file notings by ECI on the UIDAI’s letter reads: “How can Aadhaar number used as proof of address”. The reply from ECI dated 17 June 2011 on the letter from UIDAI. It further wrote, Aadhaar numbers can be seeded into EPIC and electoral roll databases to clean those databases and also to bring standardisation and uniformity in the Election Commission’s databases across the country. UIDAI does provide necessary technical and financial support under its information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure scheme for integration of Aadhaar number with database of concerned Ministries/ Departments to make them UID compliant. However, the process and schemes to use Aadhaar numbers for their applications are to be defined by the concerned Departments themselves.”

The notification of 28 January 2009 that set up UIDAI, provides the terms of reference (TOR) for its work. There is no reference to the collation of UID number database with electoral database in the TOR. But the TOR does refer to “collation and correlation with UID and its partner databases.” If this reference to ‘partner database’ included electoral database, the UID/ Aadhaar enrolment form never revealed it and took Indian residents for a ride.

Notably, UIDAI was constituted in pursuance of the fourth meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by the then External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherji held on 4 November 2008. Shivraj Patil, the then union home minister and A Raja, the then minister for IT and Communications, HR Bhardwaj, the then law minister and Mani Shankar Aiyar, the then panchayati raj minister, were members of the EGoM wherein Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of Planning Commission was an invitee.

UIDAI argued, “Aadhaar database is restricted to the name, date of birth, gender, address, facial image, ten fingerprints and iris of the resident. The data fields are based on the recommendation of the Demographic and Data field Verification Committee headed by N Vittal, former chief vigilance commissioner (CVC). Since Aadhaar database contains absolute minimum information of a resident necessary to establish identity, it is not possible to include EPIC numbers in the Aadhaar database. However, the ECI should seed Aadhaar numbers in the electoral database as clarified above.”

Prior to this KM Chandrasekhar, cabinet secretary, Government of India (GoI) wrote a letter dated 25 April, 2011 addressed to VK Bhasin, secretary, legislative department stating, “Aadhaar can be treated as a valid Proof of Identity (PoI) and Proof of Address (PoA).”

The Election Commission in its letter dated 4 March 2013 to UIDAI on the subject of “Seeding of Aadhaar number in Electoral Database” wrote that “Commission feels that it would be better that EPIC no. is collected at the time of enrollment for Aadhaar and put in the Aadhaar database…ECI has already issued instructions that Aadhaar cards can be used as alternative identity documents at polling station…It may be mentioned here that Ministry of Home Affairs has also agreed to print EPIC no. on smart card as issued by Registrar General of India…Under the circumstances, it is once again requested that EPIC no. may be made mandatory for enrollment in Aadhaar.” In its letter dated 29 October 2012, the ECI had argued that “including EPIC no. as mandatory field in UIDAI database would enable better integration between UIDAI database and electoral database, which will make Aadhaar numbers more useful.” This enthusiastic endorsement of illegal UIDAI’s database and its inexplicable eagerness to merge EPIC no. and electoral database with a database that faces robust legal challenge merits rigorous scrutiny.

In a letter dated 16 April 2012, RK Singh, the then secretary, ministry of home affairs (MHA), currently Union Power Minister wrote to Dr SY Quraishi, the then Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), with reference to latter’s letter dated 4 April 2012 “regarding inclusion of Electoral Photo Identity Card -EPIC number in the Aadhaar database.”

The secretary, MHA wrote, “The Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India is in the process of creating the National Population Register (NPR) in the country. The NPR, when completed will be a register of all usual residents of the country, which would have the Aadhaar number besides the demographic and biometric data. The Government is also considering a proposal to issue Resident Identity (smart) Cards to all usual residents above the age of 18 years. The scheme is already making good progress and is likely to be completed in the next two years.”

The combination of the office of Census Commissioner and RGI creates a legal conflict of interest that is required to be examined because Census Act requires that data of residents of India has to be kept confidential. But RGI created under Citizenship Act admittedly puts the data in public domain.

Besides this MHA has also feigned ignorance about the illegality of biometric data collection under NPR, a fact pointed out by the then BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate.

At that time, the secretary, MHA also wrote, “As a part of the process of creating the NPR, the EPIC number is also being collected. This would enable mapping of the Aadhaar number to the EPIC number right from the beginning…Once the mapping is completed, there could be a lot of synergy between the EPIC and NPR databases.” He pointed out that “while the registration under the NPR is mandatory under the provisions of the Citizenship Act 1955, the production of EPIC Card during the NPR enrolment and capturing the EPIC number is being done on a voluntary basis from the residents. There are, therefore, gaps in the collection of the numbers. The gap can easily be bridged as the Authorities notified for the creation of the NPR are the same as those notified under the Electoral Law and if necessary instructions are issued by the Election Commission, they could easily ensure a complete coverage.”

It is intriguing as to how Election Commission has failed to comprehend the adverse consequences of such convergence. There is nothing in public domain to suggest that implications of such merger have been examined.

The then secretary, MHA informed the CEC that there is mutual agreement between the MHA’s RGI and ECI that “there is a considerable potential to synchronise the two databases and set up a unified platform for future updating of the same and sought CEC’s advice to take it forward. Does the Election Commission realize that synchronization of the two databases is happening as per the design of Wipro’s document and is beyond the mandate given to UIDAI and RGI?

As a consequence of Supreme Court’s order, Election Commission of India has revised its order dated 27 February 2015 on 13 August 2015 stopping merger of UID/Aadhaar with Voter ID. Its revised order reads: “All further activities relating to collection/feeding/seeding of Aadhaar Number being undertaken currently under NERPAP shall be suspended with immediate effect till further directions from the Commission. In other words, henceforth no more collection of Aadhaar Numbers from electors or feeding/seeding of collected Aadhaar data shall be done by any election authority or officials connected with the NERPAP.” (National Electoral Rolls Puriﬁcation & Authentication Programme). While this revised order of the Election Commission is a model order as it demonstrates how to comply with the Court’s order for all the organisations and other public and private agencies which are implementing UID/Aadhaar related schemes and systems. The fact remains the seeding of UID/Aadhaar and Voter ID did happen while the previous order of Commission regarding National Electoral Rolls Puriﬁcation & Authentication Programme was in operation given the fact that it was widely advertised.

It may recalled that one of the earliest documents that refer UIDAI is a 14-page long document titled ‘Strategic Vision: Unique Identification of Residents’ prepared by Wipro Ltd for the Planning Commission envisaged the close linkage that the UIDAI’s Aadhaar would have with the electoral database. The use of electoral database mentioned in Wipro’s document remains on the agenda of the proponents of Aadhaar.

The reply of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) dated 1 April 2014 transferring the right to information (RTI) application to Election Commission seems to indicate that linkage of UIDAI with the Commission has already been established.

In such a backdrop, PMO’s reluctance to share all the file documents and correspondence relating to Nilekani and right up to his resignation appears quite sensitive and deserves scrutiny.

Nilekani referred to the current “three-member UIDAI Committee under J Satyanarayana, the former IT secretary”. Satyanarayana is currently a part time Chairman of UIDAI since September 6, 2016. He has been on Board of NISG. Notably, Satyanarayana has been the member of the Task Force for preparation of Policy Document on Identity and Access Management under National e-Governance Programme (NeGP). This Task Force was constituted by Office Memorandum dated 31 October, 2006, which was supposed to submit its report by 25 December 2006. Coincidentally, the Processes Committee of the Planning Commission which was set up in July 2006 commissioned the task of preparing “Strategic Vision: Unique Identification of Residents” to Wipro Ltd during the same period. The other members of the Task Force included 34 members besides the Chairman, Dr S.I. Ahson, Professor & Head, Department of Computer Science, Jamila Milia Islamia and the Member Secretary, Ms Pratibha Lokhande, Scientist, National Informatics Centre. The members included 11 Technology Solutions Providers namely, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Computer Associates, Novell, Honeywell, HP, Red Hat, ILANTUS Technologies, MPhasis and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The Task Force submitted version 7 of its 65 page long report in April 2007.

This report talked about “Citizen Identities” and “Owner of identities”. This report states, “The Identity Information is stored by multiple agencies in multiple documents like Ration card, Driving License, Passport, Voter’s card, Birth Certificate etc. The purpose of the Project unique ID (UID) initiated by the Planning Commission is to create a central database of resident information and assign a Unique Identification number to each such resident (Citizens and Persons of Indian Origin) in the country….The appropriate Identity Aggregations and Synchronization should be used to integrate systems to share their identity information.” This April 2007 report reveals that “National UID Project: This project has been initiated, with Voter ID Numbers and BPL households in the first instance.” It is evident that long before the arrival of Nilekani in July 2009 as Chairman of UIDAI, the UID/Aadhaar project was already unfolding. He just came and dishonestly claimed credit for it. This report also discloses that each registered judicial court has a unique identification (UID) number at Sub ordinate Courts, High Court and Supreme Court. This effort seems to be part of profiling and surveillance of judicial institutions.

Notably, this report appears to be making one of the earliest references to “Biometric authentication” in India as “any process that validates the identity of a user who wishes to sign into a system by measuring some intrinsic characteristic of that user. Biometric samples include fingerprints, retina scans, face recognition, voiceprints, and even typing patterns. Biometric authentication depends on measurement of some unique attribute of the user. They presume that these user characteristics are unique, that they may not be recorded and reproductions provided later, and that the sampling device is tamper-proof.”

It defines biometrics as “A measure of an Attribute of a Natural Person’s physical self, or of their physical behavior. In principle at least, a Biometric can be used: to validate an entity (where the entity is a Natural Person); as an Authenticator for an Assertion involving an Entity; and as a means of restricting the use of a personalised Token to the appropriate Natural Person. Examples include: fingerprint, voiceprint, and iris-scan. Biometrics is generally, “the study of measurable biological characteristics. In computer security, biometrics refers to authentication techniques that rely on measurable physical characteristics that can be automatically checked. There are several types of biometric identification schemes: Face: the analysis of facial characteristics; Fingerprint: the analysis of an individual's unique fingerprints; Hand geometry: the analysis of the shape of the hand and the length of the fingers; Retina: the analysis of the capillary vessels located at the back of the eye; Iris: the analysis of the colored ring that surrounds the eye's pupil; Signature: the analysis of the way a person signs his name; Vein: the analysis of pattern of veins in the back if the hand and the wrist; Voice: the analysis of the tone, pitch, cadence, and frequency of a person's voice.”

This report defines “Identification” as “The process whereby data is associated with a particular Identity. It is performed through the acquisition of data that constitutes an Identifier for that identity.” It also defines “Identifier” as “One or more data-items concerning an Identity that are sufficient to distinguish it from other Identities, and that are used to signify that Identity. Identifiers include names. A natural person may use more than one name, and variants of each name. Identifiers also include ‘id numbers’ or ‘id codes’ issued by other Entities that the Entity interacts with. An Entity may be assigned many such numbers and codes. A legal person may have many names (e.g. associated with business units, divisions, branches, trading names, trademarks and brand names), and multiple ‘id numbers’ and ‘id codes’ assigned by other Entities that the Entity interacts with. Identifier Unique pointer, within a certain context (namespace) to an identity.” These definitions are significant because they underline that UID/Aadhaar is an identifier and not a conventional identity proof.

Satyanarayana who was the member of the Task Force that authored the above mentioned report finds mention at page no. 46-47 of the report Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology that examined the work of Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, asked about the surveillance by National Security Agency (NSA) of the US. It states that in the context of privacy of data, the Committee desired to know the Department’s stand on the issue of surveillance by US and interception of data sent through e-mails. To this, Satyanarayana, as Secretary, DeitY, responded during the evidence as under:-“Sir, about the US surveillance issue, there has been a debate, as you are aware, this morning in the Rajya Sabha itself and the hon. Minister has addressed this issue. He also emphasised that as far as the Government data and Government mails are concerned, the policy, the copy of which I have given to the Committee earlier, is going to address a large part of it. Hopefully, by the end of this year, if it is implemented, the things will be absolutely safe and secure…x.x.x.x…In the reply, the Hon. Minister also said that we have expressed our serious concern about the reported leakages and in the name of surveillance, the data that has been secured from various private sources, internet resources by the US Government. We have expressed it formally to the Government of the US and also during the Secretary of State’s visit a few weeks ago in India, this has been reinforced on a person to person basis.”

In effect, the Government of India has formally communicated to Government US that India has no problem if they conduct surveillance for metadata in fact it is acceptable and tolerable but “incursion into the content will not be tolerated and is not tolerable.”

The Parliamentary Committee observes, “While taking note of the Department’s stand on the recent instances of surveillance and interception of data (though only meta-data) by other countries, that incursion into the content of the country’s data will not be tolerated, the Committee is of the strong opinion that the Department should have exercised enough caution so that such a situation was not allowed to occur at the first instance. Further, the Committee feels that the Department should be extremely vigilant and cautious in terms of safety as well as in terms of policy with different countries so as to avoid such leakage and interception of sensitive data in the name of surveillance. The Committee, therefore, strongly recommends the Department to take remedial measures and come out with a policy which should be implemented stringently so as to obviate recurrence of such instances.” MeitY which has been formed by giving the status of ministry to the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has been misleading the State Governments, media and the citizens. It must be remembered that the idea of UID was incubated in this very Department. It is evident that Satyanarayana and this Department has no problem in sharing meta data of Indians to foreign agencies.

Nilekani refers to Vijay Madan who was the UIDAI CEO. Notably, Madan made false claims in a presentation titled “Digital ID for Benefit and Service Delivery to Billion Plus People” in the ‘Special Session on National ID Programs’ at the International Joint Conference on Biometrics held during 29th September – 2nd October 2014 at Clearwater, Florida, USA. He claimed that “Security and Privacy of personal information ensured” by UIDAI in its implementation of UID/Adhaar project. This claim is an exercise in misrepresentation.

Given the fact that some 91,000 of USA’s classified pages reached the website of Wikileaks in August 2010 reveals that such claims of security and privacy are mere empty claims with no privacy law in the country. The Ministry of Planning, the nodal ministry for UID/aadhaar informed the Parliamentary Standing Committee that concerns sharing of data, surveillance and profiling is being addressed by a proposed legislation on privacy. The committee observed that the enactment of such data protection law is a “pre-requisite for any law that deals with large-scale collection of information from individuals and its linkages across separate databases.” This promised law has not been enacted till date. Notably, till date there is no data protection and privacy protection law in the country. Thus, the claim of UIDAI and Nilekani remains a bogus claim.

Nilekani forgot mention the name of his first Mission Director. It is relevant to observe that the letterhead of the UIDAI’s Director General under Nilekani, Ram Sewak Sharma revealed his personal email ID as rssharma3@gmail.com. The question is who authorized the UIDAI’s Director General to use Google’s email account? Is it the case that UIDAI does have its own email account? After relinquishing his post at UIDAI to join as Chief Secretary, Government of Jharkhand, did Sharma surrender his email ID to UIDAI? Currently, Sharma is the Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Prior to this assignment, he worked as the Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology after his tenure as Chief Secretary, Government of Jharkhand where is promoted UID/Aadhaar project enthusiastically using the same Google’s email account. UIDAI officials, Nilekani and Sharma were/are privy to massive trove of communications about the inner workings of the world’s biggest biometric database project aimed at creating a Centralized Identities Data Repository (CIDR) of all the UID/Aadhaar Numbers and related aspects of nation’s diplomacy, national security and personal sensitive information of present and future Indians. The email accounts of Nilekani and Sharma must be investigated to ascertain all the locations around the world from which it has been accessed especially in the light of disclosures about the controversy surrounding use of private email account by Hillary Clinton who began using it as “a matter of a convenience" disregarding the advice of tech experts who didn’t allow personal email accounts to be installed on government-issued devices. Her official communications included thousands of emails that would retroactively be marked classified by the US State Department. This issue was raised vociferously by Donald Trump, the President of USA because it compromised USA’s national security.

The fact that one of the senior most official of UIDAI chose to receive such sensitive information on the server of Google, a private company, is a threat to national security and privacy of Indians. This company is regulated by US laws and has been working in collusion with foreign intelligence agencies. The authorities in the US, where Gmail is headquartered, can legally access the information on the server of Google without a court warrant and without any civil and criminal liability. The Indian government will remain in dark about it. In fact US’ Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) make the exchange of electronic information between Internet Service Providers and the government of US possible. The use of Gmail account demonstrates the lack of professionalism of UIDAI, which has been given the task of handling the database of the personal sensitive information of Indians. This act of omission and commission merits attention. Such gullibility of ministers, Secretaries and Chief Secretaries besides other IAS and IPS officers in particular and officials in general is inexcusable. This merits high level probe.

Nilekani also refers to Ajay Bhushan Pandey, the current CEO of UIDAI. Pandey claimed that “At least from the UIDAI side, we have not said it shall be mandatory.” If it indeed true that UID/Aadhaar is not being made mandatory by UIDAI then MeitY should have withdrawn the letter to Secretary Department of Defence Production and other departments, agencies and State Governments. Given the fact that he has not done so demonstrates that articulations of UIDAI are equivocal and questionable. It has compromised national security and the personal sensitive information of present and future Presidents, Prime Ministers, judges, legislators and officials handling sensitive assignments besides all the Indians.

Contrary to claims of the promoters of UID/Aadhaar about there being a cumulative saving of 50,000 crores that was being diverted from genuine beneficiaries, as per the minutes of the meeting of Committee of Secretaries (CoS) held under the Chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary on 23 November, 2015 on the subject of “Implementation of DBT in Government Schemes”, there was an annual subsidy saving of Rs 91 crore. DBT stands for Direct Benefits Transfer. The minutes of the meeting is dated November 30, 2015.

Notably, when Nilekani was asked about conflict of interest between his role as an investor and his role as head of UIDAI at Rajendra Mathur Memorial Lecture in New Delhi by journalists, he responded saying that he recuses himself while signing of the contract happens. Notably, he is a investor and he has invested in starts up like Railyatri, Disha Medical Services, Juggernaut, Mubble Networks, Fortigo, P2SME, Axiom Consulting, Systemantics India, 10i Commerce, Sedemac Mechatronics, Tracxn and LetsVenture.

A situation has emerged although citizens chose a government that is supposed to represent them but their government is undertaking the task of coercively biometrically authenticating whether or not those it represents are indeed those who they claim to be. It ends up breaking the sacrosanct social contract between the citizen and the State in an unprecedented act of breach of trust. The attempt to undertake convergence of all the sensitive databases of Indians and the confidence of promoters of UID/Aadhaar in the irreversibility of their efforts has thrown as yet an unmet open political challenge to the opposition parties and informed citizens.

CFCL critiqued the Finance Act 2017 that made linking of UID/Aadaar with PAN mandatory for filing income tax returns. CFCL highlighted how it implied that UID/Aadhaar is not mandatory for all non-PAN purposes. Supreme Court’s order of 9^th June, 2017 put a partial stay on mandatory linking of UID/Aadaar with PAN while pointing out that Aadhaar Act does not make Aadhaar mandatory. Court erred in upholding Finance Act without examining it in the light of violation of Article 21. In the light of right to privacy verdict of 24 August, both Aadhaar Act, 2016 and Finance Act, 2017 has come under cloud and appear constitutionally indefensible.

CFCL has been highlighted misreporting of Supreme Court’s orders by media. It revealed how Govt has manipulated media and subverted public institutions by misleading about legal status of biometric UID Aadhaar Number. The matter related to 12-digit biometric Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar number was mentioned before the 44^th Chief Justice of India Jagdish Singh Khehar headed 3-Judge Bench of Supreme Court on March 27. After hearing the matter the Bench did not pass any order. The Bench comprised of Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul. Senior Counsel for the petitioners, Shyam Divan apprised the Court through the earlier orders wherein UID/Aadhaar matter has been judicially determined to be an urgent matter by the 42nd Chief Justice of India, Justice, H.L. Dattu headed 5-Judge Constitution Bench. The 44^th Chief Justice was informed about para 5 of the October 15, 2015 order of the 42^nd Chief Justice Constitution Bench because the 3-Judge Bench has never heard the UID/Aadhaar case during September 23, 2013 till date. The next date of hearing is likely to be April 3, 2017.

The Constitution Bench order reads: “We will also make it clear that the Aadhaar card Scheme is purely voluntary and it cannot be made mandatory till the matter is finally decided by this Court one way or the other.” Even if the 44^th Chief Justice headed 3-Judge Bench had been persuaded to pass or alter the pre-existing order the Bench was not empowered to do so because a 3-Judge Bench cannot overrule or modify a 5-Judge Bench order. Most of the media has misreported the issues related to UID/Aadhaar like the way they have blundered in reporting about The Finance Bill, 2017 wherein the voice of States and citizens has been silenced through an unprecedented assault on federalism and Constitution. Most of media is failed to comprehend the phenomenon of linguistic corruption wherein voluntary means mandatory and anonymity means transparency while reporting about UID/Aadhaar Number and Finance Bill.

The media failed to report the Court’s direction saying, “The Union of India shall give wide publicity in the electronic and print media, including radio and television networks, that it is not mandatory for a citizen to obtain the Aadhaar Card” and that “The production of an Aadhaar Card will not be condition for obtaining any benefits otherwise due to a citizen” in its order.

The misreporting has been so widespread that the debate in the Rajya Sabha also dealt with the issue of UID/Aadhaar assuming that there Supreme has indeed passed some order today. On March 27, both Sitaram Yechury of CPI (M) and Sukhendu Sekhar Roy of TMC spoke in the Rajya Sabha under the impression that Court has passed some order today on the subject of UID/Aadhaar because of misreporting by the media and both criticized Government’s insistence on UID/Aadhaar. Notably, this not the first time that TMC and CPIM have joined hands to criticize it in supreme public interest. Both of them together got a unanimous resolution against UID/Aadhaar passed from the West Bengal Assembly seeking compliance with Court’s order. Besides that Satish Chandra Mishra of BSP too endorsed whatever was stated by the TMC MP. Even as Rajya Sabha continues to deliberate on the issue on March 28 and will continue to do so March 29, the misreporting by media about Court’s order has taken its toll.

The fact is that the 3-Judge Bench was not even competent to pass any order which could be inconsistent with Constitution Bench’s order. It remains puzzling as to why concerned lawyers are mentioning the matter before a Bench of inappropriate strength given the fact that as per Court’s order only a Bench of “appropriate strength” i.e. more than 3-Judges is competent to hear it. Shouldn’t the matter be raised before a 5-Judge Bench given the fact that it is the Bench of “appropriate strength” according of Court’s website as of March 27? Is it part of consistent omission on the part of the Supreme Court’s Registry? Or is it an omission on the part of the concerned lawyers?

Given the fact that some 25 cases against UID/Aadhaar has been clubbed together and given the fact that besides this there is a separate case against Aadhaar Act as a Money Bill, the case is likely to be mentioned again in the coming days. It will be appropriate for the credibility of media to refrain from misreporting on such occasions and stop writing about it unless they have read the Court’s order.

Not only did most media outlets mislead the citizens, now the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications too issued a letter on the subject of “Implementation of Hon'ble Supreme Court orders regarding 100% E-KYC based re-verification of all existing subscribers” wherein it partially refers to Court’s order sated February 6. The Court’s observation in para 5 reads: “In view of the factual position brought to our notice during the course of hearing, we are satisfied, that the prayers made in the writ petition have been substantially dealt with, and an effective process has been evolved to ensure identity verification, as well as, the addresses of all mobile phone subscribers for new subscribers. In the near future, and more particularly, within one year from today, a similar verification will be completed, in the case of existing subscribers.” The Ministry of Communications will have us believe that 2-Judge Bench’s order will prevail over the 5-Judge Constitution Bench’s order. Media continues to misreport about the legal status of UID/Aadhaar because the editors are not pay heeding the text of the Court’s orders. CFCL demands that editors be held accountable for misreporting of written text of Court’s directions. CFCL proposes to undertake content analysis of key defaulters and issue declarations certifying names and organsiations which have been misleading public by reporting without reading the Court’s orders with the help of students of journalism. After the right to privacy verdict it is high time editors compelled their court reporters to read the 547 page long judgment dated 24 August 2017 along with all the orders passed since September 2013 till 27 June 2017 and make sure all the orders are consulted before reporting in the UID/Aadhaar case.

CFCL addressed a public meeting organized by All India Students Association at Sabaramati hostel, JNU after the right to privacy verdict on the implications of the verdict for the world’s biggest transnational biometric UID/Aadhaar database. It addressed another meeting at Centre of Social Medicine & Community Health, JNU.

Its first article in the seven part series titled Right to Privacy and the Bhagavad Gita has just been published. Earlier, it has authored an unprecedented 40 part series on the subject of biometric identification, surveillance and big data.

CFCL has written over 150 articles in Hindi and English on the subject and issued several briefing papers, petitions, public statements and press releases. Most of them are available in public domain. CFCL’s documents its works in its annual journal. It has rigorously archived and documented the goings on related to UID/Aadhaar case in particular. Besides Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, CFCL has engaged with Parliamentary Standing Committee on Subordinate Legislation, and Parliamentary Standing Committee on Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution and others.

During the course of these seven years CFCL has held numerous press conferences, seminars and addressed audiences in New Delhi, Alwar, Ranchi, Chandigarh, Patna, Bhubneshwar, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Raipur and in several universities with several institutions, groups and movements like Indian Social Action Forum, National Alliance for Peoples Movements, PUCL, Deccan Development Society, SRUTI, Centre for Internet Society (CIS), The Fifth Estate and MKSS. It has been part of efforts at getting resolutions and declarations seeking stoppage of UID/Aadhaar and related schemes adopted and passed in several state capitals. CFCL It has assisted several of the 25 petitioners in the Supreme Court and some High Courts.

At present CFCL is busy assisting the victims of UID/Aadhaar. It awaits the hearing on the constitutionality of UID/Aadhaar scheme of 2009, UID/Aadhaar Act, 2016 and Finance Act 2017 by the original 3-Judge Bench as per the order of 9-Judge Constitution Bench.

CFCL has briefed over a dozen political parties and several senior leaders about how big data and cyber-biometric technology companies undermine natural and democratic rights. It has critiqued one of the several versions of Human DNA Profiling Bill. It has sent its initial submission to Committee of Experts on data protection framework for India headed by Justice B.N. Shrikrishna. CFCL’s work is journey for the protection of natural rights from its corporal and incorporeal enemies.

For Details: Gopal Krishna, Convener, Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL), E-mail: krishna2777@gmail.com, Mb: 9818089660, 08227816731, Web: www.toxicswatch.org

Misreporting on rivers juristic, legal persons and living entities

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Sun, 10 Sep 2017 04:55:00 +0000

The paper below is an analysis of misreporting by media in general and EPW in particular on the subject of July 7, 2017 order of Supreme Court of India on Ganga and Yamuna.

Aren’t rivers juristic, legal persons and living entities?

On 7 July, 2017 Supreme Court stayed the final judgment passed by the Nainital Bench of Uttarakhand High Court in Mohd. Salim v State of Uttarakhand dated 20 March, 2017 that gave recognition to the “legal status as a living person/legal entity to Rivers Ganga and Yamuna r/w Articles 48-A[1] and 51A (g)[2] of the Constitution of India".[3] The order came upon hearing the Special Leave Petition of State of Uttarakhand against the verdict. The one sentence order reads: “In the meantime, the operation of the impugned order shall remain stayed.”[4] The Bench of 44^th Chief Justice of India Jagdish Singh Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud heard the petitioner’s counsel in the absence of the counsel for the respondents mentioned as ‘caveator-in-person’.

The misreporting of the order by media provided an incorrect impression that Supreme Court has pronounced that Ganga and Yamuna rivers are not living entities. In a legal context wherein Paris Agreement[5] has been adopted by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which is aimed at the protection of Mother Earth, a living person and a legal entity, it is eminently clear that any interpretation declaring rivers as non-living and non-legal entities cannot be defended and judicially sustained. This treaty has been ratified by India, Nepal and Bangladesh as well. The treaty notes the importance of ensuring the integrity of all ecosystems recognized as Mother Earth.[6] In law, only legal wrongs against a legal entity can be protected.

The reference to Mother Earth in the treaty draws on Law of the Rights of Mother Earth of South American country Bolivia that establishes new rights for nature including: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered. It also includes the right of nature "to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities". The original law was adopted in December 2010[7] and its successor Framework Law of Mother Earth and Integral Development for Living Well was passed in October 2012.[8] In Bolivia, Mother Earth is called 'Pachamama'.

Drawing on previous judgments in Yogendra Nath Naskar v. Commission of Income-Tax, Calcutta (1969), Moorti Shree Behari ji v. Prem Dass (1972), Ram Jankijee Deities v. State of Bihar (1999), Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee, Amritsar v. Shri Som Nath Dass (2000), and Corpus Juris Secundum, Vol. VI & Vol. LXV, Salmond on Jurisprudence, Jurisprudence by Paton and Analytical and Historical Jurisprudence, the Uttarakhand High Court Bench of Justices Rajiv Sharma and Alok Singh concluded that "We may, therefore, define a person for the purpose of jurisprudence as any entity (not necessarily a human being) to which rights or duties may be attributed." Following this inference the Division Bench gave a land mark verdict wherein it observed that in para 16 that "to protect the recognition and the faith of society, Rivers Ganga and Yamuna are required to be declared as the legal persons/living persons."

The verdict noted that "The extraordinary situation has arisen since Rivers Ganga and Yamuna are loosing their very existence. This situation requires extraordinary measures to be taken to preserve and conserve Rivers Ganga and Yamuna."

The 12 page long verdict observes, "The rivers have provided both physical and spiritual sustenance to all of us from time immemorial. Rivers Ganga and Yamuna have spiritual and physical sustenance. They support and assist both the life and natural resources and health and well-being of the entire community. Rivers Ganga and Yamuna are breathing, living and sustaining the communities from mountains to sea" at para 17.

Para 20 of the judgment reads, "The Advocate General shall represent at all legal proceedings to protect the interest of Rivers Ganges and Yamuna."

Para 19 of the verdict reads: "Accordingly, while exercising the parens patrie jurisdiction, the Rivers Ganga and Yamuna, all their tributaries, streams, every natural water flowing with flow continuously or intermittently of these rivers, are declared as juristic/legal persons/living entities having the status of a legal person with all corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person in order to preserve and conserve river Ganga and Yamuna. The Director Namami Gange, the Chief Secretary of the State of Uttarakhand and the Advocate General of the State of Uttarakhand are hereby declared persons in loco parentis as the human face to protect, conserve and preserve Rivers Ganga and Yamuna and their tributaries. These Officers are bound to uphold the status of Rivers Ganges and Yamuna and also to promote the health and well being of these rivers."

While order has done something which should have been long back, its observation on the petition of Mohammad Salim saying: “Rivers Ganges and Yamuna are worshipped by Hindus. These rivers are very sacred and revered” seems to be a hurried inference. The order states: “The Hindus have a deep spiritual connection with Rivers Ganges & Yamuna. According to Hindu beliefs, a dip in River Ganga can wash away all the sins. The Ganga is also called ‘Ganga Maa’. It finds mentioned in ancient Hindu scriptures including ‘Rigveda’.” The fact is that since time immemorial Indians have worshipped rivers like Ganga before the word “Hindu” was coined. The petition of Mohammad Salim demonstrates that Ganga is revered by all the inhabitants of historical India irrespective of their faith.

The verdict observes, “All the Hindus have deep Astha in rivers Ganga and Yamuna and they collectively connect with these rivers. Rivers Ganga and Yamuna are central to the existence of half of Indian population and their health and well being. The rivers have provided both physical and spiritual sustenance to all of us from time immemorial. Rivers Ganga and Yamuna have spiritual and physical sustenance. They support and assist both the life and natural resources and health and well-being of the entire community. Rivers Ganga and Yamuna are breathing, living and sustaining the communities from mountains to sea.”

The fact is that Himalayan rivers like Ganga and Yamuna are central to the existence of the entire population of the Indian subcontinent “from mountains to sea” for their health and well being.

The issue of jurisdiction of High Court with regard to Ganga raised by Uttarkhand government appears quite myopic and devoid of understanding of Ganga as a transboundary river basin. If the issue of jurisdiction is raised in such parochial manner then Union of India did not have the right to declare Ganga as a national river because it is an universal truth that it is an international river as it is shared by Nepal and Bangladesh as well. If this kind of approach is allowed to have a field day then even India, Nepal and Bangladesh together cannot claim total jurisdiction over Ganga because it is part of the Himalayan watershed which is shared by countries of South East Asia and China. Such anti-river protection stances can be deemed valid only in an environment of deeply flawed and sterile legal imagination which impedes environmental conservation. Given the fact that Supreme Court remains seized with the Ganga related cases it can easily remove administrative conflicts. In any case jurisdictional conflicts don not make “legal persons/living persons” into non-legal/non-living persons. The current situation seems to underline the need for reporters covering environmental matters in the Courts to undergo a course on ecosystem to appreciate that rivers do no respect national and jurisdictional boundaries.

In a related development, on the very day of the Uttarakhand High Court verdict, New Zealand enacted Whanganui River Claims Settlement Act recognizing the Whanganui river as a rights-bearing entity and a legal person.[9]

It is quite apparent that the High Court verdict like the laws enacted by Bolivia, New Zealand and UNFCCC makes river a party to every treaty, negotiation and dispute and can imply that all rivers are juristic, legal persons and living entities and can extend to all the water bodies and other creatures of nature.

While the matter is pending in the Supreme Court, it will be appropriate for the proposed amendment in the Interstate River Water Disputes Act, 1956 to incorporate the essence of the verdict of the High Court in the definition of "Water dispute"[10] and “river basin” [11]. At present it remains confined to dispute or difference between two or more State Governments. The 14 page long Inter- State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill, 2017 faces a logical compulsion to widen the scope of parties to the dispute. The Bill refers to “river basin” but continues to treat river as a pipeline of water despite envisaging “an agency which shall maintain data relating to water resources, land, agriculture and such other matter” with the aim of “maintaining a data bank and information system at the national level for each river basin”.[12] In the light legal developments across the globe, the Bill has the option of incorporating lessons from New Zealand, Bolivia and the UN law besides the wisdom of the High Court.

Dr Gopal Krishna

The author is a public policy and law researcher and editor of www.toxicswatch.org

This paper has been published by livelaw.in

Its initial version was published by rediff.com

[1] Article 48A of the Constitution of India states that the State shall endeavour to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wild life of the country.

[2] Article 51 A (g) states that it shall be the fundamental duty of every citizen to protect and improve the natural environment including forests and Wildlife.

[3] (2017), Order of Nainital Bench, High Court of Uttarakhand, Mohd. Salim v State of Uttarakhand, 20 March

[4] (2017), Order of Supreme Court, Special Leave Petition No. 16879/2017, 7 July

[5] Paris Agreement entered into force on 4 November 2016. So far 153 Parties out of 197 Parties to the Convention have ratified it.

[6] (2015), Paris Agreement of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

[7] (2010), Law of the Rights of Mother Earth, http://www.worldfuturefund.org/Projects/Indicators/motherearthbolivia.html

[8] (2012), Framework Law of Mother Earth and Integral Development for Living Well, http://www.la-razon.com/index.php%3F_url%3D/sociedad/MARCO-TIERRA-DESARROLLO-INTEGRAL-VIVIR_0_1706229409.html

[9] (2017), Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act, https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/bills-and-laws/bills-proposed-laws/document/00DBHOH_BILL68939_1/te-awa-tupua-whanganui-river-claims-settlement-bill

[10] (1956), Section 2 (c), Interstate River Water Disputes Act

[11] (2017), Section 7, Inter- State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill

[12] Ibid

MediaVigil condemns the political assassination of Gauri Lankesh

noreply@blogger.com (mediavigil) — Sun, 10 Sep 2017 02:10:00 +0000

Her assassination is a failure of Government & ruling parties

MediaVigil condemns the political assassination of senior editor Gauri Lankesh at her Bangalore residence at around 8 pm on 5 September, 2017 resulting in her death at the scene. Although investigations are yet to be completed, it is suspected that some contract killer was hired by someone to stop the publication of the latest issue of Gauri Lankesh Patrike, Kannada fortnightly newspaper which is being linked to her death.

Gauri Lankesh was the editor of this fortnightly newspaper. She authored several books. She was an alumnus of Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), New Delhi.

Gauri was a fierce journalist and the most vocal critic of right wing forces. Gauri started her career as a journalist with the The Times of India in Bangalore. She worked for the Sunday magazine and Eenadu' television channel. She was the daughter of the famous P Lankesh.

She was in Delhi few months back wherein there was a discussion in the vicinity of Gandhi Peace Foundation on her article saying “personal is political”. She was a panelist at the National Convention of Human Rights Defenders co-organised by People’s Commission on Shrinking Democratic Spaces (PCSDS) at Rajendra Bhavan, New Delhi.

As a journalist she had joined the struggle of Basava, the 12^th century philosopher, social reformer and poet in the Shaivaite Bhakti movement who fought against social evils. She connected with efforts of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar towards establishing an egalitarian society. She detested patriarchy.

To paraphrase Harish Khare’s observation, it indeed apparent that someone somewhere whispered to someone-“will no one rid me of this turbulent journalist?” This whisper led to the assassination of Gauri Lankesh by some contract killer.

Amidst global and national outrage against her death, if her killer and their benefactors are not identified it will unequivocally demonstrate the abysmal failure of the concerned security and intelligence institutions. It is high time Karnataka Government set up a fast track court to bring the perpetrators of such crimes to justice.

She was a staunch critic of right wing politics and wrote extensively about it. She was supportive of student struggles against fascism, privatisation of education, communalisation and caste and gender based discrimination. At the 81st Kannada literary conference held at Shravanabelagola, Gauri had remarked that the Dalit author Perumal Murugan was criticized by right-wing groups for depicting a childless couple, who indulge in consensual sex rituals outside of marriage in order to have children. She had pointed out that the Brahmin novelist S. L. Bhyrappa had also depicted the similar Niyoga practice in his novel Parva, based on Mahabharata. Gauri Lankesh was supportive of both these writers, but questioned why the right wing groups that were offended selectively by Perumal Murugan were not offended by Bhyrappa feigning amnesia.

Gauri’s death is not a death in isolation. Some 30 Indian journalists have been murdered due to their fearless independent writings between 1992 and July 2016 with impunity so far. Her assassination is similar to the killings of Narendra Dhabolkar, Govind pansare and Dr. M.M. Kalburgi. Gauri’s assassination is a failure of Governments and ruling political and ‘non-political’ parties.

MediaVigil supports the demand for a setting up of a joint parliamentary committee to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the groups operating behind the assassinations of journalists, scholars and dissenting voices and recommends remedial institutional action for safeguarding freedom of expression.

MediaVigil takes cognizance of P. Sainath’s contestation against categorization of the insane core, of right-wing fundamentalist politics as ‘fringe elements’ and their relationship with some media owners who are amongst the biggest beneficiaries of government’s privatisation of public resources.

MediaVigil, is a forum of Indian Institute of Mass Communication Old Students Association (IIMCOSA) for journalists from countries of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) working for the establishment of a New International Information and Communication Order. It has been working since 2000 and is part of Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL).