Digital India is a Government of India campaign that claims to facilitate the delivery of Government services to citizens online or through other tech approaches. However, the project has been haphazard at best, plagued with security issues, data leaks and a less than responsible approach by the government toward securing the interests of citizens. The only people who are benefited from Digital India projects are big data players, digital banking organizations and those who create applications for the first two. Citizens are denied the right to privacy, government services and even food for the poorest citizens, if they don’t comply with the ambitious projects.
Additionally, many government initiatives, notably the Aadhaar and the demonetisation have resulted in considerable deprivation of citizens, for which there is no accountability. This has resulted in an ongoing and growing dissent by citizens of the country who are technologically literate. However, lacking adequate legal provisions to engage with the system and a government that ignores any information that could hinder their relentless rollout of “modernization”, there are few ways other than protest and in some instances, public interest litigation available to digital activists.
The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy; they are deliberate exercises in doublethink. For it is only by reconciling contradictions that power can […]
Read MoreI received the following message from activist Shabnam Hashmi along with a phone call recording: ‘जिसका आधार नंबर और एड्रेस नहीं है हम उसे कहीं भी ख़तम कर सकते हैं’‘एक अभियान चल रहा है घेरो और मारो’Sub Inspector threatens to killPehchan (I am one of the founding trustees) runs a small centre in Jaitpur extension […]
Read MoreSince the last few weeks, there has been a sudden uptick of anonymous accounts supporting Aadhaar and dismissing concerns and news of information leaks, security and privacy issues. These accounts were all either created in may or scrubbed of all content and began tweeting afresh in May. Some of them are propaganda accounts that tweet only […]
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