Digital India

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.

Protest by NFIW and Right to Food Campaign against making Aadhaar mandatory for mid-day meal

Unlawful to make Aadhaar mandatory

2 Comments / Democracy, Aadhaar, Politics & Political Commentary / By

Recently, I attempted a tweetstorm on why I think the 2016 Aadhaar Act does not override, or render useless, the orders passed in Oct 2015 by the Supreme Court. I argued that all of the recent notifications by various central government authorities making Aadhaar mandatory to avail the respective service of those authorities, are in …

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aadhaar logo

Derrick Thomas raises important questions about misuse of Aadhaar by terrorists or illegal immigrants

2 Comments / Aadhaar / By

This post has been based on a series of tweets by Derrick Thomas on Twitter. The first few tweets are embedded in the post. If you are on Twitter, please do go through the whole thread. The funny thing about Aadhaar based mobile verification is that it enables terrorists to get a legal mobile connection without …

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Aadhaar as a backdoor to Indian citizenship

Problems with Aadhaar card – it can provide utility or security, not both

2 Comments / Digital India, Aadhaar, National / By

Guest post by @St_Hill examines some problems in the use of Aadhaar where the use of the UIDAI authentication goes beyond what it was designed for and compromises the privacy or security or both of users. However, stopping use that compromises security would mean much reduced adoption of Aadhaar. Most debates around UIDAI and Aadhaar …

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Protest by NFIW and Right to Food Campaign against making Aadhaar mandatory for mid-day meal

RTF and NFIW Protest Against Attack on Children’s Right to Food by making Aadhaar compulsory in Mid –Day – Meal

Leave a Comment / Aadhaar / By

Today the National Federation of Indian Women and the Right to Food Campaign held a protest outside the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Shastri Bhawan to protest against the move of the Central Government to make Aadhaar mandatory for Mid Day Meal Scheme. People from more than ten states including UP, West Bengal, Odisha, Rajasthan, …

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Grape season in peril in Nashik due to demonetisation

Leave a Comment / Democracy, Agriculture, Demonetisation / By

End of January marks the grape harvest season around Nashik. After falling prices after demonetisation led farmers to slash down standing tomato crops last month to make way for emergency sowing of wheat to eat, hope had rested on the grape crop coming up. However for all the reports in media about farmers adopting cashless …

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