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Press Release, March 15, 2016: The New Bill Makes Aadhaar Compulsory!
We published and circulated the following press release on March 15, 2016, to highlight the fact that the Section 7 of the Aadhaar Bill, 2016 states that authentication of the person using her/his Aadhaar number can be made mandatory for the purpose of disbursement of government subsidies, benefits, and services; and in case the person does not have an Aadhaar number, s/he will have to apply for Aadhaar enrolment.
Press Release, March 11, 2016: The Law cannot Fix what Technology has Broken!
We published and circulated the following press release on March 11, 2016, as the Lok Sabha passed the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016. This Bill was proposed by finance minister, Mr. Arun Jaitley to give legislative backing to Aadhaar, being implemented by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).
An Urgent Need for the Right to Privacy
Along with a group of individuals and organisations from academia and civil society, we have drafted and are signatories to an open letter addressed to the Union government and urging the same to "urgently take steps to uphold the constitutional basis to the right to privacy and fulfil it’s constitutional and international obligations." Here we publish the text of the open letter. Please follow the link below to support it by joining the signatories.
Critique of the Aadhaar Bill 2016
The Lok Sabha passed the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016 on March 11, 2016, to give legislative basis to the Aadhaar number assigning being done by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). The Bill was introduced, by Finance Minister, Mr. Arun Jaitley, as a money bill, and there was no public consultation to evaluate the provisions therein even though there are very serious ramifications for the Right to Privacy and the Right to Association and Assembly. Since its inception in 2009, the UIDAI project has been shrouded in controversy due to various questions raised about privacy, technological limitations, security concerns, and legal basis. We have documented various concerns with the Aadhaar Bill 2016, as well as with the project at large.
ಅಂತರ್ರಾಷ್ಟ್ರೀಯ ಮಹಿಳಾ ದಿನಾಚರಣೆ ೨೦೧೬, ಕ್ರೈಸ್ಟ್ ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾಲಯ
ಮಾರ್ಚ್ ೮ ನ್ನು ವಿಶ್ವಾದ್ಯಂತ ಅಂತಾರಾಷ್ಟ್ರೀಯ ಮಹಿಳಾ ದಿನ ಎಂದು ಆಚರಿಸಲಾಗುತ್ತಿದೆ. ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಈ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ವಿಶ್ವದ ಹಲವು ಕಡೆ ವಿಶೇಷ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮಗಳನ್ನು ಹಮ್ಮಿಕೊಳ್ಳಲಾಗಿದೆ. ಇದನ್ನು ಒಂದು ತಿಂಗಳ ಪೂರ್ತಿ ನಡೆಯುವ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮವನ್ನಾಗಿ ಆಚರಿಸಲಾಗುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಭಾರತದಲ್ಲೂ ಈ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ವಿಶೇಷ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮಗಳನ್ನು ಬೇರೆ ಬೇರೆ ಭಾಷೆಯ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ನಡೆಸಲಾಗುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯವೂ ಈ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸುತ್ತಿದೆ.
The New Aadhaar Bill in Plain English
We have put together a plain English version of the The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016.
Are we Losing the Right to Privacy and Freedom of Speech on Indian Internet?
The article was published in DNA on March 10, 2016.
Aadhaar Bill fails to incorporate suggestions by the Standing Committee
In 2011, a standing committee report led by Yashwant Sinha had been scathing in its indictments of the Aadhaar BIll introduced by the UPA government. Five years later, the NDA government has introduced a new bill which is a rehash of the same. I look at the concerns raised by the committee report, none of which have been addressed by the new bill.
Aadhaar Bill 2016 & NIAI Bill 2010 - Comparing the Texts
This is a quick comparison of the texts of the Aadhaar Bill 2016 and the National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010. The new sections in the former are highlighed, and the deleted sections (that were part of the latter) are struck out.
A comparison of the 2016 Aadhaar Bill, and the 2010 NIDAI Bill
This blog post does a clause-by-clause comparison of the provisions of National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 and the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016
Aadhaar: Still Too Many Problems
While one wishes to welcome govt’s attempt to bring Aadhaar within a legislative framework, the fact is there are too many problems that still remain unaddressed for one to be optimistic.
Report on NVDA with E-Speak and BookShare Online Library
With the objective to sensitize and impart the skillset in handling NVDA – the Screen Reader and the usage of BookShare Online Library for the print disabled to the Special Educators, Karna Vidya Technology Centre in collaboration with Computer and Internet Society conducted a one-day Workshop on NVDA with E-Speak and BookShare Online Library on 27 02 2016 (Saturday) at Karna Vidya Technology Centre. Special Educators from Chennai, Kanchipuram and Thiruvallur totaling 48 have participated actively and got benefited from the Workshop.
Flaws in the UIDAI Process
The accuracy of biometric identification depends on the chance of a false positive: the probability that the identifiers of two persons will match. Individuals whose identifiers match might be termed duplicands. When very many people are to be identified success can be measured by the (low) proportion of duplicands. The Government of India is engaged upon biometrically identifying the entire population of India. An experiment performed at an early stage of the programme has allowed us to estimate the chance of a false positive: and from that to estimate the proportion of duplicands. For the current population of 1.2 billion the expected proportion of duplicands is 1/121, a ratio which is far too high.
Connectivity: Let's Apply What We Know
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it - George Santayana. Reprise good decisions, and avoid the missteps.
Sean McDonald - Ebola: A Big Data Disaster
We are proud to initiate the CIS Papers series with a fascinating exploration of humanitarian use of big data and its discontents by Sean McDonald, FrontlineSMS, in the context of utilisation of Call Detail Records for public health response during the Ebola crisis in Liberia. The paper highlights the absence of a dialogue around the significant legal risks posed by the collection, use, and international transfer of personally identifiable data and humanitarian information, and the grey areas around assumptions of public good. The paper calls for a critical discussion around the experimental nature of data modeling in emergency response due to mismanagement of information has been largely emphasized to protect the contours of human rights.
Can Wikipedia revive dying Indian languages?
Yes, by encouraging content and involvement, Wikipedia language communities keep languages relevant.
Looking ahead to the future of the Kannada Wikipedia: Vasanth S.N.
Vasanth S.N. has edited the Kannada-langauge Wikipedia since 2006. As part of the WikipediansSpeak series, I caught up with Vasanth to learn about his contributions to the Kannada Wikipedia, which just celebrated its 13th anniversary. In the discussion Vasanth shares his long time involvement in the Wikimedia movement, and what drives him every day to edit Wikipedia and helping other fellow Wikimedians.
Comments by the Centre for Internet and Society on the Report of the Committee on Medium Term Path on Financial Inclusion
Apart from item-specific suggestions, CIS would like to make one broad comment with regard to the suggestions dealing with linking of Aadhaar numbers with bank accounts. Aadhaar is increasingly being used by the government in various departments as a means to prevent fraud, however there is a serious dearth of evidence to suggest that Aadhaar linkage actually prevents leakages in government schemes. The same argument would be applicable when Aadhaar numbers are sought to be utilized to prevent leakages in the banking sector.
Community Digest—Estonians working on a new feedback system for Wikipedia articles
Community digest is a weekly publication on Wikimedia Blog. This week, I have authored a section on the Kannada Wikipedia's 13th anniversary that is being celebrated today. It includes a small section from a longer interview with Kannada Wikipedian Vasanth S.N. The two blogs on creating Odia-language character encoding converters I had written before in the Huffington Post and the DNA are also featured in the digest.
Cultural institution AKA GLAM for more OER
My submission titled "Cultural institution AKA GLAM for more OER" under the theme of "Innovative approaches to opening up cultural heritage collections for education" has been selected for the OER16 conference to be held in Edinburg, Scotland from 19 to 20 April 2016.
