Smart card technology can be used to streamline India's unwieldy PDS. But it is yet to prove itself under real world challenges. Smart cards have become the latest buzzword to remedy India's public distribution system (PDS) — one of the largest food grain delivery networks in the world with more than 500,000 ‘ration' shops. Electronic voting machines have streamlined Indian elections. Credit cards, which can be swiped for payment at any...
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A guide to understanding UID number by Harshada Karnik
Urbanization comes with its share of problems. Your new job lands you in a new city and you need necessities such as a mobile connection, a broadband connection or a bank account transfer as soon as possible. Your only hope in such cases till now is maybe a letter from the employer authenticating your address. Enter UID, the unique identity project headed by Nandan Nilekani, which promises to give an acceptable...
More »Nilekani seeks to allay privacy fears surrounding 'Aadhar'
Allaying privacy fears surrounding 'Aadhar', the Unique Identification Authority of India Chairman Nandan Nilekani today said the project would in no way put at risk citizens' security and rights. Delivering a lecture on 'Analysing and Envisioning India,' Nilekani said having an Aadhar number in no way puts the resident in a security risk or intrudes privacy. "The data collected of the individual by means of biometric system will only be for the...
More »UID and Public Health: Specious Claims by Mohan Rao
Among the many reasons cited for India to proceed ahead with the Unique Identification (UID) project -that it will facilitate delivery of basic services, that it will plug leakages in public expenditure and that it will speed up achievement of targets in social sector schemes - the most specious is perhaps the claim that it will help India reach her public health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Despite impressive economic growth in...
More »Identifying a billion Indians
IN A small village north-west of Bangalore, peasants queue for identities. Each man fills in a form with his name and rough date of birth, or gets someone who can read to do it for him. He places his fingertips on one scanner and stares at another. A photograph of his face is snapped. These images are uploaded to a computer. Within a few weeks he will have an identity...
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