On Sunday 27 Nov 2011, Dinesh Shah wrote: > Good. Now we should be able to make some headway. Experts here please > suggest appropriate solution to this identity problem? > > If we can provide an alternative and "correct" solution no one can > deny to adopt that one!
This is the wrong list for that. The problems that the UIDAI claims to solve are social, political, economic, systemic. For those, you need solutions that are social, political, economic and systemic. Throwing technology at a problem doesn't magically solve it. As someone high up in the UIDAI once said, "When you have corruption and you bring in technology to prevent it, all you end up with is high-tech corruption." To take an example: one of the issues that Aadhar will completely eradicate, as per NN, is the NREGA misuse of funds. However, this is completely ignoring the ground realities. NREGA disentitlement occurs in one of three ways: - Coercion: The sarpanch's goondas stand outside the disbursement office and take your money once you have collected it from the NREGA outlet. - Collusion: The sarpanch and you agree that he will enter your name as having worked the day, you keep half the money and give half to him. - Identity: The sarpanch enter a completely fictitious person into the NREGA records and someone continues to collect money on this person's behalf. 70 to 80% of abuse of NREGA is in the first two categories, which UID can do nothing about. If it does work (highly unlikely considering the lack of proper testing) all it would impact is 20 to 30% of NREGA abuse. To take the other much-touted aspect of Aadhar, terrorism control, just look at what happened in MP in July this year, when a SIMI activist was captured by the cops after a shoot-out in which 2 policemen died. When the authorities traced back to his house, they found a valid UID card with a fake name in his possession. The terrorists know how to get fake UIDs, and will get them whenever they want, while for people like you and I, who abide by the law, it will become just another vehicle for state oppression and control. Expecting technology to magically solve India's problems is like throwing atta, ghee, sugar and dry fruits into a pan, heating it and expecting laddoos as a result. The problems are too deep-rooted and widespread to be resolved by naive application of this technology or that -- if you really want change, stop writing code and start a social or political campaign. Regards, -- Raj -- Raj Mathur || [email protected] || GPG: http://otheronepercent.blogspot.com || http://kandalaya.org || CC68 It is the mind that moves || http://schizoid.in || D17F -- http://mm.ilug-bom.org.in/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
