Human Rights In India At Stake

By
Ram K Kaushik

Civil liberties in India in general and privacy rights in particular are at stake. The government of India is doing its level best to invade human rights of Indians. It is formulating projects after projects without any regard to civil liberties of Indians. Whether it is Aadhar project of India or Natgrid Project of India the civil liberties of Indians are openly and blatantly violated.

Aadhar project of India is devoid of any legal framework that may back the spending of crores of money. There is no sense in continuing the project till there is a constitutionally sound law backing its operations. Till now the UIDAI is operating without any authority and there is no justifications for the amount spend under the project.

Similarly, Natgrid project was originally stalled due to protests from experts and lack of privacy safeguards. The Home ministry of India is trying to revive the same with great disregard to privacy rights and civil liberties. According to media reports, even the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) of India has unofficially cleared the project. After the protests from civil liberty experts the government of India has once again declared that it would clear the Natgrid project only after independent audit regarding proper safeguards for privacy rights of stakeholders.

It seems the government of India is not serious at all about privacy rights in India and it merely gives press statement the moment it faces a protest. Only time will tell how sincere it is regarding protecting privacy rights and civil liberties of Indians?

SOURCE: CIO

Public Outrage Reformed The Aadhar Project

By

Ram K Kaushik

One of the aspects that irritate me a lot is the attitude of Indian government towards the civil liberties of Indian citizens. Why is it always that the government of India always wakes up when public spirited citizens vehemently oppose its repressive and unconstitutional acts or omissions?

Two of such recent projects that were based upon this mentality of Indian government are national intelligence grid (Natgrid) and aadhar project of India/UID project of India. Both of these projects were stalled after protests by public, especially by techno-legal experts like Praveen Dalal.

Firstly, it was Natgrid that was stalled after stiff protests. Now even the aadhar project is facing difficulties and it may not proceed further till a law supporting the same is enacted by Parliament of India. Fortunately, we have some heroes who have finally convinced the government of Indian to enact law regarding aadhar project of India.

However, the real question is why the government of India always needs a shock to wake up and why cannot it take help of people in advance whose suggestions and recommendations it subsequently accepts?

SOURCE: CIO