Modi should have hoisted tricolour in Srinagar instead of flying kites in Ahmedabad: Uddhav Thackeray

MUMBAI, Jan 23: Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray trained his guns at Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the party's national executive committee meeting on Tuesday.

He said that PM Modi should have hoisted tricolour in Srinagar instead of flying kites with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in Ahmedabad.

At this meeting held once in every five years Thackeray was re-elected as the party's president.

'Today we don't know if the country is going forward or backward. The environment in the country is such that Pakistan has become an election issue. The neighbouring country was also brought in for Gujarat elections, both have no correlation,' Thackeray said in a dig at Modi.

Thackeray also slammed Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari for his remarks on Navy personnel. He said if Gadkari did not want to accept their demands, the BJP should also not take credit for the surgical strikes, in which the BJP had no role to play.

He said despite Modi's promises of 'Acche din', soldiers are losing their lives every day and their mutilated bodies are being brought to their native places

'However, we are simply talking of teaching Pakistan a lesson every time. Take a concrete action once for all rather than the empty talk,' said Thackeray.

In a major announcement, Uddhav Thackeray said that Shiv Sena will contest elections in every state. He said that Shiva Sena didn't enter in the electoral fray outside Maharashtra so as to avoid division of Hindu votes but now it will contest all assembly polls irrespective of the outcome.

Uddhav Thackeray accused PM Modi of speaking lies for power.

'If killing a cow is a crime and is banned, then speaking lies for power should also be considered a sin and banned," he said.

He also alleged that the government only spends money on advertisements but not on schemes.

Turmoil in India's Supreme Court as 4 judges speak out against Chief Justice

NEW DELHI, Jan 12: Simmering differences in the Supreme Court of India bloomed on Friday, with four senior judges publicly criticising the Chief Justice of India (CJI) for his style of administration and over the allocation of cases.

The unexpected press conference, and the not entirely surprising revelations in the statement issued by the judges, resulted in lawyers, politicians, and analysts taking sides, with some insisting that the judges should not have gone public and others countering that they had no other option.

Justice Jasti Chelameswar, who along with Justices Ranjan Gogoi — tipped to be the chief justice after CJI Dipak Misra retires in October — MB Lokur and Kurian Joseph called the conference, said they had been “compelled to call” the conference. “This is an extraordinary event in the history of the nation, more particularly this nation... The administration of the Supreme Court is not in order and many things which are less than desirable have happened in the last few months,” he added.

All the four judges, the four seniormost in the apex court after the CJI, are part of the collegium that selects judges to the apex court and high courts.

The judges said they were forced to speak in public, breaking the settled principle of judicial restraint, because the CJI did not take steps to redress their grievances, which were first raised two months ago. “We wrote a letter to him and tried to persuade the CJI to take steps but failed. A request was made to do a particular thing in a particular manner but it was done in such a way that it left further doubt on the integrity of the institution. Unless the institution of Supreme Court is preserved, democracy won’t survive in this country,” they said.

People close to the CJI refuted the allegations. “All judges in the top court are equal. Work is allocated fairly. A particular judge cannot say he should be given a specific case for hearing. Judicial work is assigned as per the settled procedure,” the person said.

Friday’s events could have a huge impact on the functioning of the higher judiciary, particularly the constitution of benches, appointments to the high courts — most of which are understaffed — and also erode the credibility of the top court.

The tipping point for the four judges seems to be the case of Judge Brijgopal Loya. Two petitions demanding a fair probe into his mysterious death were listed before a bench that is headed by a judge who is 10th in terms of seniority. They believed a matter as serious as this should have been heard by someone more senior.

“Four of us went to the CJI today with a request that a particular thing is not in order and it should be rectified. Despite our request, he did not do anything,” Justice Chelameswar said, without mentioning the Loya case. When asked whether this request was in connection with the Loya case, Justice Gogoi admitted that it was.

Judge Loya, who died under mysterious circumstances in November 2014, was hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case dating back to 2004, in which various police officers and Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah were named. Shah was discharged in December 2014.

That may have been the tipping point, but trouble in the court has been brewing for some time.

Chelameswar has had run-ins with three CJIs — Justice Misra, Justice TS Thakur and Justice JS Khehar. He stayed away from meetings of the collegium for some time in 2016 and 2017 because he felt this was not the best way to appoint judges.

To protect privacy, UIDAI introduces ‘Virtual ID’ for Aadhaar-card holders

NEW DELHI, Jan 11: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Wednesday put in place a two-layer security mechanism to reinforce privacy protection for Aadhaar ID number holders. It introduced a virtual identification for the ID holders so that the actual Aadhaar number need not be shared to authenticate identity. It also places more restrictions on the storage of the Aadhaar number within various databases.

The idea behind the changes is to address privacy concerns which have resulted in a legal challenge to Aadhaar in the Supreme Court, and to also prevent potential misuse of an individual’s Aadhaar details.

UIDAI has been under the scanner over the past few months over allegations of access of personal information by random entities without the consent of individual Aadhaar holders.

The virtual ID will be a 16-digit random number mapped with the Aadhaar number. It can only be generated, replaced or revoked by the Aadhaar number holder from time to time.

“It will not be possible to derive the Aadhaar number from the virtual ID,” a circular issued by UIDAI said.

Till now, a person had to give his/her 12-digit identity number along with other attributes (demographic and/or biometrics and/or through a one-time password) during authentication or e-KYC (know your customer) for accessing various benefits and services from service providers such as banks or telcos.

UIDAI also introduced the concept of a limited KYC category which does not access the Aadhaar number. To enable this, UIDAI has introduced two categories of an Authentication User Agency (AUA)—an entity engaged in providing Aadhaar-enabled services. The limited KYC category is a ‘Local AUA’, compared with a ‘Global AUA’—which will have access to e-KYC using the Aadhaar number.

An AUA may be a government, public or a private legal agency registered in India, using Aadhaar authentication services provided by UIDAI.

To enable the ‘Local AUA’ to uniquely identify customers in a limited e-KYC environment—since the virtual ID is a temporary number and storage of Aaadhaar is restricted—the UIDAI is launching a token mechanism. In response to an authentication request from a ‘Local AUA,’ UIDAI would return a unique identity token--a 72-character alpha-numeric string that will only work in the ‘Local AUA’s’ system.

Experts welcomed the changes initiated by UIDAI to enhance security and protect privacy.

“If someone authenticates you, they will only have the virtual number, and even if their database gets hacked all that gets lost is the virtual ID number which doesn’t put you at risk because you can always change this number,” said Rahul Matthan, partner at law firm Trilegal and a Mint columnist.

“Aadhaar is here to stay! Happy that the @UIDAI has introduced virtual ID and limited KYC in the spirit of continuous innovation to enhance privacy and security,” former UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani tweeted on Wednesday.

UIDAI will be releasing necessary APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) by 1 March and all agencies have been directed to make the necessary changes for the use of virtual ID, UID token and limited KYC and operationalise it by 1 June.

“If virtual IDs are made mandatory (and they aren’t) that would address the privacy concern of multiple private entities being able to create detailed profiles of you by using your Aadhaar number. But it wouldn’t address concerns people have relating to security, to exclusion from benefits, to the centralized biometric database, nor to Aadhaar facilitating various governments gaining an overall view of your life,”said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bengaluru-based think tank, pointing out the other gaps to be addressed in the Aadhaar infrastructure.

Edward Snowden says reporter who exposed Aadhaar ‘breach’ deserves an award

NEW DELHI, Jan 9: American whistleblower Edward Snowden on Tuesday came out in support of a national daily reporter, who has been booked for exposing alleged flaws in Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) system.

The Tribune newspaper had reported last week that its journalist was able to track down people offering access to the Aadhaar data for Rs 500. On January 7, the UIDAI filed a case against the journalist and three others named in her report, leading to widespread criticism.

Taking to Twitter, Snowden said instead of an investigation, the journalist needed to be rewarded for exposing that the Aadhar data was not secure and could be obtained at a cost of only Rs 500.

In his tweet, the former United States government contractor, who has taken asylum in Russia, also suggested that action should rather be taken against UIDAI, the body that runs the Aadhaar programme.

“The journalists exposing the #Aadhaar breach deserve an award, not an investigation. If the government were truly concerned for justice, they would be reforming the policies that destroyed the privacy of a billion Indians. Want to arrest those responsible? They are called @UIDAI,” Snowden tweeted.

Meanwhile, Union minister for electronics and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday had said that the administration was “fully committed to freedom of press” and that an FIR filed is “against unknown”.

“Govt. is fully committed to freedom of Press as well as to maintaining security & sanctity of #Aadhaar for India’s development. FIR is against unknown. I’ve suggested @UIDAI to request Tribune & it’s journalist to give all assistance to police in investigating real offenders,” Prasad tweeted.

On January 5, Snowden had hinted that the Aadhaar database conceived and introduced by the Indian government can also be misused and abused.

Snowden, a CIA employee who leaked classified information from the National Security Agency in 2013 on global surveillance, has been advocating privacy rights since then.