SIM CARDS NOT LINKED TO AADHAAR MAY BE DEACTIVATED

The government is moving ahead with linking Aadhaar with mobile SIM cards and all unlinked phones will be deactivated after February 2018, said sources.

The sources said Aadhaar mobile linkage was being done as per orders of the Supreme Court passed in February this year in the Lokniti Foundation case.

All SIM cards have to be verified with Aadhaar within a year from the date of the judgment, with all unlinked phones to be deactivated after February next year, so that criminals, fraudsters and terrorists cannot use the issued SIMs.

The sources said biometrics cannot be stored by the mobile operators nor they have access to any of the other personal data.

They said biometrics collected should be encrypted by the telecom company and sent to UIDAI at that moment itself and any storage of biometric by a service provider is a criminal offence punishable with up to three years of imprisonment under the Aadhaar Act, 2016.

The government had told the Supreme Court in February that it would put in place, within a year, an effective mechanism for the verification of prepaid mobile users who constitute 90% of the total subscribers.

Asking the government to put in place the mechanism for the verification of existing prepaid mobile connection holders “as early as possible”, the court disposed of the petition by Lokniti Foundation seeking the scrutiny of the subscribers so that those having prepaid mobile connections on fake identities are weeded out.

A marriage between a Buddhist woman and Muslim man has stoked tensions in J&K’s Ladakh, with the region’s apex religious body threatening communal unrest unless the woman is “brought back”.

The Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA) has written to CM Mehbooba Mufti, asking for an annulment of the marriage between local-born 30-year-old Shifah, formerly called Stanzin Saldon, and her 32-year-old husband Murtaza Aga of Kargil. The woman converted to Islam in 2015. She married Aga, an engineer, last year.

“Young girls are being lured by Muslim boys to marry and finally convert them to Muslim... we have repeatedly asked the Muslim community leaders... to sensitise their communities to stay away from such wicked and