Reactions

“Aadhar has helped in plugging leakages and improving efficiency. The direct benefit transfer scheme has helped the government in saving ₹90,000 crore annually,” Kant said on the sidelines of an event.

Retired judge justice KS Puttaswamy, one of the first to question the legality of Aadhaar, also welcomed the Supreme Court judgement.

“After holistic consideration, my opinion is that the majority judgement on the validity of Aadhaar Act is correct though I have not read the whole judgement yet,” the 92-year-old retired Karnataka high court judge said.

On linking of Aadhaar with Permanent Account Number (PAN) mandatory, the retired judge said those who pay income tax are limited and they belong to a separate class.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said the verdict vindicates her stand.

“People should have some rights. If bank and mobile phones are linked to Aadhaar card then everything about the person will come into public domain. That this logic is correct and irrefutable has been proved today,” Banerjee said. “We don’t compromise or raise questions on government security or internal security. But if my account number becomes public, I may be cheated. This has already happened in ATM transactions.”

IT experts pointed out that a completely new regime has to be put in place to protect the Aadhaar data that is lying with private companies and ensure that it is not misused.

“The Aadhaar verdict is a huge sigh of relief for citizens. The humongous task now is to ensure that the data that is already with private companies is not misused or sold,” Pavan Duggal, the nation’s leading cyber law expert.

“The data now needs to be dismantled but the onus is to make sure companies do not make copies of the data and use it to monetise their operations. The big question is which agency will audit this humongous task,” said Duggal, who is also a leading Supreme Court lawyer.

Supratim Chakraborty, associate partner at law firm Khaitan & Co, said the verdict that private parties cannot have access to individuals’ data had a downside.

“From a business perspective, it could increase their expenses if they need to collect too much information one by one from an individual. It compels us to ponder whether there is a correct way to do business while protecting the privacy of users,” Chakraborty said.

IT EXPERTS POINTED

OUT THAT A COMPLETELY NEW REGIME HAS TO BE PUT IN PLACE TO PROTECT THE AADHAAR DATA THAT IS LYING WITH PRIVATE COMPANIES

lected by UIDAI for Aadhaar enrolment. We are of the view that there are sufficient safeguard to protect data collected under Aadhaar scheme,” stated the judgment.

The court said that Aadhaar was meant to give dignity to marginalised sections. However, authentication of data through Aadhaar cannot be stored for more than six months.

“No person will be denied benefits under social welfare scheme because of failure of authentication through Aadhaar,” the court said, adding “We direct the government to ensure that illegal migrants are not issued Aadhaar to get benefits of social welfare schemes.”

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance, 2018, promulgated on September 19, makes all declaration of talaq, including in written or electronic form, to be void and illegal. In Muslim personal laws, a man can use the word ‘talaq’ three times in one go to end his marriage. The Ordinance made declaration of talaq a cognizable offence, attracting up to three years imprisonment along with a fine.

“We have registered a case against Saleem Khan and his three relatives (father Mohammad Sultan, brother Ramzan and sister Jaheena),” said Sanjana Kumari, sub-inspector, Balotra police station.

While Saleem has been booked for using the banned practice to divorce his wife, his relatives have been booked on charges of subjecting Saleem’s wife to cruelty, criminal breach and for voluntarily causing hurt under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, the officer added. gone up, caste and gender-based inequality in wages has been coming down — but the progress is too slow.

There are significant divergences from the all-India headline numbers across regions and sectors. It is a careful examination of this diversity which brings out facts which are often lost in the important but also often simplistic binaries of India versus Bharat while analysing India’s employment challenge.

For instance, as cited above, the private security industry in India employed 7 million workers in 2015, making it larger than healthcare and almost as large as public administration. The report rightly points out that we know very little about these sectors. International comparisons show that countries with high levels of income inequality have seen a bigger growth in the private security industry, said Arjun Jaydev from Azim Premji University, and part of the team which has prepared the report. A New York Times op-ed by Jaydev shows that share of private security guards in the US, a much more unequal society, was more than five times the number in Nordic countries such as Sweden, which have less inequality.

THE PRIVATE SECURITY INDUSTRY IN INDIA EMPLOYED 7 MILLION WORKERS IN 2015, MAKING IT LARGER THAN HEALTHCARE AND ALMOST AS LARGE AS PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

The report, which is meant to be an annual publication (this is the first report), also makes a case for using both fiscal and industrial policy to achieve growth and quality employment. At the same time it mentions some interesting policy experiments in various parts of India to encourage job generation. For example, in 2017, the Gujarat government announced a five-year subsidy of ₹4,000 and ₹3,000 per month for female and male employees in the textile sector for units which generated at least 300 domicile jobs. Odisha introduced a broadly similar policy in 2016. That such demands are not being made at the national level, point towards the fact that even politics around jobs in India might be stunted.

On the question of a larger employment policy, Nalin Kohli, spokesperson for the Bharatiya Janata Party, said that different state governments have come out with different sets of policies. At the national level, Mudra scheme has been a huge success in promoting self-employment, with more than 120 million people benefitting from ₹3.6 lakh crore of loans being distributed. The data needs to be looked at in the context of self-employment as well, Kohli added. “Tackling the unemployment challenge is a priority for the Congress party. It will prepare a detailed road map to address this through the ongoing manifesto process. The broad outline of our policy will be incentive based and include a focus on reviving MSME clusters. The Congress president has already outlined this in various public platforms,” said Rajiv Gowda, a Rajya Sabha MP and chairman of the AICC research department.