‘Rafale IGA protects Indian interests’ Aadhaar breach reports are misleading: UIDAI to court
There is nothing stronger in our system that protects the deal and India’s interests than the Inter-governmental Agreement.
ALEXANDRE ZIEGLER , Ambassador of France to India
NEWDELHI: The Inter-governmental Agreement (IGA) between France and India for the sale of Rafale fighter jets to the air force has in-built provisions to ensure that Indian interests are protected, ambassador of France to India Alexandre Ziegler said on Thursday.
His comments came a day after the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report held that the deal for 36 Rafale jets was 2.86% cheaper than a previous one for 126 jets.
“There is nothing stronger in our system that protects the deal and India’s interests than the IGA,” Ziegler said at a time when the ₹ 59,000-crore deal has been criticised for not having the safeguard of financial and performance guarantees.
India floated a global tender in August 2007 to buy 126 planes but it stood cancelled after Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared in April 2015 that India would buy 36 Rafale planes from France under a government-togovernment deal.
The two countries concluded the IGA in September 2016.
“In our system, when a government signs a deal under its name, we are responsible as a government for price and delivery,” the French diplomat said.
He added that France was committed to strengthening its ties with India and 49 French firms, including Dassault Aviation, would be taking part in Aero India-2019 scheduled to be held outside Bengaluru next week.
Three Rafale jets landed in Bengaluru on Wednesday to take part in the air show.
With the general elections scheduled in summer, the Congress has been repeatedly attacking the government for allegedly awarding the deal for 36 Rafale fighters to Dassault only on the condition that it would stitch up an alliance with Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group for meeting its offset obligations.
The government, Anil Ambani’s company and Dassault have rubbished the allegations.
Reiterating the French government’s stand, Alexandre Zeigler said there was absolutely no pressure on France from India to pick any particular offset partner.
“The governments have nothing to do with it. Companies choose their offset partners,” he said. NEWDELHI: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) informed the Delhi high court on Thursday that its database — Central Identity Data Repository (CIDR) — had not been breached as existing security controls and protocols were “robust and capable of countering any such attempts or malicious designs of data breach or hacking”.
In an affidavit filed before a bench of Justice S Ravindra Bhat and Justice Prateek Jalan, the UIDAI said all reports of data breaches were misleading and false.
“... the data is fully secured/ encrypted at all times i.e., at rest, in transit and in storage. For further strengthening of security and privacy of data, security audits are conducted on regular basis, and all possible steps are taken to make the data safer and protected...,” it said.
“... UIDAI has taken fool-proof measures to ensure end-to-end security of resident data, spanning from full encryption of resident data at the time of capture, tamper resistance, physical security, access control, network security, stringent audit mechanism, 24/7 monitoring and measures such as data partitioning and data encryption with UIDAI controlled data centres,” the affidavit added. The reply comes on a plea by Kerala-based lawyer Shamnad Basheer who has alleged that there were several breaches of the Aadhaar system leading to leakage of personal information of individuals since January 2018. The plea contended that UIDAI and the Centre were liable to compensate people whose data were compromised.
“Security of Aadhaar is of critical importance and is given paramount significance... UIDAI constantly strengthens and reviews its infrastructure and ecosystems in line with the best international security practices and technological standards...,” it said.