Aadhaar linkage? Rajasthan's 33 lakh, Chhattisgarh's 25 lakh families "failed to get" monthly ration in 2017

By Our Representative
The Right to Food Campaign (RtFC), quoting official data, has said that in 2017, in Rajasthan alone, around 33 lakh families were unable to access their Public Distribution System (PDS) ration entitlement each month due to the linkage of the Public Distribution System (PDS) with Aadhaar. Similarly, it said, in Jharkhand, 25 lakh families were deprived of their grain entitlements on a monthly basis.
Pointing out that even in areas like Ranchi district, where the integration had been in place for over a year, the rate of non-transacting households remains high, RtFC said in a statement, issued by its joint coordinators Dipa Sniha and Kavita Srivastava, that people’s pensions have been stopped because their Aadhaar numbers are not seeded, or cannot be seeded.
In some cases, the statement said, old people whose biometrics do not match are denied their entitlements (rations, pensions, etc.). In one village in Badauli block, Sarguja District, Chhattisgarh, 124 old people were not able to access their old age pensions as the village did not have network connectivity.
Insisting that such denials of entitlements are in fact in violation of the right to life and must be penalized, RtFC said, “The damage caused by Aadhaar is not limited to the PDS. Recipients of social security payments, such as National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) workers, social security pensioners and scholarship holders, are also suffering due to this application. Many such payments get credited in others’ accounts due to errors in Aadhaar seeding.”
Issued in the wake of the Supreme Court order dated March 13, 2018, the statement says, while it “extends the deadline for Aadhaar linking of facilities such as bank accounts and SIM cards, but permits the continued imposition of Aadhaar on social services and entitlements such as PDS, NREGA and social security pensions.”
RtFC insisted, “This order perpetuates a long-standing double standard, whereby the hardships experienced by privileged classes due to Aadhaar being made mandatory are being addressed while much greater hardships endured by poor people are ignored.”
Recalling that from September 2017 to January 2018, RtFC said, at least ten persons across three states died of starvation due to reasons directly connected with Aadhaar. These persons were denied their legal entitlements to ration/pension either because their ration card was not linked with Aadhaar or because of failures in Aadhaar-based biometric authentication.
Referring to a recent public hearing in Delhi, RtFC said, recently in Delhi, more than 400 people from different districts and marginalized communities of the national capital testified about their inability to access their legal entitlements of rations and pensions due to mandatory linking of Aadhaar.
Last year, it added, in a similar public hearing in Bengaluru, people from across Karnataka shared the various problems they were facing in accessing social security entitlements, rations as well as health services.
“Despite some token safeguards being introduced recently in some of welfare schemes in response to Aadhaar-related starvation deaths and other tragedies, in practice Aadhaar linkage and (in some cases) even Aadhaar-based biometric authentication are still compulsory for a wide range of welfare schemes and basic entitlements”, the statement said.

Comments

World Bank clarifies: Its 26th rank to India not for universal access to power but for ease of doing business

By Our Representative
In a major embarrassment to the Government of India, the World Bank has reportedly clarified that it has not ranked India 26th out of 130 countries for providing power to its population. The top international banker’s clarification comes following Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal’s claim that India has “improved to 26 position from 99” in access to electricity in just one year.

"Misleading" satellite images being shared on Balakot surgical strike on Jaish camp

By Dr Vinay Kate*
With every passing day more questions are being raised about the surgical strike India did in Balakot as a response to Pulwama attacks. So far the Indian media has claimed mass casulaty of 300+ terrorists of Jaish-e-Mohammad in this surgical strike, but there is hardly any report from foreign media about the same.

Extreme repression, corporate loot, cultural genocide "characterise" India's tribal belt

Counterview Desk
As Lok Sabha polls approach, there is considerable ferment in one section of the population -- India's Adivasis, forming about 8.6 per cent of India's population. Things became particularly critical following the February 14, 2019 Supreme Court order, allegedly seeking to evict lakhs of tribals from their forest lands.

Industry in India "barely growing", export growth 0%, whither moral anchors?

Counterview Desk
In a sharp critique of the Modi government, the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), one of world renowned economist Prof Kaushik Basu, who is Professor of Economics and Carl Marks Professor of International Studies at Cornell University, has told students at the IIM-A’s 54th Annual Convocation on March 16, 2019 that they have a “special responsibility” on their shoulders, “the responsibility to reject narrow sectarianism, uphold scientific thinking, openness to new ideas, and freedom of speech.”

Gujarat model? Industrial effluents "invade" borewells, discharge coloured water in farms

By Rajiv Shah
In a major embarrassment for Gujarat model, of the 21 samples taken by officials of the state government's environmental watchdog Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) in two villages of Vadodara district and analyzed by its laboratory in Gandhinagar, the state capital, to find out pollution level in groundwater, 16 were assessed as highly contaminated – these were, in fact, found to be discharging reddish, brownish, reddish, or yellowish water.

Refugees as criminals? US govt report blames Amit Shah for calling Bangladeshis termites

Counterview Desk
The chapter “Freedom of Movement” of the US State Department’s “India 2018 Human Rights Report”, released recently, has criticized BJP chief Amit Shah for terming alleged Bangladeshis who may be in Assam as “termites”, because their names were struck down from the list of National Register of Citizens, under preparation in the state.
Pointing out that four million residents were excluded from Assam’s final draft list, leading to “uncertainty over the status of these individuals, many of whose families had lived in the state for several generations”, the report regrets, the Indian law does not even contain the term “refugee,” treating refugees like Rohingiyas as “any other foreigners.”
“Undocumented physical presence in the country is a criminal offense. Persons without documentation were vulnerable to forced returns and abuse”, the report says.
Text of the Freedom of Movement chapter: The law provides for freedom of internal movement, foreign travel, emigration, a…

Congress would win just 9 of 26 Lok Sabha seats: Gujarat Assembly segment-wise analysis

By Rajiv Shah
Even as the Congress plans its first working committee meet in Gujarat on February 28 after an almost 58 year gap, there is reason to wonder what is in store for India’s grand old party in a state which has been long been a BJP bastion – in fact ever since mid-1990s. Ahead of the then assembly polls in late 2012, talking with me, a senior Gujarat Congress leader, currently Rajya Sabha MP, frankly said he saw no reason why Congress would win.

"Pro-corporate" Supreme Court order on FRA would further marginalize Adivasis

By VS Roy David, JP Raju*
For millions of Adivasis and other traditional forest dwellers February 13, 2019 will go down in history as the day of apocalypse. This is like the proverbial Black Friday where millions of most marginalized people of India were ordered by malicious anti-people draconian Supreme Court order depriving them the life and livelihood by evicting them from their habitats.

Financial inclusion? Not micro-loans; India's poor "need" investment in health, education

By Moin Qazi*
India has grown into a global powerhouse. Its economy is soaring but the picture on the ground is still quite arid. The green shoots that you see are only a patch of its landscape. Most Indians are hapless victims of inequity. India is one country where intense poverty abounds in the shadow of immense wealth.

India, Pakistan told to eliminate nuclear weapons: N-war "would kill" 2 billion

Counterview Desk
The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), a non-partisan federation of national medical organizations in 64 countries, representing tens of thousands of doctors, medical students, other health workers, and concerned citizens, claiming to share the common goal of creating a more peaceful and secure world freed from the threat of nuclear annihilation, has warned that “an unprecedented global catastrophe” awaits the globe against the backdrop of warmongering in India and Pakistan.

Counterview

Search This Blog