'One in three Aadhaar-based payments for the Centre’s maternity benefit scheme, or Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY), was credited to a wrong bank account, according to a progress report on Poshan Abhiyaan (Nutrition Mission) released by the NITI Aayog on Saturday. “A substantial number of payments (28% of all Aadhaar-based payments, of 31.29 lakh) are going to different bank accounts than what had been provided by the beneficiaries. Sometimes these are even untraceable by beneficiaries and field functionaries.
'“Where are you from? Show me your Aadhaar card… Call the police,” an auto rickshaw driver can be heard bellowing out the order to a man, who was later identified as a 25-year-old migrant labourer from West Bengal. Even as the migrant labourer yells back saying, "You want my ID card?" in Malayalam accent and is searching his wallet, the auto driver slaps him across the face...'
'Almost 90% of the ration cards that the Jharkhand government declared invalid between 2016 and 2018 belonged to real households, a study by the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab revealed on Thursday. Almost 56% of these deleted ration cards were not linked with Aadhaar. The study comes at a time when the Jharkhand government is reportedly preparing for another round of mass deletion of ration cards. According to some estimates, 23 deaths due to starvation and non-availability of subsidised food grains were reported in Jharkhand between 2015 and 2019.
'More than a 100 people in a Hyderabad neighbourhood have been asked by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to verify their Aadhaar enrolment documents in person or face a suspension or cancellation of their 12-digit identity number that underpins access to government subsidies. The matter first came to light when a letter sent to 40-year-old autorickshaw driver Mohd Sattar Khan was widely shared on social media websites.
'Over 120 people in Hyderabad have received notices from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), asking them to prove that they are not illegal immigrants and have obtained their Aadhaar numbers through legitimate documents. Although the UIDAI has insisted in a separate statement that notices “have nothing to do with citizenship”, two examples that have entered the public domain appear to ask the person in question to “prove all your claims of citizenship”.
'The UIDAI on February 3 sent a letter to Sattar Khan, a resident of Hyderabad raising questions on whether he was an Indian citizen. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) that oversees the functioning of Aadhaar in the country in a letter to Sattar claimed to have had received a complaint/allegation that he was not an Indian National, the letter did not specify who made the complaint. UIDAI alleged that according to the complaint Sattar had obtained the Aadhaar card through false pretences, making false claims and submitting false documents...
'More than 17 crore PAN cards will become inoperative if not linked with the Aadhaar by end of March. In a move with large scale disruption potential, the Income Tax Department has said that Permanent Account Number (PAN) will become inoperative if not linked with Aadhaar by March 31, 2020. It may be recalled that the deadline for linking of PAN and Aadhaar has been extended several times and the latest deadline ends on 31 March, 2020...'
'Amidst the ongoing controversy over the collection of Aadhaar numbers during the process of updating the National Population Register (NPR), the Union home ministry on Thursday insisted the government would not force people to submit their Aadhaar credentials to official enumerators. However, official documents show that the ministry wanted mandatory collection of Aadhaar numbers to be an essential part of the NPR exercise.
'As the nation debates citizenship and the accompanying burden of proof, The Indian Express travels to Dindori, Madhya Pradesh, to find out what “kagaz” means in a district where, as per the last Census, almost two in three people have no assets... A few feet from Bilasia’s nephew’s house, seated in front of another mud house is Hanumat Vishwakarma, a 35-year-old father of three. He disappears into the darkness of his house and comes back with his “kagaz”. But there are problems, he says. When he got his Aadhaar done the first time, it carried only his first name.
'As tends to happen whenever its policies are controversial and face some backlash, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government has again tried to insist that its efforts are no different from those of the Congress-led regime that preceded it. Union Minister Prakash Javadekar this week adamantly said that the National Population Register update planned for next year – which many have pointed out that, despite denials, is the first step on the path to a National Register of Citizens – was simply a continuation of a policy that the previous government also implemented.
