Aadhaar doesn't pose any privacy issue: Bill Gates

Agencies

May 3, 2018

Washington, May 3: India's Aadhaar technology does not pose any privacy issue and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has funded the World Bank to take this approach to other countries as it is worth emulating, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has said.

The 62-year-old multi-billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist said Nandan Nilekani, Infosys founder who is considered as the chief architect of Aadhaar, was consulting and helping the World Bank on the project.

Asked if India's Aadhaar technology is worth emulating by other countries, he replied, "Yes".

"The benefits of that (basic ID -- Aadhaar) are very high," he told .

More than a billion people in India have enrolled in Aadhaar, the world's largest biometric ID system.

"Yes, countries should adopt that approach because the quality of governance has a lot to do with how quickly countries are able to grow their economy and empower their people," Gates said in response to a question.

"We have funded the World Bank to take this Aadhaar approach to other countries," he said.

It is believed that several countries, including some from India's neighbourhood, have approached New Delhi for assistance in this matter.

"Aadhaar in itself doesn't pose any privacy issue because it's just a bio ID verification scheme," Gates, the head of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said when asked about the concerns about privacy issues raised by certain quarters in India.

"The individual applications that use Aadhaar, you have to look and see what's been stored and who has access to that information. And so, application by application, you have to make sure that's well managed. In the case of the financial bank account I think it's handled very well," he said.

"(It uses) Aadhar to set up the accounts so that you can both get your cell phone and get your bank account," he added.

Observing that Aadhaar was started before Prime Minister Narendra Modi came into office, Gates said that it was very much to his credit that he was willing to embrace it.

"I'm both good friend and an admirer of Nandan Nilekani and some of the initiatives of digitisation efforts that can help with education that can help with governance," he said.

In his lecture on 'Technology for Transformation' organised by NITI Aayog on November 2016, Gates had said that Aadhaar is something that had never been done by any government before, not even in a rich country.

Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique identity number for Indians, based on their biometric and demographic data. The data is collected by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), a statutory authority established in January 2009 by the Government of India.

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Chaos continues as IndiGo cancels more flights including 73 from Bengaluru airport

News Network

December 4,2025

Domestic carrier IndiGo has cancelled over 180 flights from three major airports — Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru — on Thursday, December 4, as the airline struggles to secure the required crew to operate its flights in the wake of new flight-duty and rest-period norms for pilots.

While the number of cancellations at Mumbai airport stands at 86 (41 arrivals and 45 departures) for the day, at Bengaluru, 73 flights have been cancelled, including 41 arrivals, according to a PTI report that quoted sources.

"IndiGo cancelled over 180 flights on Thursday at three airports-Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru," the source told the news agency.

Besides, it had cancelled as many as 33 flights at Delhi airport for Thursday, the source said, adding, "The number of cancellations is expected to be higher by the end of the day."

The Gurugram-based airline's On-Time Performance (OTP) nosedived to 19.7 per cent at six key airports — Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad — on December 3, as it struggled to get the required crew to operate its services, down from almost half of December 2, when it was 35 per cent.

"IndiGo has been facing acute crew shortage since the implementation of the second phase of the FDTL (Flight Duty Time Limitations) norms, leading to cancellations and huge delays in its operations across the airports," a source had told PTI on Wednesday.

Chaos continued at several major airports for the third day on Thursday because of the cancellations.

A spokesperson for the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) in Bengaluru said that 73 IndiGo flights had been cancelled on Thursday.

At least 150 flights were cancelled and dozens of others delayed on Wednesday, airport sources said, leaving thousands of travellers stranded, according to news agency Reuters.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has said it is investigating IndiGo flight disruptions and has asked the airline to submit the reasons for the current situation, as well as its plans to reduce flight cancellations and delays.

It may be mentioned here that the pilots' body, Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP), has alleged that IndiGo, despite getting a two-year preparatory window before the full implementation of new flight duty and rest period norms for cockpit crew, "inexplicably" adopted a "hiring freeze".

The FIP said it has urged the safety regulator, the DGCA, not to approve airlines' seasonal flight schedules unless they have adequate staff to operate their services "safely and reliably" in accordance with the New Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) norms.

In a letter to the DGCA late on Wednesday, the FIP urged the DGCA to consider re-evaluating and reallocating slots to other airlines, which have the capacity to operate them without disruption during the peak holiday and fog season if IndiGo continues to "fail in delivering on its commitments to passengers due to its own avoidable staffing shortages."

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