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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News Network
March 21,2024

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New Delhi: India has now become more unequal in terms of wealth concentration than the British colonial period as income and wealth of the top 1% of the country’s population have hit historical highs, according to a paper released by World Inequality Lab.

By 2022-23, the top 1 per cent income share in India was 22.6 per cent and the top 1 per cent wealth share rose to 40.1 per cent, with India’s top 1 per cent income share among the very highest in the world, higher than even South Africa, Brazil and the US.

Co-authored by economists Nitin Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, and Anmol Somanchi, the paper stated that the “Billionaire Raj” headed by “India’s modern bourgeoisie” is now more unequal than the British Raj headed by the colonialist forces. 

The paper said there is evidence to suggest the Indian tax system might be “regressive when viewed from the lens of net wealth”. A restructuring of the tax code is needed, the paper said, adding that a levy of a “super tax” of 2 per cent on the net wealth of 167 wealthiest families would yield 0.5 per cent of national income in revenues and create space for investments.

“A restructuring of the tax code to account for both income and wealth, and broad-based public investments in health, education and nutrition are needed to enable the average Indian, and not just the elites, to meaningfully benefit from the ongoing wave of globalisation. Besides serving as a tool to fight inequality, a “super tax” of 2% on the net wealth of the 167 wealthiest families in 2022-23 would yield 0.5% of national income in revenues and create valuable fiscal space to facilitate such investments,” the paper said. 

The paper has analysed data based on the annual tax tabulations published by the Indian income tax authorities to extract the distribution of top income earners between 1922-2020.

The share of national income going to the top 10 per cent fell from 37 per cent in 1951 to 30 per cent by 1982 after which it began steadily rising. From the early 1990s onwards, the top 10 per cent share increased substantially over the next three decades, nearly touching 60 per cent in the most recent years, the paper said. This compares with the bottom 50 per cent getting only 15 per cent of India’s national income in 2022-23.

 The top 1 per cent earn on average Rs 5.3 million, 23 times the average Indian (Rs 0.23 million). Average incomes for the bottom 50 per cent and the middle 40 per cent stood at Rs 71,000 (0.3 times national average) and Rs 1,65,000 (0.7 times national average), respectively.
The richest, nearly 10,000 individuals (of 92 million Indian adults) earn on average Rs 480 million (2,069 times the average Indian). “To get a sense of just how skewed the distribution is, one would have to be at nearly the 90th percentile to earn the average income in India,” the paper said.

In 2022, just the top 0.1 per cent in India earned nearly 10 per cent of the national income, while the top 0.01 per cent earned 4.3 per cent share of the national income and top 0.001 per cent earned 2.1 per cent of the national income.

Enlisting the probable reasons for sharp rise in top 1 per cent income shares, the paper said public and private sector wage growth could have played a part till the late 1990s, adding that there are good reasons to believe capital incomes likely played a role in subsequent years. For the shares of the bottom 50 per cent and middle 40 per cent remaining depressed, the paper said, the primary reason has been the lack of quality broad-based education, focused on the masses and not just the elites.

“One reason to be concerned with such high levels of inequality is that extreme concentration of incomes and wealth is likely to facilitate disproportionate influence on society and government. This is even more so in contexts with weak democratic institutions. After largely being a role model among post-colonial nations in this regard, the integrity of various key institutions in India appears to have been compromised in recent years. This makes the possibility of India’s slide towards plutocracy even more real. If only for this reason, income and wealth inequality in India must be closely tracked and challenged,” it said.

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News Network
March 16,2024

Mangaluru: In the wake of complaints regarding middlemen menace, sleuths of Lokayukta on Friday, March 15, conducted a raid at the Mangaluru Urban Development Authority. 

The Lokayukta team found unaccounted money and several files, which were not disposed of for a long period.

Lokayukta SP CA Simon said that the Lokayukta has received complaints that middlemen have been interfering in the MUDA office, and files pertaining to the public are not being cleared on time.

A raid that commenced in the evening on March 13, lasted for 18 hours. During the raid, Lokayukta officials found cash in a bag in MUDA office, and also with officials and others. MUDA officials could not inform the source of money found in their office, the SP said.

Further, he said that many people gathered at the MUDA office during the Lokayukta raid, and have raised complaints about the harassment at the urban development authority. “We have gathered evidence for MUDA officials carrying out file disposal processes through brokers on phone calls. The investigation on the MUDA network will be continued,” he said.

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News Network
March 28,2024

Mangaluru, Mar 28: Dakshina Kannada deputy commissioner Mullai Muhilan MP has warned the individuals and political parties against the poll code violations during private events. 
 
“Private events such as marriages, birthdays, housewarming ceremonies, and other non-political programmes do not require any permission. However, one should ensure that there is no violation of the model code of conduct (MCC) at these functions. Permission is needed if the events are attended by politicians or candidates,” the DC said. 

He said that these gatherings will be under the surveillance of MCC teams, as there are chances of luring voters by campaigning and supplying food, said the DC. The district has 38,386 new voters, of which, 19,619 are men.

He said that the notification of election in Dakshina Kannada Lok Sabha constituency will be issued soon, and the filing of nominations will be held between 11 am and 3 pm till April 4. 

Only five persons, including the candidate, will be allowed to enter the returning officer’s chamber to submit the nominations. A facilitation centre will be opened at the DC’s office. 

The expenditure of the candidate will be counted from the day the candidate files the nomination.

The DC said that the district is not an expenditure-sensitive constituency. Assistant expenditure observers and expenditure observers will monitor the expenditure of the candidates. An expenditure book will be provided to the candidate to record expenditure incurred, he explained.

Further, he said that no election materials can be printed without the name and address of the publishers, and the number of copies printed. Separate permission should be availed for procession prior to the submission of nomination papers from the ARO office, through the single-window system.

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