Foreign Apologists 'Recruited' (?) for UID
It is not unexpected or un-usual to see foreign apologists hired or volunteering to push programs of their liking or intervening to write eulogies in praise of government policies in India and elsewhere. Hence, Patrick French's piece in 'The Week' titled "The Poor and Poorer Stats" is no surprise.
The magazine provides on space of 500 characters for comments. Hence, only the first couple of sentences of my rebuttal could be published in the magazine.
Here is the full version of my response to it.
Patrick French is an Englishman though his surname may mislead one. Does this have anything to do with the probability of anyone reading his writing in ‘The Week’ being misled? He says, “The unique benefit of the UID is that it has the potential to cut out middlemen and fraud in a way that no other form of subsidy can”. Mr. French is ‘tongue in cheek’ when he makes this assertion. Surely, he would know that foreign middlemen with links to intelligence agencies of their countries are contractors to UIDAI. He would also know that 209 Indian firms are the middlemen who enroll people in the UID scheme. Mr. French should certainly know that the National ID Card Act, 2005 of the Blair government was scrapped by the Conservative-Liberal coalition, as it very first action upon assuming power in Jun 2009. Has Mr. French not heard the statements of Theresa May, Home Secretary, when she announced the scrapping of Act. She called it “The worst of government, an assault on personal liberty, -- we propose to do government business, as servants of the people, not their masters”.
The Parliament Standing Committee was unanimous in calling the UID scheme, “Ill-conceived and directionless and lacking in clarity”.
I do not know why a magazine like 'The Week' publishes such biased views.
Here is the link to the article in 'The Week'.
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The Week | The poor, and the poorer stats |