• Apropos Jaithirth Rao’s article, I want to make sure I understand. The unique ID project is a plan that does not actually have a purpose? It has technological goals, which — when achieved — will be technological feats. (Trust me, he says, and I do!) But for the rest of it? The MHA, the MEA or whatever wants it, the babus and those politicos, let them work it out?

Personally, I have applied for and received gas, telephones, a car, educational degrees, a driving licence, a PAN card, a voter’s ID card and a passport without needing to prove that I, the applicant, myself exist. I am banging down doors, shoving in queues, shouting through little windows, and the government has so far recognised this without a problem as proof that I exist. What the government asks for is proof that I live where I say I live, proof that I am Indian, proof that I am as old as I say I am.

The unique ID will link across many systems, we are told, even all the systems that man hasn’t yet imagined, but the fact is that the many private and public sector systems of India have never before needed proof of being, the only thing it seems this project can provide. If I haven’t understood anything, however, or my imagination is dry, then Rao must write another article. Supply, sir, a point about the final purpose of this project. Is it only that it will free us from photocopy attestation?

... contd.