[n_t]

One of the reasons why India needs some kind of people authentication is rampant corruption! Corruption at a scale that most of people in Europe or US cant even imagine. Add to it the culture which celebrates corruption and eulogizes people who find loopholes in system. As soon as a policy or rule is implement, someone gets to work to find a loophole and profit. Schemes and subsidies for poor get siphoned by rich and powerful by creating fake people, less than 2% of citizen's pay taxes by just disappearing in records, billions of dollars of unnamed properties exist because owners are fake people on record, someone else appears for exam on a student.

While I still dislike citizen's database, I can also see why some kind of person authenticator is needed for country like India. I sat through UIDAI architects presentations, and from what I could tell that substantial thought was given to design. So while I maintain skepticism for such database, I also believe India needs some way authenticate various transactions (monetary or otherwise). SSN is a joke, at least Aadhaar was given substantial thought.

[akudha]

someone gets to work to find a loophole and profit

Please - this is pretty much how it works everywhere, nothing unique to India.

Why do you think lawyers, accountants etc in the corporate world get paid so much? Do you remember the U.S president saying avoiding federal taxes makes him smart?

the culture which celebrates corruption

What are you basing this on? There is no question there is rampant corruption, but saying the culture celebrates it is taking it a bit far

[JumpCrisscross]

> avoiding federal taxes makes him smart?

I avoid taxes. I contribute to my IRA, donate to charities and deduct my home office space. What I don’t do is evade taxes by not declaring income.

[noufalibrahim]

While this is true, the primary engine of corruption is the government and its agencies. Officials soliciting bribes to move paperwork forward, kickbacks to land projects etc.

An honest assault on corruption should target the government and parties rather than individual citizens. The work in that department seems to be going the other way though. e.g. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-danger-of-elector...

[wtmt]

If your solution for corruption at higher levels is to make a billion (or hundreds of million, since we now know that there are ghost entries in the Aadhaar database too) people suffer, not have access to food, die of starvation, not get their pensions, etc., then it's a useless solution that has no place anywhere in the world, more so in a democracy!

[Aeolun]

Giving something substantial thought does not necessarily guarantee that the thought was any good though.

[denzil_correa]

You can't fix one problem to create other ones.

[sbmthakur]

May I know why this comment is flagged?

[jace]

You seem to have sat through a presentation on Aadhaar. Have you sat through any presentations on corruption? On what basis are you making comparisons with other parts of the world?