Aadhaar
Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and ex-CEO of Infosys, was one of the guest speakers at a tech symposium at my office earlier today. The topic of his talk was not technology, rather, it was about the Aadhaar card initiative that he drives. He started with the reason behind the need for such a card: unique proof of identity that can’t be duplicated . He pointed if you have such a non-duplicatable ID, a lot of systems can be built on top of that. So no, this card isn’t just about getting subsidies on that gas cylinder or for use as a KYC proof. A lot more possibilities exist, but more on that later. So why not build on top of an existing ID system? Like the passport or PAN card? 1) Those can (and have been) forged. If you try and build a database where some entries are already suspect, nobody knows which part of it to trust! 2) Most people have nothing to prove their identity anyway, not even birth certificates. Hence biom...