VERY Short Story 3: Twin

She could hear the baby laugh. It was the middle of the night. Usually the baby is fast asleep. She always thought that her baby was the cutest one who doesn't bother mommy with erratic sleep routine. 

He has just learnt to speak mono syllables and goes on and on with his blabbers. 

She was curious. She was amused. She walked on tip toe and took a peek into his room. She was surprised to see her baby playing. He was enjoying the darkness like never before.She picked him up and snuggled him. 

He smiled and said 'Bhai'.

She was shocked to hear him say that and her memory rushed back to that day when he was born. He was not alone there was a twin but he was still born!

VERY Short Story 2: Its that day!

Its been itching inside his head,since morning. He has forgotten something.Something really important. Something meaningful had happened today,which he cannot remember. All morning his wife and son had been staring towards him. He knew right away something was not right.

In office he could not focus on work. Made lots of mistakes performing the simplest of tasks.It was strange that unlike other days people didn't get offended by his lack of interest in work. Something was not right.

He took off early from the office. Parked his car and dashed into his favorite pub to grab a beer. The alcohol didn't help his grey cells either. The more he consumed it,the more miserable he became. There were lots of calls from his wife and son.He decided not to answer them. He knew something was not right.

Reluctantly he drove back home and pushed his way through the stairs. He knew that the moment he opened the door there may be a catastrophic event waiting to happen...It might tear his world apart. A world he put together bit by bit over the past 40 years.

He unlocked the key and opened the door.There was a loud bang followed by a clatter...

His family and office colleagues were clapping to wish him a very happy 40th birthday!

VERY Short Story 1: The call of the dead

He could see her walk past the moss covered tree. Like a moth attracted towards light he started following her. She walked through the misty road up the mountain,through the misty greenery of the rainy vegetation that adorned the mountain. All he could see was a familiar motion in front of him,a walk which he saw everyday.She was moving away into the clouds. He ran towards her......

Suddenly he remembered that day when he saw her for the last time. He woke up from the trance to realize that he was standing on the edge of the cliff. 

He wandered if this meant something....if she was calling her!

Aadhar or UID

In the last few weeks Aadhar or UID project is under lots of scrutiny. The question today is “to be or not to be” a part of this process. Although I am not a big fan of Aadhar card but some where I feel it’s very important to have a UID number allocated to all legitimate citizen of India. 

Let’s look at this from technical perspective. We need to have a centralized database for citizen of India and UID will be the primary key of that database. So the question is what will happen to PAN Card, Voters Id card, Passport etc? The secondary question is how this UID can be linked with other services used by the citizen like telephone, internet, cooking gas etc?

The solutions to these questions can be arrived by a two step process:

1) Existing Citizens

The government should first create a web site(secured) where people can voluntarily declare their PAN/PASSPORT/VOTER CARD details through online registration. For rural sector they can do the same through BDO offices and Panchayats. Once these data is filled then government should verify the data(along with citizenship authentication) and issue an UID to the user(online).

Once this is done the user can declare his birth certificate number/ marriage registration / phone / bank / cooking gas details in the same site. Since every facility is attached with identification document which is collected by the service provider so the government can ask the service provider to link those accounts with this UID.

Thus at the end of the process all the physical entities will become attached with UID of the person. Off course this will require verification and validation but atleast most documents would become traceable.

The last step should be voluntary collection of biometrics and adding them against this UID. This process should take huge time considering the population of India.

2) New Citizens

The government should ensure that all person born after a certain date should get an UID along with birth certificate so that when the person grows up all his documents can automatically be linked to his UID.This will ensure that after 50 years or so all Indian citizen will be covered under UID. This will also solve the citizenship issue.

The simplified case study diagram should look like this. Although in real life it will be more complex matrix.

This is a simplified solution to a big problem. Data collation and data mining will be a huge part of this project but then again if there is a will then there is always away out. This process will take time but will ensure that all of us have UID and we become accountable.