Linking Aadhaar with welfare schemes has left some of India's poor hungry

Aadhaar fails to eliminate the obstacles between the deprived and their entitlements

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has over the last few years been vocal about his dream of a ‘New India’ and the ‘revolution’ of Aadhaar. Subscribing to this privileged worldview, the majority judgement authored by Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri upheld that linking of Aadhaar with welfare schemes for administering subsidies for the poor was a ‘legitimate exercise’.

To the worries of massive exclusion, and anxieties of a considerable population of underprivileged lives being adversely affected by such a serious decision, the judgment was explicitly disempowering, as it stated, “Lot of people who will benefit due to inclusion cannot be denied due to