Thumbs up to Aadhaar

At a traders’ conference in New Delhi, Ajay Pandey, chief executive of Unique Identification Authority of India, made a speech about how Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS) could be a good payment solution for traders. Underlining the low cost and easy-to-use nature of AEPS, Pandey said all one required was the Aadhaar number and fingerprint; there was no need for a separate PIN to access the bank account. “Your fingerprint is your PIN,” he said. Praveen Khandelwal of the Confederation of All India Traders, who took the microphone after Pandey, brought the house down when he said with a straight face, “Kuch bhi karo, apna angootha toh bacha ke rakhna padega (You have to keep your thumb safe at any cost).”