Nandan Nilekani, Chairman, UIDAI will deliver the Tarkunde Memorial Foundation lecture in New Delhi on November 23.

In the past, the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has been very critical of the UIDAI project and unequivocally opposed the project on grounds of being an unacceptable intrusion by the State into citizen's right to privacy, as having questionable motives and constituting a serious threat to human rights, amongst other reasons. The PUCL has also opposed UIDAI as being part of a larger corporate-centric and driven project seeking to push technocratic solution to critical issues of governance failures which cannot be rectified by UIDAI.

"The PUCL would like to clarify that it did not have any role or knowledge in the selection by the Tarkunde Memorial Foundation of Mr Nandan Nilekani as the speaker. The PUCL reiterates its opposition to the UID."

PUCL has lent its name to the Tarkunde Memorial Foundation.