(23.April 2013) Speaking at the Center for Global Development in Washington, he was describing India’s remarkable Unique Identification (UID) project, also called Aadhaar, which he is leading.

Nilekani explained that since the program began in 2010, more than 300 million Indians have acquired a unique ID number associated with 12 biometric markers — 10 fingerprints and two iris scans. (Collecting that much data for each enrollee minimizes errors.) At today’s stunning rate of progress, reaching the goal of covering India’s population of 1.2 billion will take less than five years. The audience listened admiringly, and asked not a single hostile question.