The government's ambitious unique identity project aiming to give a 16-digit number to all citizens of the country was today renamed Aadhaar and its new logo unveiled. "UID itself is very confusing. Some people call it DUI, somebody calls it IUD and so forth. So it was getting a little difficult to explain all this various permutations, combinations of this acronym," said Nandan Nilekani, the chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)

"Therefore, we wanted a name that could effectively communicate its transformational potential and its promise to residents. Something that had a national appeal, that could be recognised across the country, and that could resonate in different languages, and easy to remember and speak," he said.