One of the most significant ICT applications in the world is being pioneered in India: the Unique Identifier. “What we are creating is as important as a road,” said Nandan M. Nilekani, the billionaire software mogul whom the government has tapped to create India’s identity database. “It is a road that in some sense connects every individual to the state.” For its proponents, the 12-digit ID is an ingenious solution to a particularly bedeviling problem.