Citizens of India remember not ban ordered by prime minister Narendra Modi on November 8, 2016, at 8 pm, when Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes were invalidated without any warning. It was a demonetisation drive without parallel. Even the cabinet was not kept in the loop . Hardly two months time was given for exchange of over 86% of the currency. No time was given nor reasons explained for the secrecy that preceded the midnight operation on November 8,2016. Later it was explained as a means to hit black money but facts spoke for themselves as more than 99% of the currency that were declared void returned to the country\u2019s banks in subsequent weeks, according to a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report. The figures suggest prime minister Narendra Modi\u2019s demonetisation policy, which likely wiped at least 1% from the country\u2019s GDP and cost at least 1.5m jobs, failed to wipe significant hordes of unaccounted wealth from the Indian economy- a key rationale for the move. BJP leader late Manohar Parrikar then defence minster laced it with nationalistic fervour by terming it as a \u2018surgical strike\u2019 against black money and terror funding. Also tragically, within one month of the 2016 demonetisation, 82 people died according to a detailed list compiled by Catch News. By the end of December 2016, political opposition leaders claimed that over 100 people had died due to demonetisation. When Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes were withdrawn and declared invalid, all citizens suffered. The drive against black money proved futile and stories of duplicity were galore. Many articles said the drive was only to facilitate the coteries of crony capitalists. The government had to recycle back Rs. 500 note and introduced Rs.2000 note. However, even from the beginning the Rs. 2000 note was a misfit because no average Indian could practically use it for ordinary purchases. In a surprise decision, the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) stopped the circulation of Rs 2,000 note. RBI has ordered that Rs.2000 notes be exchanged on or before September 30, 2023 This is a far cry from the 2016 demonetisation when no time was given for exchange of currency of such huge magnitude. However, it is to be noted that printing of Rs 2,000 note stopped way back in the year 2018. An RTI reply recently disclosed that no new Rs 2,000 denomination currency notes were printed during 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22. Former union finance minister P.C. Chidambaram has likened the recent withdrawal of Rs. 2000 note as another fool\u2019s errand. Whatever is the basis for Chidambaram\u2019s analysis, it appears that the surprise withdrawal of Rs. 2000 note indicates facilitation of exchange for those who were able to hoard the currency. He said Rs. 2000 note is not used by people but those who are hiding incomes. Another opposition leader termed the government decision as typical of first act and think later. The Rs. 2000 note withdrawal is also a slap in the face of the very government that made much of \u2018surgical strike\u2019 against black money and terror funding. Instead, the second \u2018surgical strike\u2019 as BJP leader Sushil Modi described, will undoubtedly result in ultimate harassment on at the other end of the political spectrum who want to exchange the note as they will have to visit banks many times and if they deposit it will also attract the attention of the ED or IT authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Citizens of India remember not ban ordered by prime minister Narendra Modi on November 8, 2016, at 8 pm, when Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes were invalidated without any warning. It was a demonetisation drive without parallel. Even the cabinet was not kept in the loop . Hardly two months time was given for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-349643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}