Currency Demonetisation and Future course of Indian Economy

[manjgu]

500 has shown up in ATM;s in delhi.. the ATM is dispensing one 2000 note for other bank debit cards and 2000+500 for self bank debit cards.

[Philip]

Too little too late.The extreme firefighting measures being adopted now should've been in place right front he start.It has been a colossal cock-up by the team advising and executing Mr.Modi's grand vision of a cashless,less corrupt society. The blame game is on with the usual;suspects,Opposition,criminals,media,rumour-mongers,etc.,etc., being held responsible. However ,ordinary citizens who've been affected will sum up the exercise and weigh the pros and cons in the balance. The problem lies not with big sharks but with the poorest of the poor,who simply cannot join the cyber-society way of doing things because they are either illiterate,too old,or do not have the infrastructure available at hand to join it.
Even the news reports of lakhs of tribals,estate workers ,etc. due to open accts. will not happen overnight.

There are now rumours of a vast no. of retired Income Tax officials being press-ganged for the second phase of "Operation Demon." Post Phase 1 ,the return of the "Raid Raj"!

[Manish_Sharma]

Gshankar ji, by cheque you can withdraw upto 24,000/- Rs. there is no problem in that.

provided the branch has enough cash.

They have enough cash, if you check all the banks have long long queues for depositing but not for withdrawing...

Anyway at the most by 5 December all the 2 lac 20thousand ATMs will be recalibrated and filled up, while all the 1.25 lakh banks will have 500 + 2000 rupee notes.

[Vikas]

Yesterday tomatoes were selling for Rs 10 per kilo in Richmond BLR . Did hoarding by BM traders have such a significant impact on prices ?

All this news of vegetables selling for cut rate prices is actually sad. Vegetables are perishable, so if cash isn't flowing they will unfortunately bear the brunt of price cuts. I don't want to price drops here. I want to see price drops in non-perishables which are being hoarded, like dal.

To be fair, Veggie prices had come down even before Demonetisation. I was buying tomatoes for Rs.8/kg from reliance fresh and Cauliflower for 12 ea.

[madhu]

All the banks have got a new instruction (was there before also only annexure was added) to inform any suspicious persons details. The manager has to just give any of his KYC and reason. However most of the mangers do not want to get into any trouble so they are not giving all details.
All JDY is a big leak. Currently black to white (new notes) are running at 10%~15% charge. Most of the RE brokers are have shifted from RE to BM conversion.
I am still not sure how leak through JDY is getting handled?

[Manish_P]

They have enough cash, if you check all the banks have long long queues for depositing but not for withdrawing...

That is true but the deposits are mostly happening in the old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes

Do the banks have enough cash in new notes ?

In my personal experience, some do and many don't. The situation (reduction in lines for withdrawal) is improving slowly and a lot of that is due to more frugal spending.

My personal banker indicated that the public sector banks are on the priority list for the new notes, followed by the private sector banks. Again there the order is public sector banks in the metros, followed by tier 1, then tier 2, and so on. Don't know how much truth is there in his statement.

[Manish_Sharma]

There are now rumours of a vast no. of retired Income Tax officials being press-ganged for the second phase of "Operation Demon." Post Phase 1 ,the return of the "Raid Raj"!

Pray who will be raided? those ... let me use your words:

The problem lies not with big sharks but with the poorest of the poor,who simply cannot join the cyber-society way of doing things because they are either illiterate,too old,or do not have the infrastructure available at hand to join it.

Are these poorest of poors, illiterate & too olds going to be raided?

Or the politicos, the tax stealing entitlment-drunk businessmen, the hawala operators, dawoods sisters and nephews who hold big cash for his mafia and terrorism activities, those who made money getting commision from foreign arms? Let them raid the hell out of these jerks.

If I live swilling expensive scotch, foreign holidays, luxury cars and never worried about these poorest of poor then why suddenly should i start feeling pain about them? About fearing that these "poorest of poor" might be victims of "raids" by IT

To steal the phrase from LCA thread "....something doesn't compute..."

[habal]

provided the branch has enough cash.

They have enough cash, if you check all the banks have long long queues for depositing but not for withdrawing...

Anyway at the most by 5 December all the 2 lac 20thousand ATMs will be recalibrated and filled up, while all the 1.25 lakh banks will have 500 + 2000 rupee notes.

the problem is Rs. 100 notes, which has genuine shortage. So if you want to withdraw 3900 from a bank, then you will get a lot of glares.

Now if you want to withdraw 4000, then you will get many smiles and 2 notes. Now it is your time to glare.

[Marten]

All the banks have got a new instruction (was there before also only annexure was added) to inform any suspicious persons details. The manager has to just give any of his KYC and reason. However most of the mangers do not want to get into any trouble so they are not giving all details.
All JDY is a big leak. Currently black to white (new notes) are running at 10%~15% charge. Most of the RE brokers are have shifted from RE to BM conversion.
I am still not sure how leak through JDY is getting handled?

It would be a simple query for CPC! Imagine teams of DBAs running queries only based on the IDs and trying to correlate what ID matches which, and then trying to establish whether one of them is under the income bracket or not. It is not difficult to do this much. They already can track bank accounts and cash deposits. For those that are out of the tax net, how precisely they intend to track misuse is a mystery. I mean, anyone claiming benefits such as a cheaper gas cylinder and then depositing 2 lacs in November would obviously be a candidate for some love even if the PM said otherwise.

Bank managers are best placed to view the depositors and decide if they are shady. Am sure they have developed simple super powers over the past few years.

[habal]

Another statistic is something I was thinking about.

If in 10 days of demonitisation, around 10% of the old currency notes have been replaced by new ones.

now in 50 days, we can expect 50% at best. So this is their intended target. And thus a shortage of new curreny notes is expected to remain in the system. Esp new 500 notes.

2K notes for some reason will be available in plenty due to low demand.

[Yagnasri]

Present task is to ensure that the work set out to be done till 30th December is done properly. That itself is a tremendous task. NM already created a huge set of scumbags as mortal enemies. Just consolidate and pass on the benefits to the poor people etc.

[Sachin]

SC refuses to stay demonetisation proceedings in other courts
Has any one really thought about, what can the judiciary do in this case (of demonetisation)? I am more interested because the common people have all managed to weather the storm and have come out. The next in line are the Co.Op banks and it is now pretty much known that this is where the not-so-common men have stuffed their wealth. Just worrying about a scenario when lots of anti-GoI verdicts come in by the time it decides to go hammer & tongs against the Co.Op banks and their "unknown" patrons. That would be indeed #BlowToModi.

[Paul]

Modi can keep running the show thru an ordinance. Should be possible.

[Sachin]

Modi can keep running the show thru an ordinance. Should be possible.

In previous instance, the ordinance came in first (before the drive started). Don't know if that has happened this time around.

[Gus]

SC refuses to stay demonetisation proceedings in other courts
Has any one really thought about, what can the judiciary do in this case (of demonetisation)?

I really don't think anything will happen. Modi knows they are bluffing and will not blink. He cannot give in on the nominations issue without getting something to further his agenda on njac.

What is the SC going to do - pass an order? if modi refuses, then what? dismiss the govt? and modi gets elected back, then what?

SC won't push this to that level, but they might harangue and hector about the poor...

basically repeat the lines of diggy raja, kejri, hackthoory etc. If that's the company the SC wants to keep, it is their loss.

[Chandragupta]

I mean, anyone claiming benefits such as a cheaper gas cylinder and then depositing 2 lacs in November would obviously be a candidate for some love even if the PM said otherwise.

I can only imagine how many people would be doing so especially in the lower middle income bracket, who make enough to not require subsidies but claim them anyway. Do you think it is a good idea to have tax raids on such people for depositing 2 lakh?

NaMo will be shooting himself in the foot if the IT starts raiding such people. All the opposition then has to do is to line such people up and parade them down the Rajpath - a small shopkeeper in say, UP or Bihar who got raided for having deposited 4 lakh in his account while Mallya & Reddy make merry. It doesn't have to make sense (the opposition rarely does) but why step on a landmine?

What I'm afraid of is Congi moles in the IT department who harass common people and let the big sharks go.

[Sachin]

In the mean while, found this on the internet...

The tussle between the Co.Op banks and RBI it seems is not new. This started at the time of MMS as PM. The RBI directed all Co.Op banks to work as per its directions. Co.Op banks of four states (one of them Kerala); flatly refused. This went to the court. Kerala based Co.Op banks put up an argument that "Co.Op societies are just an association of people" who are governed by the state's co-operative society laws. The court accepted this argument and asked RBI to pull back. Now if the same Co.Op banks go to the court and whine that RBI is not dealing them the way they deal with banks; their own earlier argument ("just an association of people..saaar") will be used to scuttle their demands. The RBI would say that since they are just an "just an association of people", it would only give the same benefits which it gives to an individual person .

[Sicanta]

I mean, anyone claiming benefits such as a cheaper gas cylinder and then depositing 2 lacs in November would obviously be a candidate for some love even if the PM said otherwise.

I can only imagine how many people would be doing so especially in the lower middle income bracket, who make enough to not require subsidies but claim them anyway. Do you think it is a good idea to have tax raids on such people for depositing 2 lakh?

NaMo will be shooting himself in the foot if the IT starts raiding such people. All the opposition then has to do is to line such people up and parade them down the Rajpath - a small shopkeeper in say, UP or Bihar who got raided for having deposited 4 lakh in his account while Mallya & Reddy make merry. It doesn't have to make sense (the opposition rarely does) but why step on a landmine?

What I'm afraid of is Congi moles in the IT department who harass common people and let the big sharks go.

For someone who bought his own choices to occupy key bureaucratic positions and purged the suspected elements,we need not worry about him being caught unawares by some babus in IT Department.

[Chandragupta]

I can only imagine how many people would be doing so especially in the lower middle income bracket, who make enough to not require subsidies but claim them anyway. Do you think it is a good idea to have tax raids on such people for depositing 2 lakh?

NaMo will be shooting himself in the foot if the IT starts raiding such people. All the opposition then has to do is to line such people up and parade them down the Rajpath - a small shopkeeper in say, UP or Bihar who got raided for having deposited 4 lakh in his account while Mallya & Reddy make merry. It doesn't have to make sense (the opposition rarely does) but why step on a landmine?

What I'm afraid of is Congi moles in the IT department who harass common people and let the big sharks go.

For someone who bought his own choices to occupy key bureaucratic positions and purged the suspected elements,we need not worry about him being caught unawares by some babus in IT Department.

Not sure about this part. He has not exactly done a 'purge', many Congi baboon still have their designations. That's one complaint many have shared here on BRF.

[chetak]

received by email

Indian Currency Printers

2 weeks ago

The recent decision to discontinue the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes and introduce the Rs 2000 notes was taken with a view to curbing financing of terrorism through the proceeds of Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) and use of such funds for subversive activities such as espionage, smuggling of arms, drugs and other contrabands into India, and for eliminating Black Money which casts a long shadow of parallel economy on our real economy. However, are our new currency notes printed with the involvement of the same blacklisted companies that infact were the source of fake notes to Pakistan in the first place?

RBI Rocked & Parliament Shocked

Sometime during 2009-10 CBI raided some 70-odd branches of various banks on the India-Nepal border from where counterfeit currency racket was unearthed. The officials of these branches told CBI that they had got these notes from RBI which led CBI to raid the vaults of RBI. What CBI found in the vaults of RBI were huge cache of counterfeit Indian currency lying in the denomination of 500 and 1000, the same counterfeit currency smuggled by the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI into India. The question was how did these fake currency landed in the vaults of RBI?

Later in 2010 the Committee on Public Undertakings (COPU), an Indian Parliamentary committee was shocked to find out that the Government had outsourced the printing of Rs 1 lakh crore of currency notes to US, UK and Germany putting the “entire economic sovereignty (of the country) at stake”.

The 3 companies to whom the Indian currency printing was outsourced are American Banknote Company (USA), Thomas De La Rue (UK) and Giesecke and Devrient Consortium (Germany).

Following the scandal the Reserve Bank sent a senior official on a fact-finding mission to De La Rue‘s printing plant in Hampshire, UK. RBI which imports 95% of its security paper requirements and which is believed to account for up to a third of De la Rue’s profits excluded De la Rue from new contracts. De La Rue was blacklisted by the government with 2000 metric tonnes of its paper lying unused at printing presses and godowns. It was a disaster and De la Rue’s CEO James Hussey who is the godson of the Queen of England herself quit the company mysteriously. De la Rue’s shares tanked and it almost went bankrupt losing one of its most valuable customer – RBI. Its French rival Oberthur approached De la Rue with a bid to takeover the company which was fought back.

The complaints sent to the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) by ‘unnamed officers of the Ministry of Finance’ mentioned other companies too. These include French firm Arjo Wiggins, Crane AB of USA and Louisenthal, Germany. However as recently as January 2015 the Home Ministry barred the German company, Louisenthal, from selling bank note paper to the RBI after it discovered that the firm was also selling raw notes to Pakistan.

So who are these currency printers and how did they end up printing currency notes for the Indian government? How did the company from getting blacklisted to a point of bankruptcy rose to its feet and is preparing to enter the Indian market again? Most importantly why is it that the common Indian know nothing about it? Here is a brief story of these Money Makers.

The Secret World of Money Makers

The high-security currency printing and technology business is dominated by a few Western-European companies. In his book Money Makers – The Secret World Of Banknote Printing author Klaus Bender offers a detailed view of the banknote industry and its modus operandi by removing the industry’s carefully imposed shroud of secrecy. The only previous attempt to reveal this story was published in 1983 by an American author, Terry Bloom in his book “The Brotherhood of Money – The Secret World of Banknote Printers”. The entire edition of that book was bought up – straight from the printing presses – by two prominent representatives of the industry to prevent the public from getting an inside view of the business.

The four major segments in the currency business are paper, printing presses, note accessories, inks and lastly integrators who provide total, end-to-end currency printing services. It is believed these businesses are tightly run by not more than a dozen companies operating out of Europe. These companies are believed to be operating since the 15th century. De la Rue’s history goes even further back to the company’s plant near Bath which has been a mill operating for 1,000 years.

De la Rue was the official Crown Agent of the British Empire who still prints banknotes for the Bank of England. Crown Agents ran the day-today affairs of the Empire. In his book Managing the British Empire: The Crown Agents author David Sunderland explains how the Crown Agents printed the stamps and banknotes of the colonies; provided technical, engineering, and financial services; served as private bankers to the colonial monetary authorities, government officials, and heads of state; served as arms procurers, quartermasters, and paymasters for the colonial armies. In effect, Crown Agents administered the British Empire, which at one point in the 19th Century, encompassed over 300 colonies and nominally “independent countries” allied to the British Crown.

Later the Crown Agents’ office was set up, under the supervision of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in 1831 to consolidate the activities previously undertaken by a number of agents of varying efficiency and probity. This was done to properly manage the budding Industrial Revolution that destroyed the traditional Indian markets and economy.

The first colony allowed to issue government notes was Mauritius, which in 1849 began to distribute rupee notes. No other colony was permitted to follow its lead until 1884. Colonies were required to obtain notes from the Agents, who passed orders onto the printing firm De la Rue.

As per official history the bank note printing in India started in 1928 with the establishment of India Security Press at Nashik by Government of India. Until the commissioning of Nashik Press the Indian Currency Notes were printed from Thomas De La Rue Giori of United Kingdom.

Even after Independence, for 50 years, Free India printed its rupees on machines bought from De La Rue Giori, run by the Swiss family Giori and till recently said to control 90 per cent of the banknote printing business. But than something happened at the closing of the 20th century that changed everything.

On 24 December 1999 Indian Airlines Flight 814 also known as IC 814 was hijacked by gunmen shortly after it entered Indian airspace. Hijackers ordered the aircraft to be flown to several locations. After touching down in Amritsar, Lahore and Dubai, the hijackers finally forced the aircraft to land in Kandahar, Afghanistan, which at the time was controlled by the Taliban. For those of you who are not aware of the incident remember the Ajay Devgan starrer action thriller Zameen, which was based on this incident.

What was not shown in the film however and what is not known to many still is that there was a mystery man on that flight. His name is Roberto Giori and he was the owner of De la Rue who controlled 90% of the world’s currency-printing business. The 50-year-old Giori, who holds dual Swiss and Italian nationality, is one of Switzerland’s richest men. Switzerland sent a special envoy to the airport to deal with the abduction of its currency king. It also put pressure on New Delhi to come to a solution that ensured their safe release.

Two days after the hijack, on Sunday, 26 December, the Swiss Foreign Minister, Mr. Joseph Deiss, had a long telephone conversation with his Indian counterpart, Mr. Jaswant Singh, the Swiss press had reported. The Swiss Government set up a separate cell in the capital Berne to deal with the crisis and had sent special envoy, Mr. Hans Stalder, to Kandahar who regularly reported back to Berne. According to the Repubblica and Corriere Della Sera newspapers, ever since his return to Switzerland by a special plane, Mr. Roberto Giori has been under the protection of the Swiss Government.

But there is a very important missing piece to this story. It is believed that a ransom was paid by the Indian Government for the safe release of Roberto Giori; this issue has been voiced not just from political sections but also from Intelligence. This issue is a hot potato for both the Congress and BJP and is likely to boil parliament in the near future.

Whatever be the case the motive for the hijacking was reported to be to secure the release of terrorists held in Indian prisons. The hostage crisis lasted for seven days and ended after India agreed to release three militants – Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Maulana Masood Azhar. These militants have since been implicated in other terrorist actions including the Mumbai terror attacks.

While the release of terrorists maybe one of the motive for hijacking the plane, there are bigger things at stake here than is usually understood. Roberto Giori was not an ordinary man not even an ordinary VVIP. He was the owner of the company that has been printing currency notes for more than 150 countries since centuries. And it has a dark history in each and every country that it operated in. We mention few instances here for our readers to understand the gravity of the situation and encourage you to study others.

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan President was starved of currency before he was militarily overthrown. He was unable to pay his soldiers. The contract for printing the banknotes was given to De La Rue but they were not delivered until it was too late.

With the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the break-up of Soviet Union, many newly independent countries sprang up overnight. One such country was Chechnya (formerly part of the Soviet Union) who signed a secret deal to print passports and banknotes with De la Rue. Two brothers Ruslan and Nazerbeg Utsiev were sent to conclude the deal. Apart from printing passports and banknotes they were also trying to secure 2000 ground-to-air Stinger missiles from Britain, Russia’s age old arch-enemy. The KGB was tipped-off and soon two Armenian hitmen were on their way from Los Angeles to kill both the brothers and the deals. Both the brother were found dead soon after.

The brothers and the deals were dead but De la Rue survived. All was well until in 2010 the Parliament Committee was rocked with the scandal and De la Rue with other companies were blacklisted from operating in India and almost went bankrupt. This brings us to the recent demonetization move.

Is De la Rue involved in the printing of the new Rs 2000 notes?

As per a recent report by Economic Times,

The notes were largely printed at Mysuru under utmost secrecy while the paper note on which the printing was done came from Italy, Germany and London.

The printing, according to officials, began in August-September and nearly 480 million notes of Rs 2,000 denomination and an equal number of Rs 500 denomination were printed. The printing facility at Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private Ltd. (BRBNMPL) in Mysuru under Reserve Bank of India was set up with the De La Rue Giori, now KBA Giori, Switzerland.

The Hindu reported,

India imports bank note papers from European companies like Louisenthal in Germany, De la Rue in United Kingdom, Crane in Sweden and Arjo Wiggins in France and Netherlands.

India had blacklisted two European firms in 2014 amid reports by security agencies that the security features, which come embossed on bank note paper, were compromised and given away to Pakistan.

There are even plans to circulate plastic or semi-plastic Rs 10 notes in place of the paper ones:

The secretive Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudra Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the RBI, that prints notes has selected four entities – UK-based De La Rue, Australia’s Innovia, Munich-based Giesecke & Devrient and Swiss company Landquart – to supply three kinds of plastic notes.

De La Rue already supplies paper notes to India but has been rattled by the controversy over the recent Panama leaks. It has recently been contracted to supply polymer note making technology to China and plans to make pure polymer notes for India too.

But the ban was lifted and the companies were removed from the blacklist. Why? Here is the reason given for the lifting of the ban.

“These companies are in the business for 150 years; they will not hamper their trade by passing on information of one country to another. Some of these firms even print currency notes for smaller countries. After the investigations, it was found that the two firms had not compromised the security features and the ban was lifted,” said the official.

However the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) of UK itself in their inquiry had uncovered that a number of De la Rue employees had deliberately falsified certain paper specification test certificates for some of its 150 clients. Recently it was also revealed in the Panama Papers that De la Rue paid out a 15% commission to a New Delhi businessmen to secure contracts from Reserve Bank of India. There are also reports that De la Rue paid £40m in settlement to the RBI for issues in production of paper notes.

Even so after all this it has been given clearance and there are even plans in discussion with De la Rue for setting up of a security paper mill and a research and development centre of identity software in Madhya Pradesh. Martin Sutherland the new CEO of De la Rue in an interview titled Giving Make in India the Currency to Succeed with India Investment Journal said that under the UK-India Defence & International Security Partnership Agreement which was signed in November 2015, De La Rue is committed to supporting both governments on the subject of counterfeiting under this agreement.

However there has been no official announcement made regarding the lifting of the ban on De la Rue and its removal from the blacklist apart from the news report. De la Rue that almost went bankrupt after losing RBI contracts reported a whopping 33.33% rise in its shares in the last six months.

The question that still need to be answered is; are the new Indian currency notes printed with the involvement of blacklisted Crown Agent companies who supplied and were the source of fake notes for Pakistan at the expense of India’s National Security?

[Manish_Sharma]

the problem is Rs. 100 notes, which has genuine shortage. So if you want to withdraw 3900 from a bank, then you will get a lot of glares.

Now if you want to withdraw 4000, then you will get many smiles and 2 notes. Now it is your time to glare.

I did draw on monday 24,000/- Rs. and got all in Rs. 2000/- notes. I saw it as no problem. Buying groceries etc. I easily got the change as my bill was 3300/- plus.

There cannot be a shortage of 100s as their are as many 100s in desh as there was on 9th november, and the nation was managing fine with them them. The function performed by 500/- and 1000/- notes is being taken over by 2000/- Rupee notes. If you see the whole thing has been planned and executed like a work of art.

From 9th to 20th November there were no 500/- rupee notes, now they have started arriving and by 5th of december there'd be plentiful all over.

Otherwise you'd not have seen the C-voter poll with 80% approval for NaMo.

[manjgu]

no Q at HDFC bank for deposits..cash finish by 11 am since now bank customers are withdrawing with cheques. Exchange of notes is 0 now. i dont know how people without a/c will get money. Will have to open a/c and deposit and withdraw

[amit]

Finally some quantitative analysis of "poor suffering due to demonitisation".

Demonetisation: Are the poor really suffering?

This conclusion then suggests that the long queues seen stem from two sections of the population: (i) people from the top half of the country’s income distribution, i.e. the richer folks, who want to exchange their honestly earned savings for new currency; and (ii) people who are acting as agents for the dishonest. The significant decrease in the queues after the government decided to use indelible ink to identify people that have exchanged their currency suggests large presence of the second category of people.

With respect to the difficulties that the country’s poor are likely to face till 30 December, note that around seven weeks of earnings are left before the deadline for depositing the demonetized notes. So, based on the estimates provided in the adjoining table, the maximum cash earnings of the bottom half would be around Rs8,000. Even if we suppose that they will be paid entirely using old currency till December, at most two more visits to the local bank or the local post office would suffice to deposit their old currency. Of course, it is quite likely that these workers refuse to accept their wage in old currency. In that case, they would not need to make the visit at all. As workers in this income category are likely to have been underemployed sometime in the past, they would have a bank account to receive Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act payments. Therefore, future wage payments can be made via cheque by honest employers. In this case, such workers may have to visit the bank once to encash the cheque.

[Manish_Sharma]

Another statistic is something I was thinking about.

Chetak saar had put in a chart few pages back about until 18th of november.

That was 5+ lakh crores deposited
1.01 lakh crore new notes withdrawn
50 thousand crores exchanged

That means by 18th of November people had already returned 60% of old 500+1000 notes.

While 1 lakh 50 thousand crores was poured back in the hands of citizens. That was amidst the chaos and without ATMs. Now 1 lakh ATMs have been recalibrated, and 500/- have also entered.

My guess is that the rest of 5-6 lakh crores will enter the hands of citizens by 5th of december, at the most 10th.

Yesterday Jaitley had said in speech that next week will be dedicated intensely to grameen areas. So there too it'll be taken care of.

[Manish_Sharma]

One overly used example about court tactics world over is that, "...when you have a case already in your favour you state it calmly and sit down, while in case you don't have a strong case then you beat the table, object like a looney and create a ruckus..."

Seeing first day in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma, Ramgopal Yadav, Sharad Yadav and yechury speeches, it was clear that they were totally bankrupt and were groping for issues desperately.

That is why all this dharna and rallies are happening, the opposers know that within 3 weeks problem will be completely solved, so they're trying their level best to create a revolt and riot now.

Man of steel called Narendra Damodardas Modi isn't going to be broken with false news of deaths, President not happy etc. Nope, its a done deal and 80% citizens approve of their Chief Executive's decisiveness. BJP has won the elections, got their vote percentage up from 2 to 21% in Tripura, while ConParty fell from 44% to 1.5 %

Its a done deal, like original Chanakya serial He says "Jago Mahamantri, Pralay ka aagman ho chuka hai, aur swarg ke devta bhi uska marg nahin rok sakte.."

[vina]

Chetak saar had put in a chart few pages back about until 18th of november.

That was 5+ lakh crores deposited
1.01 lakh crore new notes withdrawn
50 thousand crores exchanged.

What was the cash balance the Banks had on Nov 8th ? You need to factor that in too. No one talks about that. Assume cash balance and assume the same 85% ratio , will be a good starting point.

[Yagnasri]

Had a meeting with the senior people involved in the matter in Mumbai and MH. The matters are improving a lot but there are also problems in between. Logistics etc are the issues.

[Rishi Verma]

Godown of salt worth rumor from chai-wala who knows a baati-chokha wala in front of CM Akhilesh residence is that:

BJP is willing to accept friendly SP win in UP elections if it results in destroying mayawati's BSP and Congress. So with Amar Singh as a go-between SP was for-warned to convert SP's substantial BM to WM before the demont news.

And that Shivpal / Akhilesh tiff was about how to convert the BM

Mayawati is pretty much destroyed and Mulayam is thankful to BJP. Congress remnants will only be found in Italy.

[yensoy]

That was 5+ lakh crores deposited
1.01 lakh crore new notes withdrawn
50 thousand crores exchanged

That means by 18th of November people had already returned 60% of old 500+1000 notes.

No, there was 14 lakh crores of 500/1000 notes in circulation, so with about 6.5 lakh crores, it's less than 50% as of 18/11. By today it would have crossed 60%, and I think it will taper off at around 80-85%.

[Gus]

Godown of salt worth rumor from chai-wala who knows a baati-chokha wala in front of CM Akhilesh residence is that:

BJP is willing to accept friendly SP win in UP elections if it results in destroying mayawati's BSP and Congress. So with Amar Singh as a go-between SP was for-warned to convert SP's substantial BM to WM before the demont news.

And that Shivpal / Akhilesh tiff was about how to convert the BM

Mayawati is pretty much destroyed and Mulayam is thankful to BJP. Congress remnants will only be found in Italy.

problem with this chaiwalla bhaiwalla profound secret stuff is...it does not pass basic logic

the SP tiff was long before demonty. it was primarily about candidate selection. if it was about converting BM, then it means they knew demonty beforehand..which is just false..

[Singha]

82000 ATMs recalibrated so far for 2000+500+100.

ofcourse neither are in plenty so far.

[kvraghav]

But our campus Citibank ATM which was dead till this Monday has started operating.happy times for people spending most of their time in cafe with laptops and their managers too.

[Manish_Sharma]

BJP is willing to accept friendly SP win in UP elections if it results in destroying mayawati's BSP and Congress.

What a BS post. Why then mulayam came to press conference begging for the time of a month or week, citing upcoming elections?

Why wouldn't BJP want destruction of all the 3 BSP, SP & congis?

Why would Amit Shah want makhhi becoming a CM of the biggest state in Bharat for the second consequtive term? Thus making him towering leader at such young age.

BJP will do very well in this election, better then all the other 3.

[Chandragupta]

Godown of salt worth rumor from chai-wala who knows a baati-chokha wala in front of CM Akhilesh residence is that:

BJP is willing to accept friendly SP win in UP elections if it results in destroying mayawati's BSP and Congress. So with Amar Singh as a go-between SP was for-warned to convert SP's substantial BM to WM before the demont news.

And that Shivpal / Akhilesh tiff was about how to convert the BM

Mayawati is pretty much destroyed and Mulayam is thankful to BJP. Congress remnants will only be found in Italy.

So Amit Shah and Modi not only saved SP's stash of BM by gladly converting it into white but also are so fond of Netaji that they will blissfully destroy BJP's chances in UP, despite having a clear lead and a golden chance to make a majority government in the biggest state of India, by 'gifting' it to SP just to win Netaji's gratitude. Did you chai wala also tell you when is Modi ji stepping down to offer Netaji the PM's gaddi?

Must be some really high quality weed.

[Rishi Verma]

BJP is willing to accept friendly SP win in UP elections if it results in destroying mayawati's BSP and Congress.

What a BS post. Why then mulayam came to press conference begging for the time of a month or week, citing upcoming elections?

Saar read the first sentence, I was reported a rumor albeit from deep-throat. Not that I believe it.

[Vikas]

So all this money that Banks have accumulated, Would it not be out of bank vaults as soon as Govt lift restrictions on withdrawing money. Why do we think that Banks would be flush with Money for a long time, at the most I see this money with banks maybe till mid of next year while things settle down. Remember most of the money in the banks is White and cash economy is not going to disappear just because some notes were demonetized.
Most of the folks I talk to believe that this is a minor nuisance which they are willing to suffer for nation and things will go back to BAU come January. This is not end of Cash economy as we know it.

[prahaar]

Is it possible to put a high ceiling limit on withdrawing money in cash form (for a longer period)?

[Dileep]

It would be a simple query for CPC! Imagine teams of DBAs running queries only based on the IDs and trying to correlate what ID matches which.. blah blah blah

You are so.. 2010. Two words. BIG DATA.

[Sachin]

So all this money that Banks have accumulated, Would it not be out of bank vaults as soon as Govt lift restrictions on withdrawing money.

And perhaps since the larger denomination notes are in short supply, larger value transactions may have to be done through the bank. And the current hoarded black money evaporating, people interested in that would have to start from scratch. I too feel that it would be ages for a 100% cash free transaction system to come back. And I also feel that the black money would also start piling up, the moment the old worthies start taking bribes. But with the FICN and unaccounted money out of the system, this would take some time to reach the mess levels of today.

[rahulm]

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/ ... 8-4391208/

Have the Uber patriots, the voice, champions and saviours of the poor found new money to organise protests? Probably, just bluster

Today, finally gave in to mums pleadings to exchange her princely hoard of 25k in old notes and accompanied her to SBI in Pune.

Q of around 30 people at the ATM. Well behaved and patient.

Q of 80 ish to exchange. Mum went to a specially reserved counter for senior citizens. Wonly 3 people in the Q. No deposit or withdrawal,slips necessary. No forms either. Swiped her Dbit card at the counter, lady accepted and counted mum's money, issued a thermal,paper receipt, Mum was allowed to withdraw 9000. swiped for withdrawal. 4 x 2000 and 10 x 100. Counter aunty politely refused mum's request for more 100's. all over and done in 5 minutes. No PAN or Aadhaar required.

Am still stumped. Public sector bank deposited and gave money without forms, just by swiping the bank debit card ? That's exactly how I bank in Oz

There were ushers at the entrance and in the bank walking around helping people with queries and directing to the right counter.

Crowd was very well behaved.

Now, my mum is off my back and both of us are happy