Fact and Fiction merge in the demonetisation chaos

A climate of total chaos and confusion has been created all over the country since November 8^th night, when the ruling BJP government and PM Modi took the decision to ban existing Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes in the fight against black money, corruption and terrorism.

In this chaos, rumours reign supreme but few facts/fiction has also emerged.

Does the new Rs. 2,000 note have GPS chip that allows it to be tracked by radio frequency tracking mechanism? This has been denied as a rumour by our Finance Minister , Arun Jaitley and the Reserve Bank of India. But media sources have traced the brain behind the proposal for demonetization to IIM, Bangalore Professor, Dr R. Vaidyanathan has said, “new notes cannot be easily faked” as the new “Rs 2000 note has RFID tags”, though adding, “The government is not coming forward to announce it.”

What about the fact that the demonetization move was announced by the Gujarat newspapers long ago? An Ahmedabad city-based evening newspaper, Akila which published a news item as a prank on its readers on April Fools Day saying the NDA government will scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, has been flooded with calls ever since the government demonetised the same notes.

Akila’s owner and editor, Kirit Ganatra when asked about the uncanny similarities between the spoof report and the actual decision to scrap the said currency said, “People have been discussing and suggesting this move as a solution since quite a long time. This solution seems pretty obvious when one thinks about the possible ways to deal with the black money in the country. That’s why we wrote so in the spoof report. We had no access to any inside information whatsoever.”

But the unquestionable fact at the end of the day remains that this so called surgical strike at “black money” has actually struck a body blow on the common man and more so on the common woman who saves some money, only in cash( 85% of Indian women do not have a bank account of their own) to feed her children.