Demonetization of Rs.500 & Rs.1000 note currencies by PM Sh Narendra Modi

For Demonetization

Against Demonetization

1. All counterfeit notes will cease to exist, since these can't be exchanged at banks. 2. With cash deposits over Rs.2.5 lakhs being scrutinized by IT department, disparity in income to tax will attract legal action. 3. Since higher denomination notes are banned, this will lead to lesser black money hoarding since hoarders will have to use larger number of notes, and will therefore attract attention of legal agencies. 4. Terrorist and anti-national elements will see funding sources cut out, with existing higher denominations deemed unfit as legal tender. 5. An effort towards a cashless economy, a precursor to digital payment adoption. 6. Cash-for-votes, unaccounted election expenditures can be capped down since the existing tenders (Rs.500 & Rs.1000) have proved to be unacceptable legally. Especially in note of UP elections.

1. Cash accounts for only 6-7% of black money accumulation, rest is in the form of other assets. Therefore, the effect in curbing black money will be minimal. 2. With a new Rs.2000 denomination being introduced, the chances of black money being circulated are even easier, since the new denomination is twice the value of removed Rs.1000 denomination. 3. Only the urban Indians have means for digital/card payments. Rural India will suffer. 4. For exchanging old notes, bank accounts are mandatory. Majority of rural India, despite JAM efforts, still doesn't have bank accounts.  5. Execution of idea has been poor - several businesses, marriages, hospitalized individuals, etc have suffered because new currency couldn't be replenished at a faster rate.

Another WikiLeak: Afridi-Gilani cable hacked

WikiLeaks has gone the multinational corporation way by investing heavily in Asian markets. The trick seems to have worked for the whistle-blower website, with most humor bloggers and the not-so-humorous bloggers using the "(Famous Person) does the (infamous thing) - latest WikiLeaks revelations" template for their posts, when desperately out of ideas. Here's the latest WikiLeaks revelation.

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called up U.S. President Barack Obama and asked for immediate financial assistance in wake of the India VS Pakistan semi-finals cricket encounter. Mr. Gilani is alleged to have promised President Obama that the money given would be used strictly for development of internet centers, buying millions of computers, and training Pakistanis on how to use Facebook. The reason behind this was found from another WikiLeaks cable-hack between Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi and PM Yousuf Gilani.

Afridi is believed to told a shocked PM Gilani about Pakistan's exit from the semi-finals on basis of polls on popular social networking site Facebook. He further urged Mr. Gilani to ensure that all the Pakistanis in the world participated in the poll and ensure that Pakistan came head-to-head with India in the polls. When Gilani asked Afridi to walk the talk and immediately vote for Pakistan in the poll, Afridi irritated the PM by saying that he was just 12 years old, and was legally not allowed to use websites.

Meanwhile, US has rubbished the reports. A White House spokesman went on to say that, from their sources in India, they had learnt that Afridi never used Facebook. "Afridi WAS using the internet, but for other reasons. The FBI hacked his computer and submitted to us a list of key words he was using on Google search, which include, but are not limited to 'Hot Girls in Mohali', 'Hot women who love bearded men who lie about their ages', etc". In New Delhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, now accustomed to being answerable for everything, held a press conference and spoke the following words: "Inflation is worrying, corruption is bad, WikiLeaks is wrong."

BCCI, after figuring out that the Facebook polls have been very beneficial to Indians, has pushed the ICC to use Facebook Polls instead of the hugely unpopular UDRS. N. Srinivasan, Board President has also hinted that the team management might soon use Polls to decide between Ashish Nehra and Piyush Chawla for water-boy role.

IIM-CAT's new quota from 2012

While the rest of the country is analyzing toppers and trends of CAT 2011, IIM has announced some major changes in its admissions policy, which will be implemented next year. A visibly excited IIM-A Director Samir Baruah spoke to media persons.

"The Cabinet has Kapil Sibal. Cricket has Ravindra Jadeja. Bollywood has Shahid Kapoor and India has Arindham Chaudri. Incompetency is everywhere. It is the very foundation on which Indian work culture lies. Every business unit has incompetency, and every organization has incompetent managers. To facilitate the smooth gelling of IIM graduates with incompetent peers, we have decided to bring in diversity into our classrooms by admitting incompetent students."

Mr. Baruah continued explaining to a shocked gathering. "From next year onwards, we will have a separate quota for those under 1 percentile. There will be separate GD and PI for these people, and those who manage not to talk inspite of heavy persuasions shall be admitted. The emphasis will be on sleeping and burping, two qualities that define an incompetent manager in boardroom meetings."

When we raised the issue about someone who would know all the answers but deliberately mark the wrong answers to get into the incompetent quota, Mr. Baruah smiled satisfactorily to himself. "Ahh... There's the IIM touch. We're not just looking at wrong answers, we're considering the wrong approach too. Students will have to type their methodology with which they derive answers. We're looking for candidates who can apply Pythagoras theorem on Profit & Loss problems to arrive at a choice."

Kumar, an incompetent aspirant spoke to us. "This is great news. I will play Minesweeper during next CAT. Or Pinball maybe. Prometric should ask applicants their choice of games while filling out the application!" Meanwhile, several corporates have shown interest in sending their managers for the Executive Incompetent degrees. The ideology behind this is to keep incompetent professionals away for sometime while devising ways to improve company performances.

Greetings to all on our 64th Independence Day. While so many articles have been written about our proud history, here is my attempt at giving you a glimpse of our near future.

Very soon, all keyboards in the world will have the ` symbol. Every apparel shop across the globe will have I ♥ ND (I love New Delhi) T-shirts. The filthy rich American kid will pester his parents for Siyaram's Jeans and Manish Malhotra jerseys, and will wear his jean low & bend down at every opportunity to show off his original, imported-from-Tiruppur Anand underwear.

Very soon, HPS© (Hindi Prachar Sabha) will be conducting Test of Hindi as Foreign Language exams worldwide. The Washington Post will have a full page ad, a testimonial from James Bloom (rank 456, IIT-JEE), thanking Brilliant Tutorials for its part in his success. The brightest minds will get into ISB or IIMs. (and the ones content with just an India MBA shall join IIPMs)

Not far from today, a mother will be withdrawing cash from Manappuram Money Transfer, Melbourne, sent by her son, working as a specialty chef in Muniyandi Vilas Group of Hotels, Kumbakonam.

There might be uproars in our Parliament, to limit the number of work permits to Europeans & Americans. And you won't realize that the Airtel customer care executive you are talking to is actually from a call center in Buffallo! (They speak so fluently, its difficult to differentiate between Indian Hindi & American Hindi!)

Will Smith and Pamela Anderson won't mind dancing for an item number to promote their latest movie to their Non Resident American fans in Mumbai. (Of course, we won't stop by to watch, we won't have time to bother about petty issues.)

Soon, Canada might ban its CEOs from using Micromax smart phones, owing to security reasons. And SUN mobiles (yes, of the Sun TV Network family) will make the most out of this opportunity and shall make customized sets for Canadians.

Vikatan Naanayam will publish the list of world's top earning sportsmen. Tiger Woods will be ranked a distant 156 and Kobe Byrant 92, just 2 ranks away from Ravindra Jadeja's rank 90. French and German football fans might get into a brawl in one of our TASMAC outlets and their embassies will plead with the Indian government to let them off without charges.

Those days aren't far off. No country is perfect. It has to be made perfect. Proud to be born an Indian =)

[P.S.: This is my first attempt at writing. Feedbacks will be greatly appreciated]