Our banks are open, just hack in.

We are in good company. Last year it was Zimbabwe, this year it is India and now Venezuela who have demonetised their currencies. We should have Robert Mugabe, Narendra Modi and Nicolas Maduro on our banknotes. Australia is thinking of withdrawing the Aussie $100 note but 66.75% of people are against the move. At first Modi said that demonetisation of 1000 and 500 rupee notes was essential to root out black money and counterfeit notes printed in Pakistan. Guess what? Out of a total of Rs 15.44 trillion around Rs 13 trillion is already back into banks. And an ATM machine in Bihar spat out the first counterfeit note. Every year Pakistan prints Rs 700 million worth of Indian currency in its official mint, to organise terrorist acts in India. Pakistan also buys the special paper from the same sources as we do. Apparently, the new 2000 and 500 rupee notes are impossible to counterfeit. But they do not have to be perfect. Ordinary people do not have the expertise to recognise fake notes where faults are tiny so will accept them in good faith, only to lose money when banks refuse to accept them. Seeing the original purpose of eradicating black money was going to fail Modi has changed his tune to cashless economy. If there is no cash there can never be black money, there can be no counterfeit notes and people will be forced to pay tax as their earnings will be exposed. Modi is used to changing his stand. The biometric identity card, Aadhar was proposed by the Congress to transfer handouts to the poor. BJP was opposed to it when in opposition but now Modi has seized it and is forcing every savings account, which means every citizen, to be linked to Aadhar. In the last few days a hacker group, calling itself Legion, said in an interview with the Washington Post,"Let me tell you....the banking system of India is deeply flawed and has been hacked several times." So, now Pakistan does not have to spend money printing fake currency. Just hack into any bank account and transfer the money to the bomb-makers mobile payment system. Welcome to India. "The government's practiced apathy in the wake of cyber attacks has only encouraged their repetition," writes Arun Mohan Sukumar. "The Reserve Bank of India's recent decision to waive 2FA for transactions less than Rs 2,000 treats each individual transaction as a self contained unit, without acknowledging that devices once infected will also compromise higher-value payments." So why is Modi ramming all this down our throats? Digital transactions means total financial surveillance on citizens. "This might gladden an authoritarian heart, but it would strip citizens of any rightful anonymity," writes Amulya Gopalakrishnan. "Add biometric tracking to that, and we are all just insects in the state's laboratory." This is worse than China.