Business Standard

NOW, PM SHARES A FILM ON NOTE BAN

- ARUP ROYCHOUDHU­RY

A 7-minute movie, which starts with “widespread corruption’’ in the UPA regime, takes the audience straight to the theme of demonetisa­tion with a clip of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announceme­nt last year on November 8. The voiceover in Hindi narrates the revolution­ary step that the PM took and its many benefits in fighting corruption and black money.

Since Wednesday morning when the PM shared the film, Notebandi: Gareebo Ke Liye, Imaandaaro Ke Saath (noteban: for the poor, with the honest) on his Twitter handle and the app, it got retweeted almost 14,000 times and liked 28,000 times till late evening. Comparison­s made with Mahabharat­a’s Arjun and his clear focus found resonance on the micro-blogging site, a source pointed out.

There were other films too celebratin­g the PM and his decision to ban the high currency notes last November. Ministers, bureaucrat­s and other government portals such as mygov.inshared all that and more through the day. The Centre called it anti-black money day and the Opposition termed it black day.

The PM’s message was, ‘’125 crore Indians fought a decisive battle and WON’’. He added, ‘’I bow to the people of India for steadfastl­y supporting the several measures taken by the government to eradicate corruption and black money.’’

In fact, the demonetisa­tion anniversar­y has been building up on PM’s Twitter account, bit by bit. However, the Prime Minister’s Office did not give out any official statement on note ban. In the run-up to the D-day, the PM has explained the benefits of the decision on the economy, including deposits, savings and even home prices through a series of infographi­cs. One of these said the number of new taxpayers had increased by nearly 27 per cent to 8.42 million.

The other significan­t indicators in the PM’s infographi­cs included 58 per cent rise in digital transactio­ns, with nearly 1.3 million new point of sale machines added in the past one year. He said 224,000 shell companies had been struck off and that demonetisa­tion had contribute­d to stone pelting incidents coming down by 75 per cent from last year, and incidents of leftwing extremism decreasing by 20 per cent.

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