Jayaprakash Narayanan: Government's trying to criminalise all in search of black money

Jayaprakash Narayanan addresses the students of IIT-B as part of the institute's annual cultural festival ‘Mood Indigo'

Addressing a gathering of more than 100 students as part of the talk-series of ‘Mood Indigo', the annual cultural festival of Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) on Sunday, political reformer and columnist Jayaprakash Narayanan said that the government's demonetisation move was just a ‘tamasha' and it was trying to criminalise everyone in search of black money. He also mentioned that a new generation of black money is already in the making and it is important to know what the government plans for it.

Explaining further he said, "Demonetisation has helped to identify the money that was unaccounted for. Almost 17-26 per cent of India's GDP is black money, which is nearly R10,000 crore. But this does not mean that the money is entirely in cash and is unaccounted for. While most of the black money is converted into real estate, a major chunk of the cash which is unaccounted for is legitimate." "While the government was thinking that all the black money will eventually come to them, 95% of the cash that was unaccounted for has been brought back to banks as legitimate money. Hence, the government's purpose is not fulfilled. Further, all black money is not in cash," he added.

Rock-band competition embroiled in controversy
Mood Indigo's rock-band competition was caught in controversy after a few judges on the panel complained of mismanagement by the organising committee, especially in terms of managing the sound system. Musician Reinhardt Dias, who was one of the judges at the event, has shamed Mood Indigo's managing committee on his Facebook page. He has mentioned that there were major issues with the speakers, which affected many of the performances. Even after repeated attempts to contact the festival's media coordinator, there was no response.