[shripadk]

It's not a stat for me. I do sympathize. But stretching this argument to say that demonetization is a failure is ridiculous. In that way, in India, the deaths due to accidents are close to 1,37,000 in 2013 alone. Should we call transportation a failure and put a halt to every mode of transportation (be it autos, cars, buses, trains, planes etc) just because of this statistic or should we work towards improving the system?

I compared demonetization carried out by India with demonetization carried out by other countries. When I see that there were large-scale riots and coup d'état in other countries but no such thing happened in India I will definitely take this as a success. You want to have a narrow negative perspective of 100 people dying you can continue to have that. I have a wider positive perspective that no large-scale riots or coup d'état happened that would have sent the Indian economy in a downward spiral or worse: civil war.

[bitwiseand]

"Should we call transportation a failure and put a halt to every mode of transportation (be it autos, cars, buses, trains, planes etc) just because of this statistic or should we work towards improving the system?"

Are you actually comparing currency to transportation ? People have a choice in the mode of transport. Your villager however can't use bitcoins because his Rs.500 note isn't legal tender.

"I have a wider positive perspective that no large-scale riots or coup d'état happened that would have sent the Indian economy in a downward spiral or worse: civil war."

Your standards for a successful policy are shockingly low. And stop lying, you have no sympathy, you just called a 100 deaths as having a "narrow perspective".

Do you also disagree with the countless economists that have criticized the move based on theory and facts. Or is that "foreign propaganda" for you ?

[shripadk]

> Do you also disagree with the countless economists that have criticized the move based on theory and facts. Or is that "foreign propaganda" for you ?

I definitely disagree with the "countless economists" mainly because economists love status-quo and despise disruption. We had "countless economists" say that the Telecom revolution in the 1990's was a big burden on Indian exchequer and a waste of resources. Today every Indian is thankful for the Telecom revolution and the introduction of computing as it created huge job opportunities. Economists have their place. They are not policy pundits. We had possibly the best economist in India as the Prime Minister for 10 years. He failed miserably in implementing any policy decision (including his party's own pet projects) leading to policy paralysis. Read about him here: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Time-magazine-dubs-...

> Are you actually comparing currency to transportation ? People have a choice in the mode of transport. Your villager however can't use bitcoins because his Rs.500 note isn't legal tender.

It doesn't matter the choice of transport if you are dying in huge numbers: 1,37,000 accidents in just 1 year.

> Your villager however can't use bitcoins because his Rs.500 note isn't legal tender.

This shows your absolute lack of ground knowledge about India. Why should a villager use bitcoins when he can use PayTM wallets or even BHIM app (using Unified Payment Interface) that was introduced by the Indian government. Read about it here: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/paytm-on-boards-small-mer...

> Your standards for a successful policy are shockingly low. And stop lying, you have no sympathy, you just called a 100 deaths as having a "narrow perspective".

From your comment it is quite clear that you don't live in India. So stop acting like a know-it-all. I live in India and I can differentiate between propaganda and reality.

[bitwiseand]

Do you really think people will install and use PayTm apps overnight in villages ?. Was there any research done on mobile literacy or making things easier in rural areas ?

Also, you wish to ignore facts and reasoning posted by economists all in the name of "disruption". And FYI The Planning Commission of India AKA "Policy Pundits" consists of renowned economists.

[shripadk]

Mobile literacy? Was such a research done before the Mobile and Telecom revolution? Spare me your ignorance please.

Forget the Planning Commission of India, we have had the worst experience with a Prime Minister, who was an Economist, and had no spine to take on the corrupt or even implement his own policies. India practically lost 10 years of it's growth to this useless economist. So no please, we don't need more economists. We have more than enough Economists. We need someone who can take tough policy decisions.

[bitwiseand]

The 90 reforms were by the same person you are criticizing.

[shripadk]

Yes and I already acknowledged it when I said he was "possibly the best economist India had". How did I qualify he was "the best economist"? Because of his reforms in the 90s which were spearheaded by the then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. Would he have been able to conduct the same reforms if he was the Prime Minister instead of Narasimha Rao? Never.

As I said earlier, economists have a place. He was great as a Finance Minister and RBI Governor. But the moment he became a policy decision maker (rather than just a policy maker) he failed miserably. Do you understand this basic difference? This is the reason I say that economists cannot take policy decisions. They can make the right policies if they are dictated by someone higher up the chain but are incapable to take the same decisions if they are given a chance.

The evidence for that is the GST reform. GST was the brainchild of Manmohan Singh and his Planning Commission when he was the Prime Minister for 10 years. But he failed to get the damn reform passed in the Indian Parliament mainly because he did not know or understand political maneuvering. How is it that the same GST reform, which was Manmohan's brainchild, passed by Narendra Modi (who is his opponent) without any troubles?