Narendra Modi had campaigned on a promise that he would bring black money home from abroad and give each poor Indian Rs 15 lakhs.
Taking the World Bank’s rosy projection of how Indian poverty has declined under liberalisation , that would mean giving Rs 417 trillion to 278 million people. That was an absurd promise. Since the Prime Minister is an intelligent man, he must have had known that and perhaps had no intention of keeping it. Instead his Government has chosen to inflict untold misery on the poor by withdrawing from circulation the denominations in which they hold most of