The government has admitted that the problem of fake currency is alarming and dangerous.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement about demonetising Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes was hailed as a "bold step" by President Pranab Mukherjee and the BJP, which called it a "surgical strike" on black money, but his rivals denounced it as a "heartless and ill-conceived" decision that would inconvenience people.
Sources said the government wants all of the 500 and 1000 banknotes to be deposited and not burnt or destroyed for the fear of penal action.
The STF of Kolkata Police has seized mobile phone SIM card which, it believes, was used by the three arrested suspected ISI agents to pass on information to the ISI of Pakistan.
Even though the NIA claims that more than 90 per cent of cases charge-sheeted have ended in conviction, the figure is likely misleading. To date, very few cases investigated by the NIA have resulted in a completed trial, points out former CBI joint director Navneet Rajan Wasan.
'This is not only a fight against corruption and black money, this is also a fight against terrorism and counterfeit currencies.'
The Central Bureau of Investigation has taken over the investigation of four distinct cases from the Assam police, all connected with the death of the state police sub-inspector Junmoni Rabha last month in a suspected road accident, according to officials.
The Reserve Bank of India has now said failure to report such cases might lead to penal action.
The documents recovered from suspected ISI agent Akhtar Khan's home in the city "clearly showed" his links to Pakistan's ISI, a top Special Task Force officer said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants the Reserve Bank to use Indian paper and ink to print currency notes.
Uttar Pradesh has topped the list of states in recovery of fake Indian currency with a face value of over Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million) by different government agencies during the year 2009.
The hour-long episodes lurch from adrenaline-pumping to yawn-inducing, observes Deepa Gahlot.
November 8 marks 6 years after demonetisation. A K Bhattacharya reveals how the prime minister and the RBI worked together for months before Modi's 8 pm speech. A riveting excerpt from The Rise Of Goliath: Twelve Disruptions That Changed India.
Only Rs 10,720 crore of the junked currency notes did not return to the banking system, rest 99.9 per cent was deposited raising question mark over the government's effort of curbing black money through the demonetisation.
"If the money is legitimate which had been previously withdrawn from bank or earned legally and saved and had been disclosed, there is nothing to worry about," Jaitley said.
Isha was the custodian of the cash at the time it was being placed in the ATM.
The stage is set for the loading of cash into automated teller machines (ATMs) through the cassette-swap mode with an initial four-phased roll-out across 30 cities from June 1. The lockable cassette-swap will do away with the current practice of open-cash replenishment into ATMs. Cash-in-transit (CIT) firm personnel, tasked with loading cash into ATMs, will not have to touch it anymore. Cash-handling will be done by CITs at the cash centre, and the task of taking into account the amount of cash remaining from the last cassette-load will also be made simpler.
Security agencies could track the flight path and even address of criminals involved in this cross-border illegal activity that is rearing its head over the last few years, he said on Saturday.
Clifton, Block No 4, opposite Cafe Flow, Karachi. 6/A, Khyaban Tanzeem, Phase V, Defence Housing Area, Karachi. House 29, Street 22, P-6/2, Margalla Road, Islamabad. These are the three addresses Indian intelligence agencies have for Dawood Ibrahim, India's most wanted gangster.
IMF said the repercussions from India's currency exchange initiative will likely persist through the first quarter of 2017.
The FM asserted that nearly Rs 11.85 lakh crore out of the Rs 15.44 lakh crore junked notes were back into the system
Security officials on Wednesday revealed that suspected operative of Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence Mohammed Zaheed Hussain, who was arrested days before the twin blasts in Chennai, was part of a larger mission to target critical national assets and some foreign establishments.
The most important institutions have been and are being undermined with almost no resistance, warns Aakar Patel.
While some criticise the government, others, despite the inconvenience, hail demonetisation as revolutionary.
"Post demonetisation, during November 9, 2016, to January 10, 2017, more than 1,100 searches and surveys were conducted and more than 5,100 notices were issued by the income tax department for verification of suspicious high-value cash deposits," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha on Friday.
A look at the current contenders International Bank Note Society's Banknote of the Year
To stop repeat money exchangers thronging banks with invalid currency notes, banks have started applying indelible ink mark on the right hand index finger of customers in the select metro cities.
The number of Rs 2,000 currency notes in circulation has come down from 33,632 lakh pieces at end-March 2018 to 32,910 lakh pieces at end-March 2019 and further to 27,398 lakh pieces at end-March 2020.
Singh, 80, had floated the PLC last year after quitting the Congress following his unceremonious exit as chief minister, but his party failed to win any seat in the state assembly polls.
In a first, a special National Investigation Agency court in Mumbai sentenced six accused in a 2009 fake currency case to life imprisonment, terming the possession and circulation of Indian counterfeit notes as an "act of terrorism".
People taken into custody for economic offences should not be handcuffed and clubbed with those arrested for heinous crimes such as rape and murder, a parliamentary committee has recommended.
Sources said the government was keen to tax all unaccounted money deposited in bank accounts after it allowed the banned currency to be deposited in bank accounts during a 50-day window from November 10 to December 30.
'Those who should have been affected benefitted from demonetisation.' 'And the vast majority who should not have been affected lost out.' 'That is the ultimate result of demonetisation.'
In Reserve Bank offices, 59 CVPS machines are used and each machine is operated by a set of five persons under a supervisor who supervises a cluster of machines
Breaking his silence over the demonetisation issue, RBI Governor Urjit Patel on Sunday said the central bank is monitoring the situation on a daily basis and taking all necessary actions to "ease the genuine pain of citizens" with a clear intent to normalise the things as early as possible.
Financial Intelligence Unit detects over Rs 7,800 cr blackmoney.
'Ultimately if your aim is that you need to be able to deal with a security situation, you need to deal with a black money situation, you need to deal with a counterfeiting situation then, to that extent, I think everyone will need to able to tolerate a little bit of inconvenience.'
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the federal economic snoop agency under the Union finance ministry, sent 289 legal requests to its counterparts across the globe during 2018-19 as compared to 177 in 2017-18 and 138 in 2016-17.
Uncertainties on account of COVID-19 pandemic have increased the demand for currency notes not only in India but across the globe, official sources said, dismissing the criticism that demonetisation has failed to reduce cash in the economy. Government sources said that growth of the digital payments system post-demonetisation will ultimately curb the dependence on cash. Official data points out a jump in digital payments through different modes, including plastic cards, net banking and Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
