{"id":65621,"date":"2017-02-09T07:55:58","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T11:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=65621"},"modified":"2017-02-09T07:58:21","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T11:58:21","slug":"cashless-biometrics-and-indias-demonetization-experiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=65621","title":{"rendered":"Cashless Biometrics and India\u2019s Demonetization Experiment"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"\"<\/a>
\nby James Corbett
\nTheInternationalForecaster.com
\nJanuary 24, 2017<\/p>\n

Well, that didn\u2019t take long.<\/p>\n

In the wake of India\u2019s demonetization<\/a> of the 500 and 1,000 rupee notes last November, I wrote an editorial (\u201cCrisitunity in India\u2019s Cash Crunch<\/a>\u201c) where I noted that one significant reason for the drastic move was the chance to rein in India\u2019s sizable informal economy:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn India, they call cash gleaned from counter-economic activities \u2018black money.\u2019 It\u2019s not known to the government, it\u2019s not stored in the banks, and it\u2019s not taxed. In other words, it\u2019s the would-be technocratic overlords\u2019 worst nightmare. It\u2019s impossible to know the size of this \u2018black money\u2019 pool (can we call it something cooler, like \u2018freedom funds\u2019 or something?) but it has been estimated to be as much as 20% the size of the total Indian economy. Now with the vast bulk of those freely-gotten gains being brought back into the banking system (or exchanged with a valid form of government identification), it will come back under the purview of Big Brother and his friend, Uncle Taxman.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As if on cue, earlier this month<\/a> the Indian income tax department began asking banks for data on their customers\u2019 bank deposits between April and November of last year so they could better analyze the cash that was being turned in for signs of \u201csuspicious\u201d activity. And now, the latest from the Hindustan Times<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople who deposited huge amounts of cash in their bank accounts after the Centre\u2019s demonetisation exercise may get multiple notices from the Income Tax department through the rest of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe department \u2013 which has started sending notices to those who deposited currency over Rs 2 lakh [200,000 rupees, or about US$3000<\/em>] after November 9 \u2013 directed its officials to ensure that \u201cgenuine\u201d cases are dissolved at the earliest. Probes would then be undertaken against those found to have \u201cfuzzy\u201d sources of income. The mammoth exercise could go on till the next financial year, sources said.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article goes on to note that \u201cusing risk-based data analytics of cash deposits in bank accounts to distinguish between genuine and not genuine cases, the tax department has become capable of targeting even entry-level operators.\u201d Not only that, but we now learn<\/a> that \u201cthe government has begun analysing deposits in new accounts and loan repayments as well as transfers to e-wallets and advance remittance for imports during the last 10 days of deadline to turn in junked notes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, the poorest of the poor and the previously unbanked have now been duly identified and branded as tax cattle, ripe for the fleecing (to mix a metaphor). No surprise there.<\/p>\n

Indeed, as Satya Sagar points out in our recent conversation<\/a> on the demonetization scheme, if this scheme were really about cracking down on so-called \u201cblack money,\u201d it\u2019s a colossal misstep. Only 6%<\/a> of the so-called \u201cblack money\u201d is actually held in cash, as those looking to evade the taxman invest it in real estate, gold, or foreign bank accounts, and much of the \u201cillicit\u201d cash that is flowing around the system is used as slush funds, bribes and kickbacks to corrupt politicians.<\/p>\n

Instead, this campaign can be seen as an attempt to accomplish, among other things, the identification and registration of the previously unbanked and untaxed masses, and the kick-starting of India\u2019s nascent cashless-payment economy.<\/p>\n

The first aim is particularly interesting in light of India\u2019s ongoing efforts to force its 1.2 billion residents into the world\u2019s largest biometric database<\/a>. And the second aim is particularly interesting in light of Norbert H\u00e4ring\u2019s recent report<\/a> on how a little-noticed USAID program seems to have been the \u201ccatalyst\u201d for this demonetization experiment:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot even four weeks before this assault on Indians, USAID<\/strong> had announced the establishment of \u2018<\/span>Catalyst<\/strong><\/em>: Inclusive Cashless Payment Partnership<\/span>,\u2019 with the goal of effecting a quantum leap in cashless payment in India. The <\/span>press statement<\/span><\/a> of October 14 says that Catalyst<\/em> \u2018marks\u00a0<\/span>the next phase of partnership between USAID and Ministry of Finance to facilitate universal financial inclusion.’\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the effort to biometrically register the population and the effort to transition into a cashless economy are, in fact, intimately related. As H\u00e4ring<\/span> notes, Alok Gupta, Catalyst<\/em>\u2018s \u201cDirector of Project Incubation,\u201d was an original member of the team that developed Aadhaar<\/em>, the Indian government\u2019s biometric identification system. And wouldn\u2019t you know it, the latest word from the World Economic Forum at Davos is that India is going to skip right over card-based cashless payments and go straight to biometric e-payments. According to biometricupdate.com<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe chief executive of India\u2019s leading economic development agency told attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the country could introduce biometric payments within three years, thereby eliminating the need for cash and typical electronic payment methods, including: automated teller machines, along with debit and credit cards.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s right, Amitabh Kant, the head of the National Institution for Transforming India<\/a>, a government-run policy institute, told the assembled globalists at Davos that India would leapfrog straight over the card-based economy and into the world of biometric payments. As he was creepily quoted by CNN: \u201cEach one of us in India will be a walking ATM.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the direction that things are going in India. And, as I will discuss later this week on The Corbett Report, what is unfolding right now in India is no more than a test run for what will soon be implemented around the world should the globalists get their way.<\/p>\n

___
\nhttp:\/\/www.corbettreport.com\/cashless-biometrics-and-indias-demonetization-experiment\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}