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The data do not cover all transactions across all banks. But, card payments data for four major banks, mobile banking figures for five banks and prepaid payment instruments (PPI, meaning mobile payment gateways such as PayTM and FreeCharge) data for eight non-bank issuers have been considered as representative for analysing trends in payments.

Source: Reserve Bank of India
 
Digital transactions (volume) had increased 42% from 672 million in November 2016 to 958 million in December 2016 but have since declined 20% over two months to 763 million in February 2017.
 
This puts in peril the government’s target to achieve 25 billion digital transactions in 2017-18, which translates to at least 2 billion transactions per month. The February 2017 figure of 763 million transactions falls 60% short of the monthly requirement.
 
“The continuance of that high growth with a further pick up in some components (of digital payments) (sic) from November to January 2017 was a positive fallout of demonetisation. However, the pace of growth moderated somewhat in February 2017,” the RBI noted in its first assessment of demonetisation, Macroeconomic Impact of Demonetisation- A Preliminary Assessment.
 
Nine of 11 digital platforms show decline
 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi—whose narrative of development earned Bharatiya Janata Party a landslide mandate in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls —changed his demonetisation narrative from black money and fake currency initially to digital/cashless economy later, IndiaSpend reported in December 2017.
 
Only two payment platforms, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Aadhaar Enabled Payments System (AEPS), show a consistent rise in value (in Rupees) and volume (number) of transactions post demonetisation. All other forms have shown a decline–either consistently or in one or two months in the four-month period.  
 
While UPI links mobile applications to a person’s bank account directly, AEPS is an Aadhaar-linked biometric identification system used for direct cash transfers under government schemes.
 

Source: Reserve Bank of India, National Payments Corporation of India
Note: (1) Figures are negligible, so units have been changed.  (2) Card transactions of four banks. (3) PPI issued by 8 non-bank issuers for goods and services transactions only. (4) Mobile Banking figures are taken from 5 banks. The total volume & value of electronic payment systems does not include mobile banking.

“Digital cannot substitute cash. The share of digital among transactions might increase in the long run but cash is affordable,” Rajeswari Sengupta, economics professor, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, told IndiaSpend.
 
“Digital transactions demand a person to buy a smartphone and spend on data, which incur higher cost per transaction. People naturally prefer cash where the cost is borne by the government.”
 
Use of online banking using the National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) platform reduced consecutively in January and February 2017, while that of Immediate Payment System (IMPS) increased in December 2016 and January 2017 but declined in February.
 
“The catalytic push from demonetisation hastened migration towards digital payments in November and December 2016. However, ease in availability of cash by progressive remonetisation impacted the pace of growth of digitalisation in February 2017,” the RBI assessment said.
 
Debit and credit card transactions for four major banks show little difference between November 2016 and February 2017–205 million swipes transacting Rs 35,200 crore in November 2016 to 212 million swipes transacting Rs 39,200 crore in February 2017.
 
“As the cash in circulation will settle to a lower normal than the pre-demonetisation levels, digital payments will settle at a higher normal and continue its upward trend as before,” Sangram Singh, head of cards and payments, Axis Bank, told IndiaSpend.
 
Card transactions improved to 311 million swipes transacting Rs 52,000 crore in December 2016, showing a 50% rise in transactions and 48% rise in value transacted over a month.
 
But the pace of addition in debit and credit cards has not been matched by an equal focus on point of sale (PoS) terminals.
 
“..in comparison to the 800 million cards that have been issued as of now, the number of PoS terminals has not been really adequate,” RBI deputy governor R. Gandhi said in a February 2017 speech.
 
High capital and operational expenses have deterred the expansion of PoS infrastructure, Gandhi said later in his speech.
 
Cash available with people, which reduced from Rs 17 lakh crore just before the demonetisation announcement to the lowest post-demonetisation level of Rs 7.81 lakh crore ($ 118 billion) on December 9, 2016, increased to Rs 11.74 lakh crore ($ 178 billion) on March 3, 2017, according to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data.
 
“Remonetisation is taking place at a very fast pace. We have some way to go but I think we expect that within two to three months, we will reach full currency in circulation,” RBI deputy governor Viral Acharya was quoted in this Mint article on March 6, 2017.
 
The prime minister had announced the world’s biggest currency swap programme that scrapped 86% of high denomination Indian currency on November 8, 2016.
 

Source: Weekly Statistical Supplements, Reserve Bank of India; figures in Rs lakh crore
 
The current level of currency with people matches the November 2013 level of Rs 12 lakh crore ($200 billion at the then prevailing exchange rate of Rs 60 per US$).
 
(Waghmare is an analyst with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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It means, you can now do transactions of Rs 2 lakh (both withdrawals and deposits) only at home branches. Crossing the limit will cost customers a minimum of Rs 150 or Rs 5 per thousand.

Not only this, the Mumbai-headquartered bank capped the third-party or non-home branches transactions at Rs 25,000 a day. The same fees will set in at the same level in case of exceeding the limit.

Earlier, it used to allow Rs 50,000 cash transactions (both withdrawals and deposits) per day.

The bank said the review has been done to discourage usage of cash and push digital transactions.

The bank claimed that the hiked charges are at par with the industry trend.

Its larger peer ICICI Bank’s website shows a minimum charge of Rs 150 for more than four cash transactions (deposits and withdrawals) at home branches for savings accounts, similar to what HDFC Bank is proposing.

Axis Bank, the third largest private lender, charges Rs150 or Rs 5 per thousand, for cash deposits of over Rs1 lakh per month or from the fifth withdrawal at branches, its website said.

It can be noted that a high-level panel led by former Finance Secretary Ratan Watal had called for imposing “nominal charges after a certain limit” for cash transactions. Working towards a less-cash economy, the budget 2017- 2018 has
placed a blanket ban on cash transactions above Rs 3 lakh, following the report by the SIT on black money.

(With PTI inputs)
 

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सूचना एवं प्रसारण मंत्री ने बताया कि 9 नवंबर 2016 से इस साल 25 जनवरी तक जारी विज्ञापनों के लिए डीएवीपी ने 14.95 करोड़ रुपये का भुगतान किया है। उन्होंने कहा कि डीएवीपी में अखबारों को कैशलेस भुगतान करने की परंपरा रही है। 
 
नोटबंदी की लोकप्रियता पर किए गए कुल खर्च के बाबत पूछे जाने पर उन्होंने कहा कि डिजिटल भुगतान के प्रति लोगों को जागरूक करने तथा कम नकदी वाली अर्थव्यवस्था को प्रोत्साहित करने के लिए कुल 93,93,28,566 रुपये खर्च किए गए हैं।
 
सरकार ने डिजिटल पेमेंट को बढ़ावा देने के लिए ग्रामीण इलाकों में भी तमाम कार्यक्रम चलाए गए। जनता के लिए डिजिटल भुगतान आसान बनाने के लिए सरकार ने भीम (BHIM) ऐप भी लॉन्च किया। प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी भी लगभग हर मंच से डिजिटल पेमेंट को बढ़ावा देने की बात करते दिखे।

Courtesy: National Dastak

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Modi's supposed war on black money has failed miserably . Almost all the demonetised notes are back within the banking system. As an afterthought, the Modi government is now extolling the virtues of a cashless economy; as if the demonetisation was a planned disruption to switch to a digital payment system instead of cash. What it seems to be forgotten is that the sine qua non – an essential requirement  – of cashless economy is robust, digital infrastructure that can be accessed by all. This, we simply do not have.

What is a cashless or a digital transaction?
Any transaction has two parties. If it is a cash transaction, no party has to know the other; all they need is to recognise the cash as legitimate money to complete the transaction. For a cash transaction, there is also no transaction fee to be paid to a third party. If it is a cashless transaction, both sides have to provide some additional information. The buyer has to provide a source from which his digital money will be drawn, and the seller a destination that will receive this money. The communications infrastructure has to ensure that a connection is established between the two sides. The digital infrastructure rides on top of the communications infrastructure. It has to ensure that the transaction is negotiated and completed within a reasonable time. If it fails or takes too long, instead of cashless transaction being seen as a convenience, it will be seen as a pain. Poorer the infrastructure, more the chances of failures, and consequently alienation from cashless transactions.

The overwhelming number of India's transactions – 97% according to World Bank – are in cash. Credit or debit cards using Point of Sales (PoS) machines are a meagre 3% of all transactions . Even if people do not use credit cards for digital transactions, they still need bank accounts. Only about 35% of Indians above the age of 15 , have bank accounts and less than 10% have ever done any kind of non-cash transaction.

How strong is India's digital infrastructure?
If we want cashless transactions to grow, we need a digital infrastructure that is widely available and can be easily accessed. This essentially means high internet penetration, either through landlines or via the mobile network. When we make a credit or a debit card transaction, the merchant swipes the credit card on the Point of Sales (PoS) terminals and sends the transaction details to the credit card company using phone lines or internet connections. If we do not use credit cards for digital transactions, we can use our mobiles using e-wallets (PayTM), or apps such as BHIM. Therefore, digital transactions need PoS machines or smart phones through which these transactions can take place.

Out of the 3% retail non-cash transactions, fully 96%, (RBI's December 2016 figures) , take place using credit or debit cards. Credit or debit card retail transactions require Point of Sales (PoS) terminals. India has one of the lowest number of PoS terminals (per million people) in the world. There are only about 1,200 PoS terminals per million of India’s population (RBI figures, November 2016) . Compare this to other BRICS countries: Brazil has 32,995 terminals per million, and China and Russia around 4,000 terminals per million people.

Not only is the distribution of such machines low in India, it is also highly skewed. The bulk of the PoS terminals are in the top 15 cities: it is 20 times higher per user than in the rest of the country. Very few exist in the rural areas.
The government has been claiming that mobile based transactions, using mobile wallets such as PayTM, JioMoney, etc., or the BHIM app launched recently by the government, can be a substitute for PoS terminals. However, there are only about 300 million of mobile users, who have smart phones.  Most of them are in urban areas, as rural internet connectivity is a measly 9% for rural areas.

All these are reflected in the International Telecommunications Unit (ITU) Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Development Index, which is a measure of the quality of a country's telecom infrastructure. Out of 175 countries, India ranks a poor 138 , slipping three places below even its lowly 135th place of last year. It ranks even lower than a number of countries whose per capita income is lower than India's.  This is a very poor basis for building a digital economy.

Aadhaar as a Payment System
Recognising the weakness of the underlying digital infrastructure, the Modi government has been talking about using Aadhaar number and its biometric based identification (finger prints and retina scans) for digital transactions. This is the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS). All we need for digital transactions, or so the argument goes, is our Aadhaar number, tied to our bank accounts and our finger prints verified by the Aadhaar system. The consumer or buyer, does not need to have smart a phone; or even a mobile. The seller needs a biometric device – a finger print reader – and a connection to the internet via a mobile or a computer. A buyer can come to a shop, supply his fingerprint, and the system will take care of the rest.

In theory, it sounds simple; till we examine the points of failure in any such system.

As we now know, biometric based identifications failure rates are estimated to be around 30% in the Public Distribution System (PDS) in Rajasthan and Gujarat. People may be unhappy for not receiving rations. But can we imagine the anger if we lock people out of their bank accounts? Because the biometric identification of Aadhaar failed?

Aadhaar authorities accept that there can be up to 2% failures in identification of fingerprints. In practice, UID authorities admit a failure rate of 10 to 15% . These figures may work in some applications, but certainly not when it is for bank transactions involving peoples' money. If the failure rate of identification is around 30% – as we are seeing in the PDS – are we going to deprive 30% of the people out of their money in their bank accounts? And without any redress?

The Watal Committee set up by the Government on Digital Payments, has reported that Aadhaar based verification for money transactions has a failure rate as high as 60% . If 60% of failures take place in Aadhaar based bank transactions, how is it even possible to talk about Aaadhaar as a basis for a cashless economy?

There have also been serious criticisms of the security and privacy violations in the Aadhaar system. Leaving them aside, one problem for which no answer has been forthcoming, is how do we rectify problems within the Aadhaar system?  The Aadhaar sytem is completely opaque to the people. If our finger prints do not match the print in the Aadhaar database, how do we correct the database? What happens if my finger prints are stolen? And yes, it is easy to steal fingerprints. It can be done by just taking a picture of my hand with any decent mobile phone. How do I then withdraw such compromised finger prints from the Aadhaar system, the same way I can repudiate or block my credit or debit card?

There is now grudging admission that the biometric system is not foolproof. If there are such a large number of people in the database, the finger print recognition is not easy. Working people may also lose their finger prints: manual work can wear out their prints. The number of manual workers, who do not have recognisable finger prints, is quite significant.

The problem with digital transactions is not just about poor infrastructure. It is also with peoples' inability to understand and use the cashless modes of transactions. All of the existing modes of digital transactions demand some literacy. We need to be able at least use mobile phones, enter various numbers based on prompts, and be able to navigate the new, digital world. In a country that has 26 % adult illiteracy, we will exclude these people from our new, cashless economy.

The Government is talking of the cost of cash, and therefore the benefit of a cashless economy. This is being pushed worldwide by a number of financial multinationals and the IMF-World Bank Brettonwood twins. What they neglect to mention is the additional cost per transaction in such an economy, and who will bear this cost. Digital transactions have a higher cost to the consumers: any digital transaction has a transaction fee, which is paid by the consumer to a third party, e.g., a credit card (Visa, Master Card, RuPay) or a mobile wallet (PayTM is a mobile wallet) company.  Reducing cash circulation in the economy, is a benefit for financial companies and the new tech companies with their mobile wallets; the cost is to the people.

If India wants to go cashless, it requires a robust telecom and digital infrastructure. Putting restrictions on cash in order to force people to use digital transactions, is a classic case of cart before the horse.

Without an infrastructure that makes large scale digital transactions possible, coercive measures such as demonetisation or a penalty on cash transactions, will only boomerang. Lest we forget, forcible nasbandi during the emergency has meant that even after 40 years, male sterilisations in India are less than 2% of total sterilisations. Notebandi may do to the digital economy what nasbandi did for vasectomy, making it much more difficult to popularise digital transactions in the future.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in
 

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Behind the smokescreen of clever mythology, it was they, who grabbed the lion’s share of everything tangible over the centuries – from land, water, natural resources to hard political and social power. Worse still, using a mix of brute force and religious mumbo-jumbo, they consolidated the exploitation of those who work by those who merely cook up tall stories, through the nightmare of the caste system.

Today the politics of Maya is well and truly back in play with Narendra Modi’s ‘Mahayagna’ a.k.a. demonetisation promising a digital Moksha through the tapasya of a ‘war on black money’. Once again, as in India’s sordid past, the biggest losers of this devious push for a cashless economy are going to be those right at the bottom of the Indian caste hierarchy.

From all evidence so far it is clear, that the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, who make up a bulk of those surviving off India’s vast informal economy, are the worst affected by the sudden disappearance of cash from the economy. Labour in agriculture, construction, fishing, textiles, micro-enterprises, the urban and rural poor – mostly from these marginalized castes – have been pushed to the brink of starvation or worse due to loss of jobs and income.

The other sections hit hard, are small and medium sized farmers, who are overwhelmingly from the different Backward Castes and artisans, mostly from poorer Muslim communities. It is true that demonetisation has also hit the economically and caste-wise better off trading communities, but they seem to have been sacrificed in the quest for complete domination by global and national corporations – who pay our politicians to run the country on their behalf.

The most apt way to describe what is happening in India today is perhaps through a completely new term – dwijitalisation. Under the new rules of the dwijital economy only the dwij – or twice born as the Hindu caste elite call themselves – will climb still higher up the social and economic hierarchy, while kicking the ladder down to ensure no one can follow.

Dwijital India will thus continue the rigid division of ‘duties’ along caste lines that has been used for centuries to enable the free transfer of energy and resources from those below to the ones at the top in various ways.
The Purusha Sukta, a hymn from the ancient Rig Veda, used the analogy of the human body to describe the social hierarchy clearly.

The Brahmin priest/philosopher is the mouth, the Kshatriya or warrior the arms, the Vaishya or businessman the thighs and the Shudra or worker is right below as the feet. Those who have to deal with human or animal wastes are much worse off, relegated outside the pale of the caste system itself and rendered ‘untouchable’.

At its core the idea, which forms the theoretical basis for the Indian caste system, is that the mind and its creations are noble and permanent while the body is impure and ephemeral. Mental work (software) is superior and hence deserves a regular ‘transaction fee’ (think Paytm or Jio Money) from those who perform physical work (hardware), that is inferior.

In more recent times and through the colonial period, traditional caste privileges and inherited wealth were combined with access to modern education, to create the Indian ruling elite – family-run industrial empires, big landholders and a bureaucrat/politician nexus that today have a complete stranglehold on state power. There is also a sizeable Indian middle class serving the system, that claims its prosperity is due to a mix of merit (ability to pass exams), hard work (long hours in the office)  and honesty (taxes deducted at source).

Together, all these sections of Indian society, have made best use of new opportunities thrown up by globalization, to establish a society which is easily among the most unequal ones in the entire world. Just 1% of the richest Indians control over 58.4% of the country’s wealth[2]  while the top 10% account for 80.7%. The bottom 50% of the population fights for its share of a mere 2.1%.

The Modi regime’s current campaign against corruption does not even begin to address the structural bias of the social and economic system in favour of those who have been long-term beneficiaries of illegality and immorality in different forms. Instead, it uses racist tropes to describe ill-gotten money, equating white with ‘good’ and black with ‘evil’. One Modi cabinet minister even called the anti-corruption campaign a war on ‘asuras’ – the dark skinned indigenous people who were conquered by upper caste migrant populations in ancient India[3] and commonly figure in Hindu mythology as ‘demons’[4].

Of course, caste discrimination was acknowledged at the time of Indian independence from British colonial rule, thanks to numerous struggles by the oppressed castes. This was reflected in affirmative action policies of reserving a certain percentage of government jobs and admission to educational institutions, as also financial support through loans and special schemes, for these castes.

However, all these measures have been half-heartedly implemented and  are so woefully inadequate, that  seven decades later there is not a single positive indicator of social development where the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes figure anywhere near the top. Whether it is land holdings, income, literacy, nutrition or health status it is these sections – who constitute one-third of India’s population – that are right at the bottom of the pile.

For example, according to the Socio-Economic and Caste Census of 2011, 54% of those from the Schedule Castes were landless, while Scheduled Tribes –despite having somewhat better land ownership were even more deprived due to lack of cash income[5].  Together these two communities form the most vulnerable section of India’s population.

Economic vulnerability is reflected in the dire health status of these populations too. In 2015 India recorded the largest number of under-5 deaths in the world, at 1·3 million[6] – most of them children from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe families. Again among these populations, more than 50% of the people have a body mass index below 18.5, which is regarded as chronic sub-nutrition[7] – placing them by World Health Organization standards – in a permanent state of famine.

Today, on top of all this, without functional literacy, technological skills or access to  basic infrastructure, these communities are being subjected to a test in digital dexterity impossible for them to get through any time soon. Think about it like this. If someone denied Albert Einstein his daily meal because he could not prove his mettle by playing cricket or made Sachin Tendulkar homeless for failing a quiz on quantum physics they would immediately be denounced as being either mad or extremely evil.

And yet that is exactly what the Narendra Modi dispensation has done through its demonitisation decree, imposed on the already disadvantaged, a test designed to not just make them fail but also put the blame for their misery on their own ‘ignorance’.

If there is to be a fightback against such injustice there are three cardinal lessons to be learnt from the history of the Indian caste system and clever myth making.

One is that blatant lies from those in power cannot be fought with the weightiest of facts because the former is backed by force while the latter is not. In other words, remember when the rulers invite you  for a ‘dialogue’, they are in fact deploying an iron fist in a velvet glove.

Second – always look behind the Maya of religion, nationalism, culture  to find out who controls things that can be touched and felt i.e. who benefits and gets to own tangible wealth. Everything else is poppycock
The third and most critical lesson to pay attention to is – STOP ARGUING, START ORGANIZING!
 
Satya Sagar is a journalist and public health worker who can be reached at sagarnama@gmail.com

Courtesy: Kafila.online
 
[1] To be more precise, the claim was, we are all part of Maha Vishnu’s dream as He sleeps peacefully on a giant serpent, with a lotus blooming from His navel.
[2] http://www.livemint.com/Money/MML9OZRwaACyEhLzUNImnO/The-richest-1-of-Indians-now-own-584-of-wealth.html
[3] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/It-was-an-attack-on-four-%E2%80%98asuras%E2%80%99-Parrikar/article16668448.ece
[4] https://www.britannica.com/topic/asura
[5] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/landlessness-is-higher-among-dalits-but-more-adivasis-are-deprived/
[6] Global, regional, national, and selected subnational levels of stillbirths, neonatal, infant, and under-5 mortality, 1980–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015; GBD 2015 Child Mortality Collaborators; http://www.thelancet.com Vol 388 October 8, 2016
[7] http://www.governancenow.com/views/interview/india-facing-stable-famine-situation

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दरअसल जवानों को सोशल मीडिया जवानों द्वारा आवाज उठाने से घबराई सरकार ने सोशल मीडिया के इस्तेमाल में रोक लगाने के लिए गृह मंत्रालय ने आदेश जारी किया है। ताकि सरकार की किरकिरी ना हो सके। गृह मंत्रालय ने कहा है कि अर्धसैनिक बलों के जवानों को सोशल मीडिया इस्तेमाल करने से पहले डीजी से इजाजत लेनी होगी।

मीडिया रिपोर्ट्स के मुताबिक, सेना में भी कई यूनिट्स में स्मार्ट फोन पर पाबंदी लगा दी गई है। सरकार ने कहा है कि जवानों को इसका कड़ाई से पालन करना होगा। इस आदेश के बाद जवान तस्वीरें खींचकर ट्विटर, फेसबुक, व्हाट्सएप्प, यूट्यूब या इंस्टाग्राम पर नहीं डाल सकते। हालांकि यह नियम पहले से था कि ड्यूटी के समय आप मोबाइल का इस्तेमाल नहीं कर सकते। अब इस नियम के तहत ड्यूटी और ड्यूटी के बाद भी सेना के जवान स्मार्टफोन का इस्तेमाल नहीं कर सकते हैं। इस फैसले को कड़ाई के साथ लागू किया जाएगा।

बता दें कि पिछले कई दिनों से सेना की जवानों ने सोशल मीडिया पर वीडियो जारी कर अधिकारियों और सुविधाओं को लेकर शिकायत की है। इनमें सबसे पहले बीएसएफ के जवान तेज बहादुर ने खराब खाना मिलने, सीआरपीएफ के जवान जीत सिंह ने सुविधाएं न मिलने, एसएसबी के एक जवान ने अधिकारियों पर तेल और राशन बेचने और सेना के जवान युग प्रताप सिंह ने घरों में अफसरों की तरफ से निजी कार्य कराने जैसे आरोप लगाए हैं। जवानों द्वारा आवाज उठाने से सेना द्वारा पकिस्तान के ऊपर की गयी सर्जिकल स्ट्राइक का ढिंढोरा पीटने वाली मोदी सरकार बैकपुट पर आ गयी है।

Courtesy: Dainik Aaj

The post डिजिटल इंडिया की बात करने वाली सरकार ने अर्धसैनिक बलों के लिए सोशल मीडिया बैन, स्मार्टफोन पर भी लगी रोक appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Newsclick, talked to Dr Usha Ramanathan, internationally recognized expert on law and poverty. She talks on demonetisation and the cashless economy. She draws a parallel between the UID project and the cashless agenda. Both of which, are built on the shoulders of the poor. While we eventually realise that when we talk about ‘cashless’, like the UID project, it is essentially about the technology companies creating their own businesses for themselves. Similarly, an element of eventual coercion can be attributed to both. Different kind of arrangements seem to be emerging, eg. between banks and mobile companies or payment gateways. Informal sector workers, the manufacturing sector and the agricultural sector, are going to hit most, with this cashless project.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

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In the latest such case reported in The Indian Express, the official handle of Digital India, a flagship government initiative for a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy, on Thursday tweeted a poem promoting the killing of Kashmiris by the army. The tweet, which was soon deleted, included the screenshot of a poem posted on Facebook that it labelled “Heights of #Patriotism..!!!”

When contacted, Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told the national daily he “immediately sought a report” when the tweet was brought to his notice. The person who tweeted the poem has been suspended, he added.

Calling the act “mischievous”, Prasad said, “The contents of the tweet don’t represent the views of the IT ministry, Digital India or the government of India. I regret the tweet.”

Managed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Digital India has more than 5.34 lakh followers on Twitter.

The poem, written to the lyrics of a popular Bollywood song, asked the army not to stop firing on people till they come to the city square and sing the national anthem. It read, “Issued in public interest; all who love their lives; should quietly come to the city square; sing the national anthem; and not throw any tantrums here.”

One of the passages in the poem said, “The bullets have just started, don’t say later you didn’t get a warning, you will have to say Vande Mantaram every morning.” Another read “Thrash them all you want, army; break their bones; If Mehbooba calls the police; Modi will handle it.”

A week ago, All India Radio’s official handle had tweeted about Rahul Gandhi, asking, “How he became daring again to defame #RSS?”

The tweet, asking him to “stick to comments”, was deleted on the direction of the director general of news at AIR, Sitanshu Kar.

In late July, the Twitter account for Startup India, another key government initiative, retweeted two tweets targeting journalists and Pakistan. The account retracted the retweets later, with Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman blaming it on an external agency that was hired to tweet for the project.

The full report in The Indian Express may be read here.
 

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