Demonetisation will lead to bigger, cleaner GDP: BJP

January 7, 2017

New Delhi, Jan 7: BJP today termed the aftermath of demonetisation a "sacred movement" during which the masses accepted the temporary suffering with enthusiasm and asserted that black money has now been deposited in banks that will lead to high revenues and bigger and cleaner GDP.

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The economic resolution passed at second and concluding day of the party's national executive also accused the opposition of trying to defame the government by destroying the country's positive environment and termed demonetisation a "brave move aimed at the poor's welfare".

"In this sacred movement across the country, the common people were taking upon themselves the temporary suffering of standing in queues with full enthusiasm and positive energy, but the opposition had become negative with destructive energy to defame the central government and trying to destroy the positive environment of the country," it said.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley claimed that demonetisation has resulted in black money making its way to bank accounts and the additional money will boost developmental projects. "Black money has been deposited in the Banks. It has lost its anonymity. The informal Economy will now increasingly integrate with the formal economy. This will lead to higher revenues with the States and the Centre. It will lead to the bigger and the Cleaner GDP," the resolution said.

The resolution said demonetisation was necessary for decimating the parallel economy of black money and for the smooth functioning of the GST in near future. "There is today more money with the banks to lend. Interest rates have moved downwards," it said. With BJP leaders endorsing the exercise whole-heartedly, the party's 'Kisan Morcha' chief Virendra Singh Mast claimed at the meeting that it also resulted in lack of wasteful expenditure by farmers, a community which, opposition parties claimed, has suffered most due to cash crunch.

Briefing reporters on the resolution and Jaitley's speech in the closed-door meeting, Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the "bold and historic decision" underlined a firm and visionary leadership which puts the country above party and individuals. "The Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes hidden in mattresses, something people would say symbolically, is now in bank accounts. It will help development," she said.

Jaitley also cited figures to assert that revenue of most states had not suffered and in case of some like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh it had even increased. West Bengal could be one state where it declined, he said and took a dig by adding that states can raise revenue by running efficient governments. Citing various surveys, BJP claimed popular support for the demonetisation decision.

"This is reflected in the fact that even after 50 days, there was not a single major incident in the country. There was no loss of public property and there was no loss of people's patience anywhere in the country," it said. Rebutting criticism that demonetisation was abrupt, not a well though-out call, the resolution said it was taken with full-fledged preparations.

Listing the government's efforts to curb black money leading to demonetisation, the resolution cited constitution of a SIT, introduction of Income Declaration Scheme, Jan Dhan Scheme, Black Money Act, Bankruptcy Insolvency Law, DRT Amendment Law and Benami Property Act. The Double Taxation Avoidance Treaties with Mauritius, Cyprus and Singapore which earlier enabled the round tripping of Black Money were re-written, it said.

BJP's national executive believes that the country's 107 crore mobile phone connections, 147 crore bank accounts including 117 crore savings bank accounts and 25 crore Jan Dhan accounts, 35 crore smart phones, more than 40 crore ADHAR linked accounts and more than 75 crore debit cards make it an "enabled" society for digital transactions. The central government has also promoted cashless transactions through UPI, USSD, AEPS and Rupay Card. All these steps are towards the corruption free India, it said.

"The BJP firmly believes that digital economy will stop the leakage of taxes. This Government has ended any role of middlemen from its beneficiary schemes like MNREGA, financial assistance to poor students, subsidies to marginal sections including SC/ST/OBC through digital transactions and Direct Benefit Transfers," the resolution said.

Referring to Modi's sops for the rural poor, women and senior citizens, it said Prime Minister ensured honour to the honest people on November 8 with demonetisation announcement and on December 31 he provided a new energy and faith to the youth, women, small businessmen, senior citizen and farmer of this country.

"Prime Minister's appeal to all political parties about election expenditures is a revolutionary step as the political parties' freedom from black money and corruption is essential for the making of the India of our future," BJP said. Asking party workers to push digital economy, it said the government's measures are in like with "integral humanism", a core philosophy of BJP's ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyay.

"These decisions are paving the way towards making of a modern India where modern technique, transparent governance and equitable society will be fulfilling the aim of 'sabka saath sabka vikas'," the resolution said.

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News Network
December 5,2025

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New Delhi, Dec 5: IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers issued a public apology this evening after more than a thousand flights were cancelled today, making it the "most severely impacted day" in terms of cancellations. The biggest airline of the country cancelled "more than half" of its daily number of flights on Friday, said Elbers. He also said that even though the crisis will persist on Saturday, the airline anticipates fewer than 1,000 flight cancellations.

"Full normalisation is expected between December 10 and 15, though IndiGo cautions that recovery will take time due to the scale of operations," the IndiGo CEO said. 

IndiGo operates around 2,300 domestic and international flights daily.

Pieter Elbers, while apologising for the major inconvenience due to delays and cancellations, said the situation is a result of various causes.

The crisis at IndiGo stems from new regulations that boost pilots' weekly rest requirements by 12 hours to 48 and allow only two night-time landings per week, down from six. IndiGo has attributed the mass cancellations to "misjudgment and planning gaps".

Elbers also listed three lines of action that the airline will adopt to address the issue.

"Firstly, customer communication and addressing your needs, for this, messages have been sent on social media. And just now, a more detailed communication with information, refunds, cancellations and other customer support measures was sent," he said.

The airline has also stepped up its call centre capacity.

"Secondly, due to yesterday's situation, we had customers stranded mostly at the nation's largest airports. Our focus was for all of them to be able to travel today itself, which will be achieved. For this, we also ask customers whose flights are cancelled not to come to the airports as notifications are sent," the CEO said.

"Thirdly, cancellations were made for today to align our crew and planes to be where they need to start tomorrow morning afresh. Earlier measures of the last few days, regrettable, have proven not to be enough, but we have decided today to reboot all our systems and schedules, resulting in the highest numbers of cancellations so far, but imperative for progressive improvements starting from tomorrow," he added.

As airports witnessed chaotic scenes, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) stepped in to grant IndiGo a temporary exemption from stricter night duty rules for pilots. It also allowed substitution of leaves with a weekly rest period. 

Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu has said a high-level inquiry will be ordered and accountability will be fixed.

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News Network
December 13,2025

New Delhi: School-going children are picking up drug and smoking habits and engaging in consumption of alcohol, with the average age of introduction to such harmful substances found to be around 13 years, suggesting a need for earlier interventions as early as primary school, a multi-city survey by AIIMS-Delhi said.

The findings also showed substance use increased in higher grades, with grade XI/XII students two times more likely to report use of substances when compared with grade VIII students. This emphasised the importance of continued prevention and intervention through middle and high school.

The study led by Dr Anju Dhawan of AIIMS's National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre, published in the National Medical Journal of India this month, looks at adolescent substance use across diverse regions.

The survey included 5,920 students from classes 8, 9, 11 and 12 in urban government, private and rural schools across 10 cities -- Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Delhi, Dibrugarh, Hyderabad, Imphal, Jammu, Lucknow, Mumbai, and Ranchi. The data were collected between May 2018 and June 2019.

The average age of initiation for any substance was 12.9 (2.8) years. It was lowest for inhalants (11.3 years) followed by heroin (12.3 years) and opioid pharmaceuticals (without prescription; 12.5 years).

Overall, 15.1 per cent of participants reported lifetime use, 10.3 per cent reported past year use, and 7.2 per cent reported use in the past month of any substance, the study found.

The most common substances used in the past year, after tobacco (4 per cent) and alcohol (3.8 per cent), were opioids (2.8 per cent), followed by cannabis (2 per cent) and inhalants (1.9 per cent). Use of non-prescribed pharmaceutical opioids was most common among opioid users (90.2 per cent).

On being asked, 'Do you think this substance is easily available for a person of your age' separately for each substance category, nearly half the students (46.3 per cent) endorsed that tobacco products and more than one-third of the students (36.5 per cent) agreed that a person of their age can easily procure alcohol products.

Similarly, for Bhang (21.9 per cent), ganja/charas (16.1 per cent), inhalants (15.2 per cent), sedatives (13.7 per cent), opium and heroin (10 per cent each), the students endorsed that these can be easily procured.

About 95 per cent of the children, irrespective of their grade, agreed with the statement that 'drug use is harmful'.

The rates of substance use (any) among boys were significantly higher than those of girls for substance use (ever), use in the past year and use in the past 30 days. Compared to grade VIII students, grade IX students were more likely, and grade XI/XII students were twice as likely to have used any substance (ever).

The likelihood of past-year use of any substance was also higher for grade IX students and for grade XI/XII students as compared to grade VIII students.

About 40 per cent of students mentioned that they had a family member who used tobacco or alcohol each. The use of cannabis (any product) and opioid (any product) by a family member was reported by 8.2 per cent and 3.9 per cent of students, respectively, while the use of other substances, such as inhalants/sedatives by family was 2-3 per cent, the study found.

A relatively smaller percentage of students reported use of tobacco or alcohol among peers as compared to among family members, while a higher percentage reported inhalants, sedatives, cannabis or opioid use among peers.

Children using substances (past year) compared to non-users reported significantly higher any substance use by their family members and peers.

There were 25.7 per cent students who replied 'yes' to the question 'conflicts/fights often occur in your family'. Most students also replied affirmatively to 'family members are aware of how their time is being spent' and 'damily members are aware of with whom they spend their time'.

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News Network
December 6,2025

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With IndiGo flight disruptions impacting thousands of passengers, the airline on Saturday said that it will offer full waiver on all cancellations/reschedule requests for travel bookings between December 5, 2025 and December 15, 2025.

Earlier in the day, the civil aviation ministry had directed the airline to complete the ticket refund process for the cancelled flights by Sunday evening, as well as ensure baggage separated from the travellers are delivered in the next two days.

In a post on X, titled 'No questions asked', IndiGo wrote, "In response to recent events, all refunds for your cancellations will be processed automatically to your original mode of payment."

"We are deeply sorry for the hardships caused," it further added.

Several passengers, however, complained of not getting full refund as promised by the airline.

Netizens have shared screenchots of getting charged for airline cancellation fee and convenience fee.

"Please tell me why u have did this airline cancellation charges when u say full amount will be refunded (sic)," a user wrote sharing a screenshot of the refund page.

"Well, but you have still debited the convenience charges," wrote another.

Passengers have also raised concerns about the "cancel" option being disabled on the IndiGo app. "First enable the 'Cancel' button on your App & offer full refund on tickets cancelled by customers between the said dates," wrote a user.

A day after the country's largest airline, IndiGo, cancelled more than 1,000 flights and caused disruptions for the fifth day on Saturday, the ministry said that any delay or non-compliance in refund processing will invite immediate regulatory action.

The refund process for all cancelled or disrupted flights must be completed by 8 pm on Sunday, the ministry said in a statement.

"Airlines have also been instructed not to levy any rescheduling charges for passengers whose travel plans were affected by cancellations," it said.

On Saturday, more than 400 flights were cancelled at various airports.

IndiGo has also been instructed to set up dedicated passenger support and refund facilitation cells.

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