Here you go, but I’m not sure hyperbole is out of order in this case (I’m more annoyed by the scattershot grab bag of global ills (which boil down to a rather unremarkable "authoritarians are gonna authoritarian, all the “post-reality” stuff is as old as monarchy) rather than focusing on exactly what is horrible about this):
[quote]
The reality is different. Yes, the rich have indeed gotten poorer. But the poor have been decimated. Call it trickle-down poverty.
About 600 million Indians don’t have bank accounts, many because they are poor and uneducated. Roughly 300 million don’t have official identification. It’s not easy to swap their soon-to-be worthless cash, which is a catastrophe given that they live hand to mouth. It is heartbreaking to see these people lined up in long queues outside post offices and banks, missing days and days of work, pleading for funds from the very bureaucrats from whose clutches Modi had promised to release them.
Modi hatched his scheme in complete secrecy, without consulting his own economic advisers or the Parliament, lest rich hoarders catch wind and ditch their cash holdings for gold and other assets. Hence, he could not order enough new money printed in advance. This is a massive problem given that about 90 percent of India’s economic transactions are in cash. People need to be able to get money from their banks to meet basic needs. But the government has imposed strict limits on how much of their own money people can withdraw from their own accounts.
Patients needing critical care are being turned away because they don’t have new bills, and hospitals won’t accept the old denominations. Old people are being forced to choose between food and medicine. Some farmers, living on the brink of financial catastrophe given their meager savings, have committed suicide as produce sales plummet. Industries dominated by small businesses that rely on private, off-the-grid financing from local money lenders and have no access to India’s meager official credit institutions are getting wiped out.[/quote]
