Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hit back Friday at the mounting criticism of his decision to withdraw all high-denomination bank notes from circulation, describing the move as "for the larger social good". The November 8 move to ban the 500 and 1,000 rupees ($7.30, $14.60) notes - some 85 percent of all bills in circulation - as legal tender has sparked turmoil in the vast cash-reliant nation.
Long queues have formed outside banks across the country as people try to get rid of their old notes, and the government has repeatedly changed rules surrounding the exchange process in response to pressure from various groups and mounting chaos. "The decision isn''''t being criticised much (by the common man)," Modi said in a speech Friday, in which he praised citizens as "soldiers in this fight against corruption and black (unaccounted) money".
"Some things have to be done above politics for the larger social good," he added. Critics of the move have included former prime minister Manmohan Singh - whose economic reforms are credited with rescuing India from the brink of bankruptcy in the early 1990s - who said that the decision could shave two percentage points from the country''''s GDP.
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