Thursday, March 28, 2024

Why are mobile phone towers being destroyed? And no, I am not talking of Jio towers in Punjab

Why are mobile phone towers being destroyed in parts of North India and by whom?

Have you ever been made to wait for a long time to have your passbook updated at usually a Public Sector Bank branch, while somebody with a stack of dozens of passbooks appears to be getting them updated all at the same time, and then also often heading for the next cash teller counter to receive various sums of hard cash money using withdrawal slips?

I have, and learnt more about this when a close relative took the opportunity to do something similar with my late mother’s bank account, by taking her passbook, getting a thumb-print impression on a withdrawal slip, getting the same re-verified by a neighbourhood maid who had an account in the same branch, and then withdrew a sizeable amount of money (3 lakhs in this case) after which thank-you-very-much and vamoose.

Here is what I learnt – despite having been issued with debit cards which can be used at any ATM, urban and rural legend about excess charges for ATM usage as well as mishaps and wrong delivery of currency, a complete segment of people still prefer to go to teller counters. Conflicting and confusing media reports only make it worse. But that’s not the main reason.

The main reason, for mass passbook updating, has more to do with informal debt, the use of passbooks as collateral, barely legible signatures or thumb-prints, and complicit bank staff. Direct Benefit Transfers or DBT, be it in the name of school-children, specific communities, farmers, economically weaker sections, or others, does have its darker side also. Despite checks and balances, what can the Government do if beneficiaries are made to hand over their banking work to agents, of various sorts? Informal loan business in India has a huge violent side and seizing passbooks is the least of it.

What the Government can do and has done is to increase the options of phone banking. Along with a variety of bio-metrics and OTPs as well as often facial re-confirmations. After all, if the DBT and balance updates are on a phone (owned or shared) then what is the need to go to the Bank Branch for updates and cash withdrawals? Debt to the local moneylender, informal or otherwise, then becomes a separate segregated subject. It is very difficult to explain this to the educated middle class who are afflicted with eyes wide shut sickness that comes about by assuming that they know everything by reading a newspaper and watching television.

This is a very short article which explains why mobile phone towers are being destroyed in parts of North India. This time I am sure it is not the farmers protesting outside Delhi who are responsible. It is the loan sharks, the agents, and their benefactors who are responsible.

Who are the real benefactors? Try and understand the role of the shadow controllers living abroad who are the past-masters in monetary swindles—across all social and religious combinations.

Veeresh Malik was a seafarer. And a lot more besides. A decade in facial biometrics, which took him into the world of finance, gaming, preventive defence and money laundering before the subliminal mind management technology blew his brains out. His romance with the media endures since 1994, duly responded by Outlook, among others.

A survivor of two brain-strokes, triggered by a ship explosion in the 70s, Veeresh moved beyond fear decades ago

 

Read More

Hindenburg Report: We know who you are, morons!

Very recently we have had an international spectacle, of a research based short seller, trying to bring down an Indian corporate known more for...
Support Us
Contribute to see NewsBred grow. And rejoice that your input has made it possible.