Man who wrongly predicted PM Modi will declare 'Financial Emergency' says he's a rebel

Thirty-four year old Nitin Naresh, founder of a little known two-year-old magazine for start-ups and entrepreneurs Inventiva created a storm by publishing an article titled 'Narendra Modi Likely To Declare A Emergency In India Under Article 360'.

The piece prophesying 'Article 360 states that if the President is satisfied that a situation has arisen whereby the financial stability or the credit of India or any part thereof is threatened, the President may declare a state of financial emergency' went viral on social media until the Press Information Bureau denying any such possibility.

@PIBFactCheck tweeted that "Please be advised that the story is malicious and fake and that there is no such plan."

Well aware of the scramble he caused, Naresh, a graduate from Meerut's Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology, however, says, "it is a circumstantial opinion based article. Based on the current circumstances I am making a case that it is 'likely' to happen. It doesn't mean it will happen."

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In the piece he makes an argument that Prime Minister Modi is "likely" to impose Article 360 in the country, saying India is seeing the worst financial crisis in its 72 years of history.

He says he has been getting calls for spreading fake news and even threats that they will file police complaint against him in the Crime Branch.

But why did he write without any basis? "I am a deep thinker and observe things at a very deep level and I have a rebellious nature."

The main motive behind the article, he says, was to prepare the country. "My main agenda behind publishing this article is that the country should be prepared because when demonetisation was declared in 2016 people were not ready. Everything changed in a minute after that announcement. It created so many problems, many even died.  It became such a big scam itself. The move whose aim was to curb black money became its 'jan data' itself."

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Calling the Prime Ministre Modi 'Khatro ke Khiladi', he said, there are several reasons that are indicating that the current government cannot run the country without declaring financial emergency. He shares the series of government's announcements that backs his argument. For instance, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that spending of CSR funds for COVID-19 is eligible CSR funding. As per law, CSR funding is not tax deductible. He says, "it means that even in this epidemic situation, the government wants to protect its own taxes and doesn't want to give it up." She also announced, in times of slowdown and reduced consumption, raising the excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 8 per litre each as Parliament passed the Finance Bill, 2020. "If entire India is under lockdown and transportation is shut, this announcement is likely to lead to more job losses and put extra burden on the public, he says.

The third announcement that triggered the article was by RBI on purchasing government securities to boost liquidity.  "All of these initiatives points that government is completely bankrupt and without imposing financial assistance they cannot run the country," he says.

There are more article to follow. His next article will be 'Slowdown to Lockdown' that will be about the slowing economy of 2019 and then the current crisis of 2020 of Covid 19.

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