Nirav Modi – An Inspiration for Social Media, Cartoonists & the Rotomac Guy?

Unless one has been living under a rock or worse, off social media, one has heard of the Great Nirav Modi Escape. It then follows that Nirav Modi was trending on Twitter and all other forms of social media. There are those who now envy Modi, his Teflon coated criminality and plush lifestyle, are angry at his barefaced gall or amused at the situation. Then there are those who are so inspired by current goings on, that they decide to pull a Nirav Modi themselves.

Finding NiMo

This one has been swimming around circulating in various forms on social media since the jeweler’s vanishing act first came to light.

More details

Many now know that Letters of Understanding were issued, based on which Nirav Modi obtained finance from various financial agencies. More details about the scam are now coming to light.

Cash is old hat

Letters of Understanding are far more valuable for new age looters. According to one tweeter, earlier looters were dacoits, now looters are crony capitalists. Some are wishing that the resources used up in demonetisation had been used to bring mega-fraudsters to book.

People are angry

The rich are getting richer; living luxurious lifestyles even when implicated in huge frauds. This is because of political patronage feel some. Some are also paranoid enough to think that demonetisation was an elaborate exercise to take money from the general public to finance further funding for willful defaulters.

Very angry!

The contrast between the way the common person is treated when there is a requirement for loans, accessing their own accounts and the way that the rich and famous are treated is stark. For most people, the contrast between this is what is most disheartening.

The stark contrast!

What pinches some people the most is the fact that small debtors such as poor farmers are hounded for repayment (80% of farmer suicides are due to the inability to repay loans), while rich debtors evade repayment willfully and continue to live their luxurious lifestyles abroad with impunity.

The irony

Priyanka Chopra and Sidharth Malhotra have modeled for several Nirav Modi ads. The clever editing by this twitter user highlights an acute irony.

KYC? Aadhaar?

Many of course are asking facetious questions about whether the scamster linked his Aadhaar to his bank account. Others want to know if the whole Know Your Customer exercise is only selectively applied.

The coincidence!

Several tweeple were struck by the fact that some of the biggest twitter trends of 2018 started from the letter P: Padmaavat, Pakodanomics, Priya Prakash and now the PNB Scam.

Notional/National

Some people are angry that scams such as these are actually hurting the common public because fraudsters are misappropriating public funds. Some are now speaking out against actual frauds versus notional scams.

Swinging into action?

Not so much. Both the government and the opposition are engaged mostly in trying to shift blame on to each other and seem to be doing precious little to safeguard small depositors and their funds from rapacious fraudsters in future.

Meanwhile…

…The public perception continues to be that scamsters manage to leave the country and continue to live lives of luxury that most of us cannot even envision, while honest tax payers continue to be burdened by inflation, price rise and increased tax burdens.

And now this…

Rotomac Pen's Rs. 800 crore defaulter flees country; possibly inspired by others who went before? Is this is a footnote or a sign of things to come?

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