Demonetized currency notes ~ and may be counterfeit ones too ~ are being passed on to unsuspecting tourists by unscrupulous shopkeepers in New Delhi and maybe elsewhere in the country too. Tourists and tightly-scheduled conference delegates to any city, look for ethnic souvenirs they can quickly buy in readily accessible tourist-oriented shopping rows in the city. Palming off undated or demonetised Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes, the shopkeepers have no qualms about sullying the country’s reputation or placing visitors in traumatic predicaments during the rest of their stay.

A foreign lady delegate to the South Asian Remote Sensing Conference that was held from 23-26 October, was seen caught up in an awkward situation one morning at the neat Jharkhand State initiative, Khadi Kutir, in the Ashok Hotel shopping arcade leading to the sunny Samovar Coffee Shop. She had made a purchase and was counting out her money, when the shop attendant politely told her that those currency notes were no longer valid. Visibly jolted and annoyed at having been duped, she attempted to pay in foreign currency, which the appropriately khadi-clad shop minder could not accept.

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Tense and flustered, the dignified senior level conference delegate ~ apparantly an expert in her field ~ hastened to the bank counter in the arcade to change currency to complete the transaction and make the purchase. One does not know where she got those invalid currency notes. But whoever did it must be thinking he did a smart thing, but one can only imagine what impression it left.