Interesting Facts - Page 108

536
In November 2016, the government of India suddenly announced that all 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes were no longer valid currency. People were forced to line up at banks to exchange the old notes for new ones. The policy did not achieve its goal of removing "black money" from the market - but did hurt the economy and majorly inconvenience regular people.
537
European colonial powers have been criticized for creating country borders by drawing straight lines on a map, ignoring complicated ethnic divisions. But what would happen if you drew the borders differently? The answer is Kyrgyzstan, whose long and ridiculously convoluted borders were drawn based on ethnic divisions. Unfortunately, the results have not been encouraging, with endless border disputes between Kyrgyzstan and its neighbors.
538
Almost all publically-available maps of the Soviet Union were deliberately sketchy and inaccurate. Rivers were moved, streets were in the wrong place, etc... Tourists maps of Moscow did not even show major streets. Fortunately, there was one organization which produced accurate maps for tourists: The CIA.
539
On 3 September 1967, Sweden switched from driving on the left to driving on the right. This event was known as "H Day", where H stands for Högertrafikomläggningen.
540
The Great Trigonometric Survey was a British project to measure the entire Indian subcontinent. It was begun in 1802 and not finished until 1871. It was this survey which first determined that Mount Everest was the highest in the world. And in fact, Mount Everest was named for one of the leaders of the survey.
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About 539, Sweden switching to drive on the right. There is a joke about it, that it was proposed that first moved trucks, buses etc to drive on the right. And after two weeks passenger cars moved to drive on the right.
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Level 80
Dec 20, 2020
#540: Did it take that long because the workers realized they had a very secure job and didn't want it to end, or because they were really meticulous?
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Level 70
Mar 8, 2021
It was a massive job for those given the task, and yes they were meticulous. Also no modern day transport or computers etc. and a mountain range like the Himalayas to encounter as well as other mountain ranges and massive plains. The Himalayas include over fifty mountains exceeding 7,200 m (23,600 ft) in elevation, including ten of the fourteen 8,000-metre peaks, several hundred more mountains in the 3 ranges of the Himalayas, 'Greater', 'Lesser' and Shivalik Hills. Several mighty rivers including 7 major rivers etc. The Deccan Plaeau is 422,000 square kilometres and was surveyed throughout. Imagine the work involved, paper work and maths etc.
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It is curious how the European powers are criticized for ignoring ethnic divisions in Africa (but are of the same race) yet the same detractors of that policy encourage multiculturalism in Europe. Food for thought.
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Level 70
Dec 26, 2021
It is a case of "Don't do as I do, do as I say"
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Level 73
May 8, 2022
How is that an example of this?
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Level 73
May 8, 2022
Huh? Are you saying that ethnically different Africans are less dissimilar than different cultural groups of Europeans because the Africans are "of the same race"?
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Level 78
Sep 28, 2022
There is a MASSIVE distinction between inviting a relatively small number of foreigners into your stable democracy; and colonizing land for decades, sapping its resources, building up power structures that place certain ethnic groups over others, and nopeing out without any preparation for a peaceful transition of power.

Unfortunately, what you're saying is still food for that, because a lot of these people do seem to reduce the decolonization of Africa to "they didn't pay attention to ethnicity when making the borders!", even though it's much more complicated, and even though there have been peaceful multicultural nations are war-torn monocultural ones.

Even so, half of the problem people seem to criticize is that individual ethnic groups are split in half. Your comparison would only be true if multiculturalists were additionally arguing to split Sweden into 2 countries with the border at a line of latitude.

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Level 63
Nov 23, 2022
Thankfully it wasnt named in full as Högertrafikomläggningen day
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Level 40
Sep 22, 2023
The Demonetisation did (at least partly) achieve its goals of removing black money and corruption.

Most of the illegal transactions were being done in these value notes. Removing these notes also led to an increase tax collection rate.

That said, it was a major inconvenience, as well as a problem.

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Level 56
May 12, 2025
It was also a movement towards transition to UPI payments.
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Level 50
Jan 22, 2025
Wow interesting
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Goober