A campaign launched by the Government of India, which includes plans to connect rural areas with high-speed Internet networks. The underlying assumption is that easier and cheaper access to the Internet will lead to development of the poor, but many researchers have argued that such an infrastructure push should also be accompanied by a digital literacy campaign to alert first-time users of information technology about problems caused due to undesirable appropriation of technology, as has been evidenced with arise in rumours and fake news on social media and messaging platforms.

Cashless Economy aims to create an economic state where by financial transactions are not conducted with money in the form of physical bank notes or coins, but rather through the transfer of digital information between the transacting parties. Among other objectives, the demonetization move was positioned as a policy to push India towards a cashless state, so that the poor who do not have any credit history or access to banking channels, will be able to create this data trail that will help them later get easier access to formal sources of credit and other financial instruments. Controversy however prevails, because the low access to digital technology by the poor, trust issues in using entirely electronic means for money management, capability and skills at technology usage, and underutilization of bank accounts by the poor, lead to arguments about whether the country is even ready for such a move and what kind of safeguards in law and skilling should be developed before such policies can be pushed.