new delhimaharajganj prime minister narendra modi on wednesday took a dig at the critics of demonetisation citing recent gdp figures and repeated his old barb hard work is more powerful than harvardthe government had on tuesday pegged gdp growth at a higherthanexpected 71 per cent for 201617 despite the cash blues which was higher than chinas 68 per cent for octoberdecember period of 2016 making india retain the tag of the worlds fastest growing economywellknown intellectuals from harvard and oxford universities who have been at key positions in the indian economic system had said the gdp would go down by two per cent some others said it would go down by four per cent pm modi said at an election rally in maharajganjwithout naming anyone the prime minister said on one hand there are these intellectuals who talk about harvard and on the other there is this son of a poor mother who is trying to change the economy of the country through hard workin fact hard work is much more powerful than harvard the pm said without elaboratingit may be mentioned that former finance minister p chidambaram and nobel laureate amartya sen are from harvard while former pm mamnohan singh is from oxford all three have been strong critics of demonetisation nobel laureate amartya sen who is professor of economics and philosophy at harvard university recently termed demonetisation as a despotic action that has struck at the root of economy based on trustformer prime minister manmohan singh and congress leader p chidambaram have also been vocal critics of demonetisation of rs 500 and rs 1000 notesin fact chidamabram had been at the receiving end of pm modis barb on hard work versus harvard in 2014 tooduring campaigning for the lok sabha polls modi had attacked the then upa finance ministers harvard education after the latter made fun of his knowledge about economicsyou are educated from a big university i am from a poor background from a small village the finance minister is from harvard i am from hardwork do we need harvard or hardwork for the development of the country modi had said at a rally in tamil nadupm quotes up website to attack akhilesh government prime minister narendra modi also referred to the website of the uttar pradesh government to slam chief minister akhilesh yadav on his kaam bolta hai sloganthe up government website endorses my statement of karnama bolta hai as the site says life in up is short and uncertain in this respect up resembles saharan africa he saidmodi said he was sure that as soon as his speech was over the officers entrusted with the task of maintaining the website would be immediately reprimandedhe also took a dig at the congresssp alliance claiming one of them has the expertise in destroying india while the other has the expertise in destroying uttar pradeshmodi said the state got a bua aunty a bhatija nephew and father of the bhatija in the last 15 years has this