-The Hindu Stories of distress, following a year of drought and now demonetisation, reverberate through State BENGALURU: First, the water in their fields disappeared, and now, the cash in the market. For Rajaiah of Boovanahalli in Hassan district, the cash crunch following demonetisation has seen his yet-to-be harvested maize shrouded in uncertainty. “There are no merchants to purchase as they have no cash,” he said. There is desperation, however, as his entire produce...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: About 57.57 per cent of India's urban population of 300 million has no source of income, socio-economic data released by the government last week suggests, prompting at least one analyst to wonder if this was the reason people were willing to queue up for the whole day to exchange cash. Thirty-seven per cent are engaged in work ranging from begging to government jobs, earning some income. About 5.90...

-Caravan Magazine “It was like hitting hard at the bird’s nest with a stone,” said P Somu, a Dalit migrant labourer, who travelled from Mudigubba mandal of Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh to Cochin to work. He said, “It’s the same feeling I got after I was cheated by [the agro-based retail conglomerate] AgriGold. I had sold the cow and calf I loved.” When I met Somu on 12 November 2016,...

-TheWire.in As the unorganised sector continues suffering, civil society members, bankers and politicians remain sceptical of demonetisation’s impact on black money. It is no secret that India’s informal sector, a largely cash-based economy, has taken a big hit because of demonetisation. While the government insists that the suffering is only temporary and worth it for cracking down on black money, several representatives from the unorganised sector are presenting a starkly different account...

-Livemint.com The rich and the middle class have their digital wallets and credit cards; they can afford to wait two weeks, even 50 days, for their money to be exchanged One has to be astonishingly callous or exceptionally removed from reality to think that the poor are sleeping peacefully and only the rich are frightened, needing sleeping pills in the wake of the great currency-exchange drama playing out in India. For that’s...