-Hindustan Times New Delhi: When seven days of standing in long queues outside banks yielded no results, a 35-year-old Scrap dealer allegedly committed suicide by hanging from a ceiling fan at his house in northeast Delhi’s Mustafabad on Thursday night. Mohammed Shakeel was reportedly frustrated because he couldn’t exchange old notes worth Rs 5,000. He had to pay instalments of two loans as well. Shakeel’s family said he went to banks early morning,...

-Livemint.com Several Bundelkhand farmers contend that demonetisation is a direct attack on the class divide and has reduced the rising gap between the rich and the poor New Delhi: In April this year, before the monsoon set in on parched Bundelkhand, Ajay Tripathi was witness to countless cattle deaths and fellow villagers migrating in hordes to escape the aftermath of consecutive years of drought. For the young farmer from Uttar Pradesh’s Mahoba...

-Livemint.com The impact of cash crunch on farmers is likely to have a cascading effect on the broader economy in southern India Bengaluru/ Chennai: P.V. Rajappan, a rice farmer in Kerala’s drought-hit Palakkad district, had been planning to drill a borewell to irrigate his next crop. He thought he would be able to do it this year. Rajappan delivered his entire harvest—10,210kg of paddy—to the state-run Civil Supplies Corporation, popularly known as...

-Ideas for India In an earlier article, Pronab Sen, Country Director, IGC India Central, examined some of the economic consequences of the recent demonetisation of Rs. 1,000 and 500 notes in India, and concluded that the potential damage could be substantial, both in terms of growth and equity. In this article, focussing on solutions, he contends that the government now needs to realise that credit for production purposes is at least as,...

-Livemint.com Delays in replacing the currency risk prolonging the pain in the $2 trillion economy, where about 98% of consumer payments are made in cash Mumbai: For people expecting respite from the government’s clampdown on cash, here’s a reality check: it probably won’t come soon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration may need until May 2017 to replenish the stock of now worthless bills, according to Saumitra Chaudhuri, an economist who advised Modi’s predecessor....