-TheWire.in Farmers in Vidarbha are being forced to incur terrible losses – by accepting lower prices, losing their perishable produce, or due to a fear of depositing cash payments in old notes in Banks where they owe loan repayments. Bandu Ghormade had no choice but to accept the old Rs 500 notes from the procurement agent and a lower price of Rs 200 less for every 40 kilo crate of his freshly...

-TheWire.in A large chunk of India’s farmers continue to depend on commission agents and not formal institutions for credit, thereby relying on cash. It is now official. Demonetisation has led to an implosion of agricultural trade in the country. In the week following demonetisation, soyabean arrivals in select major states had collapsed by 87% relative to average arrivals over the week preceding demonetisation. The figures were 55% for paddy, 61% for guar,...

-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,...

-The Times of India PANAJI: Goa is likely to become the first state in India to go cashless from December 31, as people will be able to buy perishables such as fish, meat, vegetables or anything else at the press of a button on their mobile. There will be no need to carry your purse for purchases and the profession of pickpocketers may become extinct soon, as all transactions will be done...

-The Hindu With grocers and cold storage owners refusing to accept scrapped currency notes, farmers are struggling to get potato seeds while landless labourers are forced to forgo their food. Chitra Bag and her family of six are eating less these days. They make do with one meal instead of the usual three meals, despite a gruelling 8-10 hours of work daily as landless farm labourers. Even though vegetables, grown around their...