FIVE THINGS ABOUT A CURRENCY CRISIS

1 GOVERNMENT DECISION

Last week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his government was withdrawing all 500 and 1,000 Indian rupee notes — equivalent to about $10 and $20 — to combat corruption, money laundering and counterfeiting. People were told to deposit discontinued notes in banks and post office accounts before the end of the year. They were also told they could exchange limited amounts for new 500 and 2,000 rupee bills. The move has created huge queues outside banks and ATMs.

2 WHAT HAS HAPPENED

Most Indians earn and spend in cash, and more than half of the country’s 1.3 billion people have no bank accounts. Almost every transaction is in cash. And business is now evaporating since 80 per cent of India’s banknotes are useless.

3 PEOPLE ARE UPSET

The labourers who transport fruit and vegetables in handcarts around the 90-acre Azadpur Mandi wholesale fruit and vegetable market, the big traders and the small retailers who buy a few baskets or crates of food each day — all are furious. Handcart operator Jitendra Prasad says people are holding on to their precious 10s and 100s out of fear of when they’ll be able to make their next withdrawal.

4 WHAT THE PEOPLE SAY

Handcart puller Jagat says it’s never been harder to make enough to scrape by. “I would make 1,000 rupees a day ($19.60). At this time in the morning I would be so busy I wouldn’t have time to stop and talk. But now making even 200 rupees ($4.90) is hard.”

5 MEANWHILE, IN CANADA

A number of Canadian residents who have the discontinued notes, left over from past travel, received as gifts, or kept as spending money for future trips to India, spent days frantically trying to exchange their rupees with little success.