Fifty days ago, India yanked most of its currency from circulation without warning, jolting the economy and leaving most citizens scrambling for cash. As the deadline for exchanging the devalued 500- and 1,000-rupee notes for new ones hits Friday, many Indians are still stuck waiting in long bank lines.
Empty ATMs and ever-changing rules are preventing people from withdrawing money, and many small, cash-reliant businesses from cinemas to neighborhood grocery stores are suffering huge losses or going under.
Despite those problems, Prime Minister Narendra Modi says his Nov. 8 demonetization decree has succeeded in uncovering tax evasion and cracking down on graft. The Indian government is urging patience, insisting it's playing a long game that will eventually modernize Indian society and benefit the poor.
So far, despite the widespread inconvenience and costs, most of the country's 1.25 billion citizens appear to be taking Modi's word for it.
A month after Modi scrapped the high-denomination notes, Venezuela's president announced that the 100-bolivar notes that account for more than three-quarters of the country's cash would be taken out of circulation.
Skyrocketing inflation had taken the value of the Venezuelan notes to 2 U.S. cents from 10 cents in the past year.
But while India's cash overhaul has been relatively peaceful, Venezuela's was not.
When no new bolivar notes appeared to replace the old ones, riots and looting erupted in towns across Venezuela, whose economy was already in shambles. Hundreds of grocery stores were damaged or destroyed. Ultimately, the government extended use of the old 100-bolivar notes until Jan. 2.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro declared the abrupt cash overhaul an economic triumph, claiming people were racing to deposit the old notes into banks. He did not say how much was deposited.
In Pakistan, opposition lawmakers passed a resolution last week calling for the withdrawal of the country's highest-denomination note from circulation. The government rejected that move, saying there was no need to discontinue the country's 5,000-rupee note, worth about $48.
"The very notion of cancellation of such convenience in transactions is preposterous and unequivocally denied," the Finance Ministry said in a statement.
AP
