[Mr. Modi has begun to come in for criticism, after being afforded a remarkable grace period. Politicians clashed over the move, and Parliament was adjourned amid raucous debates over the plan, which was intended to drain unaccounted cash, so-called black money, from the economy to cut down on rampant corruption and tax avoidance.]
By Nida Nazar
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Men waited to exchange
currency at a bank in Amritsar, India, on Thursday.
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi announced on Nov. 8 that India’s highest-value
bills, the
1,000 and 500 rupee notes, worth about $15 and $7.50, would cease
being legal tender. Credit Narinder Nanu/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
NEW DELHI — As the chaos surrounding Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s ban on high-currency bills entered its ninth day, the
government moved Thursday to address some of the problems amid signs of growing
impatience with the slapdash way the policy seems to have been carried out.
Since the move was announced, retail commerce
has slowed, farmers who deal almost exclusively in cash have had no buyers and
people have waited in long lines at banks and ATMs in hopes of getting a paltry
amount of the new notes the government is in the process of printing.
To deal with the continuing liquidity crunch,
the government on Thursday cut the exchange limit to 2,000 rupees, or about
$30, from 4,500 rupees, or about $66, effective Friday, so that the cash would
be more widely distributed. This week, banks began using indelible ink to mark
fingers of people who had exchanged old notes to weed out repeated exchanges.
In a nod to the wedding season here, the
government said Thursday that families celebrating a marriage could withdraw
250,000 rupees, or about $3,700, from their bank accounts for the event.
Farmers gained some relief, with permission
to withdraw 25,000 rupees a week against their crop loans, the government said.
Traders were allowed withdrawals of 50,000 rupees a week, allowing them to pay
for labor and produce at wholesale markets.
The government was also racing to calibrate
ATMs with the newly issued 2,000 rupee notes and smaller currency.
Mr. Modi has begun to come in for criticism,
after being afforded a remarkable grace period. Politicians clashed over the
move, and Parliament was adjourned amid raucous debates over the plan, which
was intended to drain unaccounted cash, so-called black money, from the economy
to cut down on rampant corruption and tax avoidance.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi and
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal joined forces in opposition to
the policy on Thursday, attending a rally against the decision in New Delhi and
demanding that it be rolled back in three days.
In a televised interview, Finance Minister
Arun Jaitley expressed regret over the inconvenience but said it was
unavoidable because “we have to withdraw currency which is used for generating black
money.”
Mr. Modi announced on Nov. 8 that India’s
highest-value bills, the 1,000 and 500 rupee notes, worth about $15 and $7.50,
would cease being legal tender the next morning. The bills represent more than
80 percent of the currency in the country. The old currency could be exchanged
for new bills, but those were in short supply and no replacement bills had been
printed to avoid tipping off anyone about the plan.
Officials warned that while they were doing
what they could, the currency shortage was not going to disappear overnight.
“Please remember this dislocation is not
going to get over in the 50 days the prime minister has mentioned,” Arun
Shourie, a former cabinet minister, said Thursday evening on NDTV, an Indian
news channel, adding that experts had estimated the full adjustment could take
months.
“The scale of this event is so unprecedented
that we are all struggling to see where the chips will fall,” Pratap Bhanu
Mehta, the president of the Centre for Policy Research, wrote in The Indian Express.
“Just as a matter of political analysis, the sheer audacity of this move is
breathtaking.”
Follow Nida Najar on Twitter @nidanajar.
Hari Kumar contributed reporting.
Ms. Saunders said the Tibetans were mostly
from Kham and Amdo, Tibetan regions now ruled by China, and were on a
pilgrimage to sacred sites in Nepal and India. It is likely that they planned
to go in January to an important Buddhist ceremony, the Kalachakra teaching, in
Bodh Gaya, an Indian city, she said.
By Edward Wong
Forty-one Tibetans who were detained by the
Nepalese police while they were on a bus bound for India have been released to
a Nepalese human rights group, an advocate for Tibetan rights said Friday.
The advocate, Kate Saunders, of the
International Campaign for Tibet, said early Friday in London that the human
rights group, the Human Rights Organization of Nepal, and other contacts in
Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, had told her that immigration officials and the
police had allowed all the Tibetans to be released.
Ms. Saunders said the Tibetans were mostly
from Kham and Amdo, Tibetan regions now ruled by China, and were on a
pilgrimage to sacred sites in Nepal and India. It is likely that they planned
to go in January to an important Buddhist ceremony, the Kalachakra teaching, in
Bodh Gaya, an Indian city, she said.
It is unclear what those Tibetans will do
now. They could end up at the Kathmandu transit center of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees. From there, many Tibetans make their way to
India, against China’s wishes. Ms. Saunders said the Tibetans were in a “very
precarious situation.”
The Human Rights Organization of Nepal did
not respond to an email asking for an update on the situation of the Tibetans.
The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the
Tibetans, is expected to teach at the Kalachakra gathering from Jan. 3 to Jan.
14. He offers this teaching regularly at different places, and many Tibetans
try to make their way to Bodh Gaya, the site where the Buddha attained
enlightenment, when the Dalai Lama travels there from his home in northern India
to teach.
In 2012, Chinese security officials detained
hundreds of Tibetans after they returned from the Kalachakra in Bodh Gaya. Many
of them were released later. The Chinese government opposes the Dalai Lama and
calls him a “splittist,” but Tibetans remain devoted to him, and many try to
travel to India to see him.
Since a widespread uprising across Tibetan
regions in 2008, the Chinese government has increased its security presence on
the Tibet-Nepal border and has prevented many Tibetans from leaving. The number
of Tibetans making their way to Nepal has plummeted. China is also exercising
greater influence over Nepal, and Tibetans in Nepal complain of more detentions
there and a ban on anti-China protests.
Ms. Saunders said Chinese officials were making
great efforts to prevent Tibetans from traveling to Bodh Gaya this year for the
Dalai Lama’s teaching.
“What we know is that the Chinese authorities
have tightened controls on Tibetans, in some areas going from house to house to
confiscate people’s passports,” she said.
“In the last few weeks, government officials
have confiscated passports in the Tibetan areas of Qinghai and Gansu, and
according to some sources, also in Sichuan and the Tibet Autonomous Region,”
she added. “Some Tibetans who have already arrived in Nepal and India for
pilgrimage and for attending the religious ceremony in Bodh Gaya have already
been ordered to return, and their families pressured by the authorities.”
“So no doubt for this group of 41, things
will be very difficult,” she said, “particularly given that they will now be on
the radar of the Chinese authorities in Nepal, given the nature of the
relationship between the two governments.”
Follow Edward Wong on Twitter @comradewong.
