Long live cash! Even as cashless is in
Even if no more the king it once was, demand for cash remains strong, despite the strides taken in digital payments. The inherent contradiction should not be difficult to resolve, given the rate of economic growth that fuels demand for both cash and cashless transactions. Inflation has an impact on demand for cash by affecting the opportunity cost of holding it. Demographics, too, plays a role. Older people prefer to deal in cash over tech-enabled payment mechanisms. Degree of formalisation of the economy also has a bearing, with financial exclusion acting as a constraint to cashless transactions.
Concentration of demand for cash among populous Indian states can be traced back to reverse migration during the pandemic, and the consequent surge of currency in circulation. The event has had a long tail, with rural incomes taking much longer to recover to pre-pandemic levels. This affects cash-holding behaviour, as does spending patterns that spike with festivals. Consolidation among state-owned banks has contributed to the need for bigger cash holdings by regulating the numbers of ATMs in remote locations. India also experiences a rise in currency demand during elections. Since these are spread out over the year, this acts as a prop for cash.
Economic factors for currency demand are persistent forces, with behavioural effects being less significant. By this yardstick, cash transactions will eventually decrease as a share of the nominal GDP. There may, however, be scope for policy to address the behavioural motives for holding cash. A young population with access to technology should influence the cultural preference for dealing in cash, as will progressive urbanisation. India is part of a global phenomenon of rising demand for cash, including in advanced economies with almost universal access to banking services. Further integration into the global economy will create demand for Indian currency outside the country, even as current domestic factors lose some of their significance.
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Indian Express
20 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Dragon with Shukla, 3 others to dock with ISS at 4.30 pm today
Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla embarked on the most consequential flight of his life Wednesday, taking off, along with three others, in the Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station. This makes him only the second Indian to travel to space. A fighter pilot and test pilot with the Indian Air Force, with more than 2,000 hours of flying experience, Shukla is the designated pilot for the Crew Dragon spacecraft that took off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida exactly at noon India time. After a 28-hour journey through space, the Dragon spacecraft will dock with the International Space Station around 4.30 pm India time Thursday, allowing the four astronauts to transfer to the only permanent research laboratory in space where they will spend the next two weeks, carrying out scientific experiments and engaging in science outreach events. Shukla's feat comes 41 years after Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma — he later retired as Wing Commander — travelled to space on the then Soviet Union's Soyuz T-11 spacecraft and spent about eight days on board the Salyut 7 space station, one of the Soviet forerunners to the current International Space Station. Two other astronauts on the Axiom-4 mission, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski from Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary, are also marking the return of their respective countries to space after more than four decades. For this reason, the mission has been given the theme 'Realize the Return'. The fourth astronaut, and commander of the mission, Peggy Whitson is a veteran of space travel, having made four earlier trips, with a record 675 days in space. 'What a ride. After 40 years, we are back in space. What a flight this is,' said Shukla in a short statement, 10 minutes after the launch, immediately after the spacecraft had separated from the rocket and entered an orbit around the Earth. 'Right now, we are going around the Earth at the speed of 7.5 km a second. On my shoulders is the Tiranga (Tricolour) that is telling me that I am not alone here, all of you are with me. This journey to the International Space Station is not my alone, this is the beginning of Bharat's human spaceflight programme,' Shukla said, addressing his countrymen in Hindi. 'I would like each one of you to become a part of this journey. You should also feel proud, you should also feel the excitement. Come, let us together mark the beginning of India's human spaceflight programme. Thank you. Jai Hind. Jai Bharat,' he said. Other astronauts also made similar statements. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a post on X after the liftoff, said, 'We welcome the successful launch of the Space Mission carrying astronauts from India, Hungary, Poland and the US. The Indian Astronaut, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla is on the way to become the first Indian to go to the International Space Station. He carries with him the wishes, hopes and aspirations of 1.4 billion Indians. Wish him and other astronauts all the success!' The Axiom-4 mission, originally scheduled to launch in May, faced multiple delays because of weather and technical problems. A small uncertainty hung over the launch Wednesday as well, even after the astronauts had entered the capsule, as some updated data took time to get uploaded to the spacecraft's software. Shukla was seen shuffling and shaking his legs as he waited, and exulted mildly when the all-clear was announced. ISRO chairman V Narayanan who, along with a ISRO team, had been in the US since the start of this month for the launch, said he was extremely happy that the mission had finally launched after all technical problems had been addressed. 'Today, we were 100% sure about the safety of not just our own astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, but the other three brothers and sister who are going to space with him. Congratulations to all,' Narayanan told The Indian Express from the US. He said that he personally, and the team from ISRO, had been involved in the troubleshooting exercises, and had made sure that everything was fine ahead of the launch. 'If I had even 0.1% doubt, I would not have said OK to the launch,' he said. Narayanan said the spacecraft had entered a 200-km orbit, which will be raised to about 425 km over the 28-hour period before the docking takes place. The ISRO team would be travelling from the Florida launch centre to Houston, Texas to witness the docking from the command centre. Shukla was among four IAF pilots selected for the Gaganyaan programme, ISRO's maiden attempt at sending humans into space. The first human spaceflight mission under this programme was originally scheduled for 2022 to coincide with 75 years of India's independence. But the programme has faced delays, and it is now expected to take place in 2027. In the meanwhile, a new collaboration between ISRO and NASA in 2023 opened the opportunity for an Indian to travel on a private mission facilitated by NASA. This is how Shukla's participation in the Axiom-4 mission came about. The liftoff was greeted with loud cheers and clapping at the auditorium of the CSIR headquarters in New Delhi where Science Minister Jitendra Singh and many scientists and dignitaries, including Australian High Commissioner to India Philip Green, had gathered to watch the launch on video. 'This was destined to happen under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi. And I am saying so because the space reforms which happened a couple of years ago have given a quantum leap to India's endeavours. Imagine, ISRO was set up in the year 1969, when NASA accomplished the landing of the first human on the Moon. Today, we have landed near the southern pole of the Moon before anyone else. And we are now collaborating with NASA as an equal partner. India is no longer a follower,' Singh said. The Axiom-4 mission is being operated and managed by Axiom Space, a private US space company. The Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft used in the mission have come from SpaceX, the world's largest private space corporation. NASA offered access to its facilities, including the International Space Station, and training to the astronauts. Anonna Dutt is a Principal Correspondent who writes primarily on health at the Indian Express. She reports on myriad topics ranging from the growing burden of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension to the problems with pervasive infectious conditions. She reported on the government's management of the Covid-19 pandemic and closely followed the vaccination programme. Her stories have resulted in the city government investing in high-end tests for the poor and acknowledging errors in their official reports. Dutt also takes a keen interest in the country's space programme and has written on key missions like Chandrayaan 2 and 3, Aditya L1, and Gaganyaan. She was among the first batch of eleven media fellows with RBM Partnership to End Malaria. She was also selected to participate in the short-term programme on early childhood reporting at Columbia University's Dart Centre. Dutt has a Bachelor's Degree from the Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, Pune and a PG Diploma from the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. She started her reporting career with the Hindustan Times. When not at work, she tries to appease the Duolingo owl with her French skills and sometimes takes to the dance floor. ... Read More
Indian Express
20 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Indian workers in Israel pick daily drill of sirens, shelters over evacuation
Having arrived in Israel to fill the construction industry void left by the Palestinian workforce after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, thousands of Indian workers have been getting accustomed to a harsh new reality: the conflict with Iran. Their daily life — working as masons, iron benders, carpenters, ceramic tilers, bakers and so on — is punctuated by frequent missile alerts on their phones and several dashes to the nearest bomb shelter, or 'miklat' as these reinforced spaces are called in Hebrew. The Indian workers appear largely undeterred by the waves of missile strikes and interceptions. Mohan Lal, who belongs to Himachal Pradesh's Mandi district and is a foreman at a workshop in Palmachim, 28 km from Tel Aviv, says there is no mad scramble to return to India through the government's evacuation plan announced on June 19. He is among an estimated 15,000 Indian workers who arrived in Israel through government and private routes following a 2023 bilateral framework agreement. 'About 350 Indian workers have left and maybe 600 more have enrolled to go back to India. Thousands others are feeling quite safe mainly due to the system of phone alerts and sirens being deployed in Israel,' says Mohan Lal, 33. He described how, in the days following the June 13 attacks by Iran, they would have to rush several times in the day and night to the shelters, but now that was needed only once or twice a day. The 'miklat' he usually uses is one of the small concrete containers built near their workshop, which can accommodate up to a dozen people. He says that he recently visited the Ramat Gan area of Tel Aviv to see the damage caused to buildings by Iranian missile strikes, but added that there were no visible signs of damage in Palmachim where he worked. In contrast to these single-room shelters, other Indian workers describe gigantic fortified public shelters which can accommodate up to 1,500 people and are located at every 500 feet in Tel Aviv. Dharamvir Singh, 43, who belongs to Jind in Haryana, has been working as a ceramic tiler in Israel since a year. He has been using one equipped with air conditioners, lounge chairs, toilets and so on. He is working on the tiling of a 27-storey building in Tel Aviv — six of its storeys are designed to serve as underground bunkers. 'More and more, bigger and bigger bomb shelters are being built everywhere in Israel,' he says. 'The difference I find from the earlier phase of attacks by Hamas and the current shower of ballistic missile attacks from Iran is that the alerts give us 20-25 minutes to reach the shelters instead of the earlier 10-15 minutes. We are getting more time to rush to safety.' Gurdeep Chouhan, also from Jind, describes a similar experience of the need for rushing to shelters coming down after a peak two weeks ago. He is working in a well-known bakery, Angel's, along with a large group of Indians in a place called Lod, 15 km from Tel Aviv. He says: 'There is less danger in small places like where we are, which are on the outskirts of the large cities like Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem. It is in the big cities that the military establishments, refineries and multi-national companies are located and they could be the target of future attacks.' Subhash Chand, a 33-year old carpenter from Punjab's Hoshiyarpur, says the threat is not from precision bombing but debris from missiles intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome. He says there was panic among their families back home in Punjab because of old videos showing extensive damage to Tel Aviv. 'I have been in Israel for over a year and we are all liking it here. There are no jobs in India. If we take up the offer of the Indian government and return home we will surely regret it,' says Subhash Chand. 'Israeli companies and supervisors respect Indian workers. We feel safe because of the system of alerts and sirens. The phone alerts tell us when to go inside a shelter and let us know when it is safe to come out and go back to our shift duty.' Most of the Indian construction workers The Indian Express spoke to reveal they were earning between `1.5 lakh-`2.5 lakh every month in Israel. 'Even a collector does not earn so much in India. We are not planning to return now and will go on leave only for Diwali as decided earlier,' says Surendra Singh Saini, a driller who arrived in Israel from Jhunjunu, Rajasthan. He says they had got used to a daily drill of missile attacks and shrieking sirens as well as the 'timeout' spent in protected spaces. 'When the missiles are intercepted, we look to the skies and hear the sounds of patakaas (fire crackers) going off. That's all,' he says. There are several Indian supervisors and managers working on large construction sites where hundreds of Indians are employed. They have taken it upon themselves to mentor and guide the workers through this dangerous phase. Dharma Kachawa from Pushkar, Rajasthan arrived in Israel seven years ago is among the Indian supervisors. He says he has a WhatsApp group of 400 Indian workers, employed with the Israeli construction giant Solel Boneh and currently working in a town called Tzur-Yigal. Kachawa, 35, says he does his best to keep Indian workers informed of any potential danger, in case they are unaware of missile attacks. 'The fact is that some ballistic missiles are going through and they do cause damage. So I keep asking each and every Indian worker about his well being. I ask them not to wait for the sirens and move towards safe shelters once the phone alerts come.' Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India's most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ's Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More
Hindustan Times
38 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
India backs Brics position against strikes on Iran
A little more than a week after disassociating itself from a statement by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) condemning Israel's attacks on Iran, India joined other members of Brics in expressing grave concern at the military strikes on Iran and the escalation of the security situation in the Middle East. People walk next to a mural with a picture of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on a street, early hours of ceasefire, in Tehran, Iran, on June 24. (Reuters) The Brics — which includes Brasil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Iran — issued the statement on Tuesday to say that the military strikes amounted to a violation of international law and the UN Charter. Unlike the statement issued by SCO on June 14, which directly named Israel, the Brics statement made no mention of either the US or Israel while referring to the military strikes against Iran. This made it possible for the Indian side to sign on to the statement, people familiar with the matter said. 'We express grave concern over the military strikes against the Islamic Republic of Iran since 13 June 2025, which constitute a violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations, and the subsequent escalation of the security situation in the Middle East,' the Brics statement said. The Brics member states emphasised the 'urgent need to break the cycle of violence and restore peace' amid rising tensions with unpredictable consequences for global peace and security and the world economy. 'We call on all parties to engage through existing channels of dialogue and diplomacy, with a view to de-escalating the situation and resolving their differences through peaceful means,' the statement said. Iran and Israel agreed to a ceasefire on Tuesday after 12 days of hostilities during which the US joined the Israeli military in targeting Iranian nuclear sites. Both sides have claimed victory, with Iran saying it forced the end of the war by penetrating Israeli defences with its missiles, and Israel claiming to have achieved its goal of destroying Iranian nuclear sites. The Brics statement, however, expressed 'serious concern over any attacks against peaceful nuclear installations that are carried out in violation of international law and relevant resolutions of the International Atomic Energy Agency'. It added: 'Nuclear safeguards, safety, and security must always be upheld, including in armed conflicts, to protect people and the environment from harm. In this context, we reiterate our support for diplomatic initiatives aimed at addressing regional challenges.' The statement called for protecting and safeguarding civilian lives and civilian infrastructure in compliance with international humanitarian law. 'Guided by the principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter, BRICS remains committed to promoting international peace and security and to fostering diplomacy and peaceful dialogue as the only sustainable path toward long-term stability in the region,' it said. The Brics member states also called for establishing a 'zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, in line with relevant international resolutions'. While disassociating itself from the earlier SCO statement, India had said it had communicated its overall position to other members of the grouping and it did not participate in the discussions on the statement.
