In India, rats have a $19,000 meal

It was a cash machine heist with a difference: The attackers were hungry rodents.

At least one rat slipped through a hole in the back of an ATM in northeastern India and started eating. By the time it was finished, police say more than $19,000 in bills were shredded.

When technicians arrived June 11 to fix a broken State Bank of India cash machine in the town of Tinsukia they found a dead rat inside it and Indian currency notes worth nearly 1.3 million rupees, or a little over $19,000, chewed to shreds. The rat had entered the ATM through a small hole for cables, police superintendent Mugdha Jyoti Mahanta said Friday. The notes were in 500-rupee and 2,000-rupee denominations.

India’s flagging economy draws dire warnings of recession

Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power on a euphoric wave of promises to boost India’s economy, add millions of jobs and bring “good times” to the developing nation.

Three years later, India’s economic prospects look decidedly grimmer. India’s economic expansion has slowed to its lowest level in three years. Small businesses are struggling, or even shutting down, after overhauls of the nation’s currency and sales tax system. Modi’s own allies warn of a dire outlook, with some raising the specter of an economic depression.

Benefits of Indian cash overhaul elusive as deadline passes

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 hit on Friday, many Indians were still stuck waiting in long bank lines.

Empty ATMs and ever-changing rules prevented people from withdrawing money, and many small, cash-reliant businesses from cinemas to neighborhood grocery stores suffered huge losses or went under.

Benefits of Indian cash overhaul elusive as deadline passes

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.

Sudden currency move spoils business at Indian food market

The scale of India's cash economy can be seen in the Azadpur Mandi wholesale fruit and vegetable market. Trucks bring load after load of fresh produce to its grimy lanes every day. Then a complex web of wholesale merchants, smaller traders and retailers delivers the produce to most of north India.

Almost every transaction, like most in India, is done in cash. And business at the massive New Delhi market is evaporating, the food spoiling and wasted, two weeks after the government's surprise currency move made more than 80 percent of India's banknotes useless.

The effects of India's currency reform? "Chaos" say analysts

The sudden withdrawal of 86 percent of India's currency has left cash in short supply, retail sales stumbling and wholesale markets in turmoil.

That's just the immediate fallout from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surprise effort to stamp out corruption by making cash hoards in large denomination bills worthless. But what lies ahead could be even worse, some analysts say.

India struggles as millions throng banks to swap currency

India's government said Tuesday it will use indelible ink to mark the fingers of people swapping scrapped currency notes at banks as authorities struggle to deal with the bedlam caused by the sudden demonetizing of the country's highest-denomination bills.

India scraps high currency notes overnight to fight graft

India scrapped its highest-denomination currency notes overnight, delivering a blow to black-market money launderers but plunging hundreds of millions of common citizens holding cash savings into fear and uncertainty.

Within hours of Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing the surprise move in a televised address, people thronged to ATMs, standing in long lines in hopes of grabbing bills that might still be in circulation on Wednesday.