Government to up printing of Rs 500 notes to tackle cash crunch: DEA Secretary
New Delhi, April 17: To meet the "unusual" currency demand in the country, the government has decided to increase printing of Rs 500 notes by five times, Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg said here on Tuesday.
"We have taken steps to increase the supply of currency in case the demand were to go up further. To give you an example, Rs 500 notes -- we print about 500 crore of notes per day. We have taken steps to raise this production five times," Garg said at a press meet called to calm fears after reports of currency shortages emerged from several parts of the country.
"Very soon, in the next couple of days, we will have a supply of about Rs 2,500 crore worth of Rs 500 notes per day. In a month, supply would be about Rs 70,000-75,000 crore. These notes alone can more than meet the demand of any month," he said.
Garg asserted that there was no cash crunch in the country, pointing out that currently around Rs 18 lakh crore worth of currency was in circulation -- a little over what was in circulation at the time of demonetisation.
"We keep Rs 2.5-3 lakh crore more currency in stock for excess demand. In the last few days, we have pumped cash into the system to meet the demand. We still have a reserve of Rs 1.75 lakh crore."
He said there was "unusually high demand" for currency in the last couple of months. As opposed to an average demand of about Rs 20,000 crore a month, "in the first 13 days of April itself there was a demand of Rs 45,000 crore", he said.
Garg attributed this sudden cash demand to localised phenomenon.
"This unusual spurt in demand is seen more in some parts of the country like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar," the Finance Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
"We have noted that this is coming more from some parts of the country. There might also be some sort of a feeling in some people that if the cash runs out, why not keep it in reserve so it may be safe... a kind of 'shortage mentality'. But believe us, there is no shortage, there is no cash crunch," he said.
"There is no shortage of notes in stock, there is no shortage of cash being printed... Therefore I would urge... every citizen not to hoard or stock cash -- it is not required. You are unnecessarily raising your risks. We have adequate cash, but the preferable mode of use is digitisation, so use it," Garg added.
Asked whether there was any hoarding of the Rs 2,000 notes, he said: "In this system, there are about 6.70 lakh crore worth of Rs 2,000 notes. They are more than adequate to meet the transaction demand of customers... But, off late, we have noted somewhat lesser inflow coming back from circulation.
"We have not got this investigated, but you can assume that this one note is most suitable for people to keep with themselves. There has been some tendency of some people using Rs 2,000 notes, but that does not affect the overall supply of the Rs 2,000 notes."
Justifying the higher currency circulation in the system compared to the pre-demonetisation period, Garg said: "At the time of demonetisation, the currency in circulation Rs 17.5 lakh crore. Currency in circulation now is about Rs 18 lakh crore. So it is in absolute numbers higher than at the time of demonetisation."
"But demonetisation is one-and-a-half years earlier... if we had taken that growth path, we would had still been much higher. If the currency had grown as it was growing before demonetisation, probably it would have been somewhere at the level of Rs 22-23 lakh crore. So, we are at a lower level."
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Pope urges 'all people of all nations' to silence arms and overcome divisions in Christmas address
Vatican City, Dec 25: Pope Francis in his traditional Christmas message Wednesday urged “all people of all nations” to find courage during this Holy Year “to silence the sounds of arms and overcome divisions” plaguing the world, from the Middle East to Ukraine, Africa to Asia.
The pontiff's “Urbi et Orbi” — “To the City and the World” — address serves as a summary of the woes facing the world this year. As Christmas coincided with the start of the 2025 Holy Year celebration that he dedicated to hope, Francis called for broad reconciliation, “even (with) our enemies.”
"I invite every individual, and all people of all nations ... to become pilgrims of hope, to silence the sounds of arms and overcome divisions,'' the pope said from the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica to throngs of people below.
The pope invoked the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica, which he opened on Christmas Eve to launch the 2025 Jubilee, as representing God's mercy, which “unties every knot; it tears down every wall of division; it dispels hatred and the spirit of revenge.”
He called for arms to be silenced in war-torn Ukraine and in the Middle East, singling out Christian communities in Israel and the Palestinian territories, “particularly in Gaza where the humanitarian situation is extremely grave,” as well as Lebanon and Syria “at this most delicate time.”
Francis repeated his calls for the release of hostages taken from Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.
He cited a deadly outbreak of measles in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the suffering of the people of Myanmar, forced to flee their homes by “the ongoing clash of arms.” The pope likewise remembered children suffering from war and hunger, the elderly living in solitude, those fleeing their homelands, who have lost their jobs, and are persecuted for their faith.
Pilgrims were lined up on Christmas Day to walk through the great Holy Door at the entrance of St. Peter's Basilica, as the Jubilee is expected to bring some 32 million Catholic faithful to Rome.
Traversing the Holy Door is one way that the faithful can obtain indulgences, or forgiveness for sins during a Jubilee, a once-every-quarter-century tradition that dates from 1300.
Pilgrims submitted to security controls before entering the Holy Door, amid new security fears following a deadly Christmas market attack in Germany. Many paused to touch the door as they passed and made the sign of the cross upon entering the basilica dedicated to St. Peter, the founder of the Roman Catholic Church.
“You feel so humble when you go through the door that once you go through is almost like a release, a release of emotions,'' said Blanca Martin, a pilgrim from San Diego. "... It's almost like a release of emotions, you feel like now you are able to let go and put everything in the hands of God. See I am getting emotional. It's just a beautiful experience.”
A Chrismukkah miracle as Hanukkah and Christmas coincide
Hanukkah, Judaism's eight-day Festival of Lights, begins this year on Christmas Day, which has only happened four times since 1900.
The calendar confluence has inspired some religious leaders to host interfaith gatherings, such as a Hanukkah party hosted last week by several Jewish organizations in Houston, Texas, bringing together members of the city's Latino and Jewish communities for latkes, the traditional potato pancake eaten on Hanukkah, topped with guacamole and salsa.
While Hanukkah is intended as an upbeat, celebratory holiday, rabbis note that it's taking place this year as wars rage in the Middle East and fears rise over widespread incidents of antisemitism. The holidays overlap infrequently because the Jewish calendar is based on lunar cycles and is not in sync with the Gregorian calendar, which sets Christmas on Dec. 25. The last time Hanukkah began on Christmas Day was in 2005.
Iraqi Christians persist in their faith
Christians in Nineveh Plains attended Christmas Mass on Tuesday at the Mar Georgis church in the center of Telaskaf, Iraq, with security concerns about the future. “We feel that they will pull the rug out from under our feet at any time. Our fate is unknown here,” said Bayda Nadhim, a resident of Telaskaf.
Iraq's Christians, whose presence there goes back nearly to the time of Christ, belong to a number of rites and denominations. They once constituted a sizeable minority in Iraq, estimated at around 1.4 million.
But the community has steadily dwindled since the 2003 US-led invasion and further in 2014 when the Islamic State group swept through the area. The exact number of Christians left in Iraq is unclear, but they are thought to number several hundred thousand.
German celebrations muted by market attack
German celebrations were darkened by a car attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg on Friday that left five people dead, including a 9-year-old boy, and 200 people injured. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier rewrote his recorded Christmas Day speech to address the attack, saying that “there is grief, pain, horror and incomprehension over what took place in Magdeburg.” He urged Germans to “stand together” and that “hate and violence must not have the last word.”
A 50-year-old Saudi doctor who had practiced medicine in Germany since 2006 was arrested on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and bodily harm. The suspect's X account describes him as a former Muslim and is filled with anti-Islamic themes. He criticized authorities for failing to combat “the Islamification of Germany” and voiced support for the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
