Small Businesses In Modi's Holy City Shows a $1 Trillion Hidden Economy Has Stalled

A worker arranges a bundle of silk thread at a dye workshop in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India, on Thursday Dec. 8, 2016. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Nov. 8 decision to ban high-value currency notes, effectively cancelling 86 percent of cash in circulation, was designed to stifle corruption and tax evasion, but many of the hardest-hit are workers in India's vast and intricate informal economy -- the small businesses, shops, weavers and countless other basic industries and services that employ more than 90 percent of Indian workers. Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty Images