Poor Man’s Gold Is Spurned in India as Farmers Strapped for Cash

Silver imports by India, one of the world’s top buyers, will probably shrink this year to the lowest since 2012 as the government cracks down on black money, farmers struggle for cash and stockpiles remain ample. Purchases from overseas plunged 60 percent to about 3,000 metric tons last year and will contract further in 2017, according to Chirag Sheth, an analyst at Metals Focus Ltd., an independent precious-metals research firm, in Mumbai.