Rupee gets a new face!

I was, and am campaigning for change of the new rupee symbol. Mr.D.Udaya Kumar, former IITian (IIT is Indian Institute of Technology and not Illinois Institute of Technology) has designed a face for the Indian currency 'rupee', which was mentioned, in its short form earlier as 'Rs'. And now 'Indian' rupee will join hands with its counterparts - the $ (dollar) and pound(searching for pound in my keyboard).




Coming to the design of the symbol, the letter resembles or is the Hindi alphabet (of the Devanagiri script) 'Ra', with a horizontal strike on it. The officials says that it is also a form of the English alphabet 'R' without its vertical leg. I would say if it has no vertical leg then its not 'R' at all! The person who had designed this letter turns out to be a person from Tamil Nadu. In Tamil Nadu, its a known fact that the language Tamil is given more importance that air, water and sunlight! There is always a sense of cold war between the North and the South India. South Indians don't accept 'Hindi' being the national language. Well, it is not! Hindi is the official language of India. It is the language spoken in the northern and central part of India. Southern states, especially Tamil Nadu opposes Hindi imposition in the state. That being said, it is a question mark how Tamil Nadu is going to accept this new rupee symbol. Also I believe it is not fair to conclude this as a symbol for the Indian currency. Though a Tamilian designed it, it is the officials of the government (majority being Hindi speaking) who approves the symbol!

They say it might take 6 months for the new symbol to reflect in the financial markets. No one knows how many years it might take to reflect in the keyboard!

Image :VoiceofSikkim.com