No longer will international vendors and consumers alike need to distinguish Indian Currency with “INR.” or “Rs”. India’s Finance Ministry has reached a verdict on their national search for a currency symbol. The new symbol, which was submitted by D Udaya Kumar of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, resembles a capital “R” with two horizontal strikes through the upper-half.
The Finance Ministry decided to put the decision into the hands of the common Indian with a nationwide contest that lasted almost a year. Over 4,000 entries were cut down to a short-list of 5, before the final selection was made. According the designer, the two parallel lines capping the symbol represent the internal balance and equality of India’s economy as well as the economy’s standing among other countries of the world.
Kumar’s creation means more than a new design to grace everything from keyboards to vending machines. It represents the aspiration of India to be treated on par with the US, Europe and Japan (symbols such $, €, and ¥ are globally recognized).
Surjit Bhalla, managing director of Oxus Research and Investments, told the Christian Science Monitor, “…In 1990 if India said we’ll have a rupee symbol, people would have laughed at it. Today, people are asking how important it is.”
Some people are . Other may laugh now. But they won’t be laughing ten years from now :).
