India’s Rupee Gets a Symbol of Its Own

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REUTERS/Press Information Bureau of India/Handout

The dollar is $. The Euro is €. The pound is £. But the rupee was stranded without a symbol, until today.

The Indian Press Information Bureau, for the first time, released images of the newly selected symbol. According to the Associated Press, ministers made the executive decision at a cabinet meeting after considering five finalist symbol options, all of which it was said, drew inspiration from “the letter R”” in the Roman alphabet and “Ra” from the ancient Devanagari script used in Hindi.

Formerly, the Rupee was indicated by abbreviations, hardly official enough for the currency of one of the world’s fastest-growing economic forces. It prompted more than 3,000 design submissions to aid this cultural and historical event.

Udaya Kumar’s design was ultimately the symbol chosen. Kumar, a post graduate student at the Indian Institute of Technology, now not only gets accolades for contributing to India’s culture, but also will receive a cash prize of 250,000 rupees (now with symbol attached).