History about Indian Rupee Symbol or Sign

The Indian Currency Code (IND) got its new Sign (₹) in the Global Economy. Now the Indian Rupee has its unique Symbol like other major global currencies does, for instance US Dollar($). And The New Symbol for Indian Rupee presented in public on 15 July 2010 by the Indian Government. It can be used by all the best Financial Institutions, Business Loan Institutes, Currency Traders, and even that is being printed in the trading Currency, Utility Bonds, and Share Trading. Prior to that Rs, Re or an appropriate abbreviation of any Indian Local Languages were broadly used. It is a blend of Devanagari letter “र” (Ra) and Roman letter “R”, which gives India a symbol of confidence and recognition in the International Money Market.

Upon the symbol’s adoption in July 2010, the Indian government said it would try to adopt the sign within 6 months in the country and globally within 18 to 24 months.

How the Indian Rupee Symbol was selected

A Graduate in Architecture and student of Visual Communication at the Industrial Design Center, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mr. D Udaya Kumar designed the Indian Rupee Symbol and it was announced in public on 15 July, 2010.

1. On 5 March 2009, the Indian Government conducted an Open Competition for the Indian Rupee Sign.
2. The then Finance Minister, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, during the Union Budget at that time said that the proposed Sign should reflect and capture the Indian ethos and culture.
3. For this Open Competition 3,331 people were responded, among them the following were short listed.
1. Nondita Correa-Mehrotra
2. Hitesh Padmashali
3. Shibin KK
4. Shahrukh J Irani
5. and D Udaya Kumar
4. On 24 June 2010 one of them was to be selected at the Union Council of Ministers, But it was differed on 15 July, 2010 due to the Finance Minister request, and they choose the symbol created by D Udaya Kumar.

How does Indian Rupee Symbol Resembles

The Indian Currency Symbol resembles both the Devanagari letter “र” (Ra) and Roman letter “R” without its vertical bar. The Parallel lines at the top alludes to the National Flag of India and depicts an Equality Sign of the Mathematics that symbolizes the nation’s desire to reduce economic disparity.

Criticism over the Indian Rupee Sign

It was challenged in the Delhi High Court by petitioner Rakesh Kumar, one of the participants in the Open Competition, described the process as “Full of Discrepancies” and “Flawed”, and named the Finance Ministry and the Chairperson of Indian Rupee Symbol Selection Committee as respondents. But on 26 November 2010, the Delhi High Court dismissed the writ petition, stating there was no justifiable ground for the stated allegations.
Astrologers claimed that the symbol was adopted on an inauspicious day i.e. 15 July, as well the double lines resembles “a slitting the throat” of the currency.

Indian Rupee Sign Printed by Indian Government

1. On 3 October 2010, The Indian Postal Department printing and issued the Commonwealth Games commemorative stamps.
2. On 28 February 2011, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, in his budget speech, announced that it will incorporated in future coin issues. Coins of denomination of 1, 2, 5 and 10 have been put into circulation.
3. In January 2012, used in the Currency Notes in the denominations of 10, 100, 500, and 1000 and as of 12 April 2012, this was extended to denominations of 20 and 50.

Indian Rupee Sign supports Computer Applications

The Ubuntu Operating System, which is the first one to support the Indian Rupee Sign in the Computers. And the API has also been developed to support the Web Applications as well.

1. On 10 August 2010, the Unicode Technical Committee accepted the proposed code position U+20B9 Indian rupee sign (HTML: ₹ graphic symbol). The character has been encoded in the Unicode 6.0, and named distinctly from the existing character U+20A8? rupee sign (HTML: ₨), which will continue to be available as the generic rupee sign.
2. Since 10.10 version in Ubuntu Operating System to support Indian Rupee symbol, by default. It has been added in Fedora 15, codenamed as Lovelock.
3. 18 May 2011, Microsoft released an update KB2496898 to Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Operating Systems to include support for this new symbol. This support includes font support, locale changes, and keyboard support. With the Windows update, it is now possible to use ALT code text enter to obtain the Indian Rupee Symbol – ALT 8377.