Ashish Vaswani


The rupee has finally got its very own symbol and is touted to have joined the so called 'elite' club of currencies like the dollar, the pound and the yen by the media. So much so that sites claiming to have designed the rupee font in ASCII code are getting record hits. The rupee font made by Foradian Technologies was downloaded more than 10,000 in the first hour of release. Makes me wonder why everyone's suddenly going gaga over the entire issue.  



Okay. Your currency's got a new symbol. So?
Does it buy you more sabzi at the sabziwala?

And you've also promised the inclusion of the symbol on the next batch of made-in-China keyboards. Big deal! Some over ambitious patriots have gone on to declare that the rupee will now replace the dollar on the keyboard. I'd love to see that happen!

On a more serious note, I don't understand the hue and cry over introducing a symbol that's merely a rip off of the euro and the pound. In times of rising inflation, shouldn't we be looking at giving a makeover to the economy than the currency symbol?