Indian Economy: News and Discussion (Jan 1 2010)

[RoyG]

Will the new symbol be acceptable in the South? Or is it liable to run into anti-Hindi sentiments?

A lil tension here n there...nothing to worry about.

[vijayk]

Hindi language issue has become politically irrelevant in the South:

vera_k wrote:
Will the new symbol be acceptable in the South? Or is it liable to run into anti-Hindi sentiments?

1. Diminishing returns of politicisation of the issue.
2. Explosion of TV with so many people who started following Hindi music, moviews, shows even in remote areas. The more you know about others, the less you fear.
3. Loss of power to CON party and advent of regional parties/coaliations also made sure that political parties stopped using this issue to mobilize.
4. It was never an issue in South. It was mostly an issue in TamilNadu due to DMK politics.

[aqkhan]

Actually, if you look at ToI video coverage, someone there asked if Tamilnadu will oppose this symbol!

Its pretty stupid, however, I agree that nothing significant will happen.

[Raghavendra]

Will the new symbol be acceptable in the South? Or is it liable to run into anti-Hindi sentiments?

[Dileep]

Vaiko will demand We want ர onlee!!

[Raghavendra]

[Suraj]

Raghavendra, that will be enough, thanks. No more of this comedy on this thread please

[Raghavendra]

Raghavendra, that will be enough, thanks. No more of this comedy on this thread please

Point noted

[SwamyG]

FT has takleef over the symbol Geez, the very first paragraph is a lame stupid attempt at humor. The entire tone of the article is laced with heartburn and condescending attitude. Sorry to even give a link, but what to do onlee.

[aqkhan]

That's a blog by a musalman, trying his best to not appear biased but has fire under his behind

[aqkhan]

it means, the musalman is not happy that Bharat has the devnagri symbol as the symbol for rupee but is trying his best to hide his disappointment instead trying to reveal it through a fake 'survey' done on the streets.

[Abhijeet]

What's the Unicode value for it? That should have been revealed at the same time.

[archan]

its just a symbol!
they needed something, they found one. Thats it.

[shravan]

What's the Unicode value for it? That should have been revealed at the same time.

`Unicode Standard’, ‘ISO/IEC 10646’ and ‘IS 13194’.

[Surya]

I am ok with it

not yet thrilled with it.

But can live with it

[putnanja]

Instead of the horizontal line at the middle, a downward curved line would have formed the "ru" letter, for rupee in sanskrit/hindi. That would have been good too.

[Prem]

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010 ... one-field/
India Pulls Ahead of China in One Field

An investor walks past screens showing stock indexes at a trading house in Shanghai, June 1, 2010.As India’s stock markets hit two-year highs this week, Chinese stocks are losing money — and how. This year Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex is up almost 3% through the end of Wednesday, while China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite Index is down 25%, putting India ahead by a whopping 28 percentage points.So, why this stark differentiation between the stock markets of the world’s two largest emerging countries?Even as the developed world fears another recession, both the Indian and Chinese economies have been growing very rapidly in recent months. Local companies have been reporting double-digit profit growth. China’s gross domestic product was up 11.9% in the first quarter of this year while the Indian economy grew by 8.6%. However, Chinese growth has slowed in the second quarter of the year to 10.3%.
Investors fear that there could be a further slowdown over the rest of this year. Meanwhile, India has not thrown any major surprises so far in 2010 – making it a haven for investments.

[abhischekcc]

The symbol is ok.

It is not symetric - hence not eye catching.

Bu think about this - it has both Devnagari and roman character (looks like R with the pole removed) elements in the design.
Devnagari would keep its national character, while the roman charatcter appearance would enable immediate recognition across the world.

It is practically and symbolically acceptable - we do not have to expect Raja Ravi Verma in a currency design.

[amit]

FT has takleef over the symbol Geez, the very first paragraph is a lame stupid attempt at humor. The entire tone of the article is laced with heartburn and condescending attitude. Sorry to even give a link, but what to do onlee.

Sad days indeed for FT, if this is what they been reduced to peddling.

Two people agreed that the new symbol had a lot in common with the euro. However, the same two were split on whether the euro-likeness was a good thing.

A cigarette vendor, who didn’t want to be named, said: “I don’t like the fact that it looks like a euro…the symbol should be more Indian.”

However, Mukesh, a tailor, said that “the similarity with the euro is positive…it will make the rupee more internationally recognisable.”

The original Pink paper wants us to believe that a cigarette vendor and a tailor in Mumbai are familiar with the Euro symbol so much so that they can make a comparison with the new Rupee symbol?

I think this guys watches too many Boollywood masala films.

[bart]

Will the new symbol be acceptable in the South? Or is it liable to run into anti-Hindi sentiments?

It's not a problem since it is part English. South Indians have never had a problem with English, its just when only Hindi is shoved down their throats they dont like it, why should one Indian language take precedence over others (that often have older and richer heritage).

[Stan_Savljevic]

the guy who designed it is Tam, so that should take the cake.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_Udaya_Kumar

[SwamyG]

The original Pink paper wants us to believe that a cigarette vendor and a tailor in Mumbai are familiar with the Euro symbol so much so that they can make a comparison with the new Rupee symbol?

I think this guys watches too many Boollywood masala films.

On top of it the cigarette vendor wants to remain unnamed. Aaam admi have shown more anger against government in TV various forms. So what would the cigarette vendor be afraid off It is a joke.

[RoyG]

India unveils new rupee symbol

Friday 16 July 2010

It may look like a melted British Rail sign but it's hoped that a new symbol for the Indian rupee will signal India's growing economic strength ‑ and it will be coming soon to a keyboard near you.

The winning design was selected by the Indian cabinet yesterday from a shortlist of five following a national competition.

Measures are already afoot to have the rupee sign declared a computer standard, meaning it could join currencies such as the pound, dollar, euro and yen on keyboards within two years.

"The distinct symbol denotes the robustness of the Indian economy," India's information minister, Ambika Soni, said.

References to sums in rupees currently involve spelling out the word (as is the case in the Guardian's style guide) or giving it the abbreviation Rs or INRs to distinguish it from other Asian countries that use rupees or variations thereof.

"Once accepted, it will stand clear from the clutter of currencies that call themselves rupee or the rupiah," India's Telegraph reported.

The winning symbol was the work of Udaya Kumar, a lecture in design at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai. Speaking to the Indian news website Rediff.com he said: "My design is based on the tricolour, with two lines at the top and white space in between. I wanted the symbol for the rupee to represent the Indian flag. It is a perfect blend of Indian and Roman letters: a capital 'R' and Devanagari 'ra' which represents rupiya, to appeal to international audiences and Indian audiences."

Michael Johnson, a director at the award-winning London-based design consultancy johnson banks, said the new symbol fitted with other currency signs but lacked imagination.

"I think it's a B or B plus. Most currency symbols follow an established route now ‑ E for euro, Y for yen, now R for rupee. You could argue that a dynamic emerging economy could have gone for something more unusual and got away with it ‑ I think in the end conservative voices prevailed."



http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ju ... pee-symbol

[ramana]

I bet if they had the cross this guy would be in rapture calling it bold etc.

[SwamyG]

CK Prahalad on Indian innovation in HBR: http://www.nif.org.in/dwn_files/hbr_Mas ... CK_MLM.pdf

sorry if it was already posted.

[sum]

It may look like a melted British Rail sign but it's hoped that a new symbol for the Indian rupee will signal India's growing economic strength

Ahhh, the good ol British still stuck up in their long gone glory period!!

[svinayak]

"I think it's a B or B plus. Most currency symbols follow an established route now ‑ E for euro, Y for yen, now R for rupee. You could argue that a dynamic emerging economy could have gone for something more unusual and got away with it ‑ I think in the end conservative voices prevailed."



http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ju ... pee-symbol

Stupid guy
Indian currency has been used for 2000 years over majority of the population of the world. Hence it will have traditional concept

[Tanaji]

It may be 2 years before the new Rupee symbol starts to show up on computers

http://www.itworld.com/business/114207/ ... -computers

[putnanja]

Michael Johnson, a director at the award-winning London-based design consultancy johnson banks, said the new symbol fitted with other currency signs but lacked imagination.

"I think it's a B or B plus. Most currency symbols follow an established route now ‑ E for euro, Y for yen, now R for rupee. You could argue that a dynamic emerging economy could have gone for something more unusual and got away with it ‑ I think in the end conservative voices prevailed."



http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ju ... pee-symbol

He is just pissed off because the government didn't pay millions to his design consultancy firm to come up with a "bold new unusual design" , plus the inherent professional jealousy

[aqkhan]

Yeah, stupid british people living in the past

There is so much difference between British and American journalism!

But, we should not pay attention to such idiots anyway. Remember, its the policies and the growth of the country that will give value to the currency, not the symbol, nor these jackasses grading the symbol.

[Prem]

The British bad teeth should have known that design is futuristic . Did he forget Chinese,Indonesian, Malaysian currency also start with R and when Asian come up with the new joint currency this new design can easily be bit improved to accomodate the symbols of these countries.

[SwamyG]

Regarding the Brit's comment.....

As they would say in tamil - kazhudhaikku teriyuma karpoora vasanai {translation: a donkey does not understand camphor's aroma. Meaning: swines don't understand the value of pearls}

This is what Udaya Kumar said.

My symbol is an amalgamation of several ideas — it signifies the Devnagri script, which is the only script in the world which hangs from top. The central line, cutting through the ‘R’, subtly standardises it with other world currencies like the $, £ and Euro. Its top and bottom line together form an equal to (=) sign, denoting our belief in equality and together it also gives an appearance of the tricolour. I tried to balance Indianness and international mood in the symbol.”

I think India is the last country that needs to be taught about iconography and symbols. Centuries of occupation has not really taught the Brits much.

[Sanjay M]

You can download a newly-created font with the new Rupee symbol here:

http://blog.foradian.com/


Personally, I would have preferred the equal sign to be in the middle of the R

[Sanjay M]

Take a look at the finalists:

http://business.rediff.com/slide-show/2 ... ts-say.htm













Personally, I would have liked something in between the first and second.
I like the R from the first, but would have wanted the = sign to be lower, like where it is in the second.

[putnanja]

The design by our BRFite Dileep was pretty good too!

[krisna]

Regarding the new rupee symbol,
may take at least 2 years(2012 and beyond) for acceptance with lot of push. This is what I gathered from some internet search.

Papers formally submitted to the Unicode Technical Committee and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2
The paper at the top is for Indian rupee symbol and greek drachma from the website below--

http://www.evertype.com/formal.html


I have downloaded the instructions from the blog foradian mentioned earlier into my computer(both windows XP and vista). Indian rupee symbol is clear and nicely comes on while typing.

[krisna]

1) I dont see euro, pound and yen symbols in my laptop keyboard (HP) bought in massaland. Only dollar symbol!!

2) I dont see euro yen symbols in laptop (sony) purchased in UKstan. Only pound and dollar symbols!!

Hazarding a guess maybe in Japan we may have only yen and dollar symbols.

Now what will happen in India-- a) do computer keyboards have all the above major currency symbols in India.
b) will other countries adopt the new symbol of India rupee after it is formally agreed
upon by unicode etc??

despite euro symbol and yen been there for sometime it is still not widely adopted. will the same fate fall on India rupee.

Side note--- pakis will never adopt it because of "Ra"w factor.

[shyam]

Indian Rupee is not freely tradable. So forget about other nations adding "Ra" symbol to their keyboards.

[svinayak]

Now what will happen in India-- a) do computer keyboards have all the above major currency symbols in India.
b) will other countries adopt the new symbol of India rupee after it is formally agreed

Most important is that in the excel worksheet I will see the new rupee symbol which I can use instead of INR

[rohitvats]

^^^Amen to that.

That is the first thought which occured to me...now me reports will have INR and excel sheet printouts will have these symbols.

OT but interesting tidbit - in one of the reports prepared by moi firm for a customer, the India map was shown as usual with Aksai Chin and POK missing. Moi pointed it out and asked the guy (actually the lady) to change it..it seems the dorkette did not and send out the report. Now comes the con-call with the client - now this guy is GM Investments of big RE PE Fund...first thing he points out - "Change the India Map...it does not show the true bounderies of India.." Was glad to see people taking such things seriously....