India’s rupee has joined the ranks of the US dollar, British pound and Japanese yen in having its own unique symbol.

Announced 15 July, the rupee’s new symbol is an amalgamation of a letter in the Devanagari script—which is used to write Hindi—and the Roman capital “R”.

Previously, the Indian rupee was denoted by the “Rp.” tag.

The rune was designed by Indian Institute of Technology student D Udaya Kumar, after the government announced a contest to create a symbol for the rupee back in March 2009.

Kumar’s winning design was picked from 3,000 entries, and he picked up 250,000 rupees (US$5,363) as a prize.

Indian internet engineering company Foradian Technologies will develop the font for the glyph, which can be downloaded from the company’s blog.

According to India’s Ministry of Finance, the symbol will “lend a distinctive character and identity to the currency and further highlight the strength and robustness of the Indian economy.”


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