|
India has been one of the earliest issuers of coins in the world (circa 6th Century BC), along with the Chinese wen and Lydian staters. The origin of the word "rupee" is found in the word rūp or rūpā, which means "silver" in many Indo-Aryan languages such as Hindi. The Sanskrit word rupyakam (Devanagari:रूप्यकम्) means coin of silver. The derivative word Rūpaya was used to denote the coin introduced by Sher Shah Suri during his reign from 1540 to 1545 CE. The original Rūpaya was a silver coin weighing t Reserve Bank issues were signed by the second Governor, Sir James Taylor. In August 1940, the one-rupee note was reintroduced as a wartime measure, as a Government note with the status of a rupee coin. During the war, the Japanese produced high-quality forgeries of the Indian currency. This necessitated a change in the watermark. The profile portrait of George VI was changed to his full frontal portrait. The security thread was introduced for the first time in India. The George VI series continued till 1947 and thereafter as a frozen series till 1950 when post-independence notes were issued.
[edit] Republic of India IssuesAfter Independence of India, the government brought out the new design Re. 1 note in 1949. Initially it was felt that the King's portrait be replaced by a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi. Finally however, the Lion Capital of Asoka was chosen. The new design of notes were largely along earlier lines. In 1953, Hindi was displayed prominently on the new notes. The economic crisis in late 1960s led to a reduction in the size of notes in 1967. High denomination notes, like Rs. 10,000 notes were demonetised in 1978. The "Mahatma Gandhi Series" was introduced in 1996. Prominent new features included a changed watermark, windowed security thread, latent image and intaglio features for the visually handicapped. [edit] Other issues
[edit] Rupee coinage since the British periodThe British settlements in Western India, South India, and the Eastern Province of Bengal (Calcutta) independently developed different coinages in consonance with the local acceptability of the coins for the purposes of trade. The coins of Bengal were developed in the Mughal style and those of Madras mostly in a South Indian style. The English coins of Western India developed along Mughal as well as English patterns. It was only in 1717 AD that the English obtained permission from the Emperor Farrukh Siyar to coin Mughal money at the Bombay mint. The British gold coins were termed Carolina, the silver coins Anglina, the copper coins Cupperoon and tin coins Tinny. By the early 1830, the English had become the dominant power in India. The Coinage Act of 1835 provided for uniform coinage throughout India. The new coins had the effigy of William IV on the obverse and the value on the reverse in English and Persian. The coins issued after 1840 bore the portrait of Queen Victoria. The first coinage under the crown was issued in 1862 and in 1877 Queen Victoria assumed the title the Empress of India. The 1911 accession to the throne of the King-Emperor George V led to the famous "pig rupee". On the coin the King appeared wearing the chain of the Order of the Indian Elephant. Through poor engraving the elephant looked very much like a pig. The Muslim population was incensed and the image had to be quickly redesigned. Acute shortage of silver during the First World War, led to the introduction of paper currency of One Rupee and Two and a half Rupees. The silver coins of smaller denominations were issued in cupro-nickel. The compulsion of the Second World War led to experiments in coinage where the standard rupee was replaced by the "Quaternary Silver Alloy". The Quaternary Silver coins were issued from 1940. In 1947 these were replaced by pure Nickel coins. Immediately after independence, the British coinage was continued. The Monetary System remained unchanged at One Rupee consisting of 64 pice, or 192 pies. The "Anna Series" was introduced on 15 August, 1950. this was the first coinage of Republic of India. The King's Portrait was replaced by the Asoka's Lion Capital. A corn sheaf replaced the Tiger on the one Rupee coin. The monetary system was retained with one Rupee consisting of 16 Annas. The 1955 Indian Coinage (Amendment) Act, that came into force with effect from 1 April 1957, introduced a "Decimal series". The rupee was now divided into 100 'Paisa' instead of 16 Annas or 64 Pice. With high inflation in the sixties, small denomination coins which were made of bronze, nickel-brass, cupro-nickel, and Aluminium-Bronze were gradually minted in Aluminium. This change commenced with the introduction of the new hexagonal 3 paise coin. A twenty paise coin was introduced in 1968 but did not gain much popularity. Over a period of time, cost benefit considerations led to the gradual discontinuance of 1, 2 and 3 paise coins in the seventies; Stainless steel coinage of 10, 25 and 50 paise, was introduced in 1988 and of one rupee in 1992. The very considerable costs of managing note issues of Re 1, Rs 2, and Rs 5 led to the gradual coinisation of these denominations in the 1990s. [edit] DecimalisationDuring 1835-1957, [1]
During 1957-64,
Since 1964,
The demand for decimalisation existed for over a century. Sri Lanka decimalised its rupee in 1869. The Indian Coinage Act was amended in September 1955 for the adoption of a metric system for coinage. The Act came into force with effect from 1 April, 1957. The rupee remained unchanged in value and nomenclature. It, however, was now divided into 100 'Paisa' instead of 16 Annas or 64 Pice. For public recognition, the new decimal Paisa was termed 'Naya Paisa' till 1 June 1964 when the term 'Naya' was dropped. The coins of that period also mentioned their value in terms of the rupee to avoid confusion and cheating. For example, the one paisa coin carried the text "One hundredth of a Rupee" in Hindi. [edit] Devaluations[edit] The Fall of the Rupee
After its victory in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), Germany extracted a huge indemnity from France of £200,000,000, and then moved to join Britain on a gold standard for currency. France, the U.S. and other industrialising countries followed Germany in adopting a gold standard throughout the 1870s. At the same time, other countries, such as Japan, which did not have the necessary access to gold or those, such as India, which were subject to imperial policies that determined that they did not move to a gold standard, remained mostly on a silver standard. A huge divide between silver-based and gold-based economies resulted. The worst affected were economies with silver standard that traded mainly with economies with gold standard. With discovery of more and more silver reserves, those currencies based on gold continued to rise in value and those based on silver were declining due to demonetization of silver. For India which carried out most of its trade with gold based countries, especially Britain, the impact of this shift was profound. As the price of silver continued to fall, so too did the exchange value of the rupee, when measured against pound sterling. Since its Independence in 1947, India has faced two major financial crises and two consequent devaluations of the rupee: In 1966 and 1991. [edit] 1966 Economic crisisSince 1950, India ran continued trade deficits that increased in magnitude in the 1960s. Furthermore, the Government of India had a budget deficit problem and could not borrow money from abroad or from the private corporate sector, due to that sector’s negative savings rate. As a result, the government issued bonds to the RBI, which increased the money supply, leading to inflation. In 1966, foreign aid, which was hitherto a key factor in preventing devaluation of the rupee was finally cut off and India was told it had to liberalise its restrictions on trade before foreign aid would again materialise. The response was the politically unpopular step of devaluation accompanied by liberalisation. Furthermore, The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 led the US and other countries friendly towards Pakistan to withdraw foreign aid to India, which further necessitated devaluation. Defence spending in 1965/1966 was 24.06% of total expenditure, the highest it has been in the period from 1965 to 1989 (Foundations, pp 195). The second factor is the drought of 1965/1966. The sharp rise in prices in this period, which led to devaluation, was often blamed on the drought by corrupt governments. At the end of 1969, the Indian Rupee was trading at around 13 British Pence. A decade later, by 1979, it was trading at around 6 British Pence. Finally by the end of 1989, the Indian Rupee had plunged to an all-time low of 3 British Pence. This triggered the onset of a wave of irreversible liberalisation reforms away from populist measures. [edit] 1991 Economic crisisIn 1991, India still had a fixed exchange rate system, where the rupee was pegged to the value of a basket of currencies of major trading partners. India started having balance of payments problems since 1985, and by the end of 1990, it found itself in serious economic trouble. The government was close to default and its foreign exchange reserves had dried up to the point that India could barely finance three weeks’ worth of imports. As in 1966, India faced high inflation and large government budget deficits. This led the government to devalue the rupee. At the end of 1999, the Indian Rupee was devalued considerably. [edit] RevaluationIn the period 2000-2007, the Rupee stopped declining and stabilized ranging between 1 USD = INR 44-48. However in the mid-2007, the rupee has started gaining strength and for the first time in more than a decade broke the 1 USD = INR 40 barrier. This has led to severe business challenges for Indian firms such as Infosys, TCS and Wipro that have benefited considerably from foreign outsourcing. [edit] Devaluation History
[edit] Rupees in popular cultureRupees are the currency in the fictional kingdom of Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda video game series. They have the appearance of large gems and their value is determined by color. Green rupees are worth 1, blue rupees are worth 5, yellow is worth 10, red is worth 20, purple is worth 50, orange is worth 100, and silver is worth 200. [edit] References[edit] External links
Directorio de Enlaces Directorio dmoz Directorio espejo dmoz Pedro Bernardo | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||