SUMMARY
Amid the burning language row in Tamil Nadu, the state government has replaced the Indian rupee symbol with a Tamil letter in its logo for the budget 2025-26, which will be tabled in the state Assembly on Friday (March 14). Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu is scheduled to table the budget on Friday. The logo for the budget, released by the government on Thursday carried ‘ru’, the first letter of the Tamil word ‘Rubaai’ which denotes the Indian currency in the vernacular language.
1 / 7Just a day ahead of the Tamil Nadu State Budget, the MK Stalin-led DMK government has bowled a googly, surprising many, with the soft-launch of the state’s very own ‘Rupee’ symbol.
2 / 7Just a day ahead of the Tamil Nadu State Budget, the MK Stalin-led DMK government has bowled a googly, surprising many, with the soft-launch of the state’s very own ‘Rupee’ symbol.
3 / 7The existing ‘Rupee’ symbol that we all use today is a combination of the English and Devanagari scripts to denote the ‘R’ for ‘Rupee’.
4 / 7Relatives and neighbours attend the funeral procession for four Syrian security force members killed in clashes with loyalists of ousted President Bashar Assad in coastal Syria, in the village of Al-Janoudiya, west of Idlib, Saturday, March 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)
5 / 7While a formal notification pertaining to the change of the ‘Rupee’ symbol in the state has not been issued, the ‘Roo’ symbol has already found its way to state government documents.
6 / 7The change comes amid a high-profile tussle between Centre and State over issues like the proposed three-language formula of the National Education Policy, and the delimitation exercise, which Tamil Nadu has said will reduce its representation in the Parliament. So, there has been a revival of Tamil Nationalism that we have seen across Chennai and other parts of the state.
7 / 7The timing of the ‘Rupee’ symbol change in the state comes with just a year to go for assembly elections in the state. The state government’s stance is rather clear. While it may not be an official symbol, any reference to the ‘Rupee’ symbol in Tamil Nadu will be denoted by a Tamil letter, and not the existing one.
