The Hindu : Front Page : I hit upon representative Devanagari, says winner

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Friday, Jul 16, 2010
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I hit upon representative Devanagari, says winner

Special Correspondent

PHOTO: VIVEK BENDRE

Numero uno:Research scholar D. Udaya Kumar displays the symbol he designed for the rupee.

CHENNAI: When D. Udaya Kumar decided to participate in the competition to create a symbol for the rupee, he looked at a number of Indian scripts to come up with a design.

“I saw many regional language scripts but I thought many represented only one region of India. But the Devanagari script is the most extensively used in the country, so I decided to go with that.”

Speaking to The Hindu on the phone after winning the design competition, Mr. Kumar said the horizontal line on top used in the Devanagari script was unique to India.

“The two horizontal lines and the band between also represent the Indian flag.”

A native of Kallakurichi in Tamil Nadu, Mr. Kumar completed most of his schooling in Chennai.

After studying at the School of Architecture and Planning at Anna University here, he did his Masters' at the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay starting 2001, before enrolling for a PhD there in 2005 after a two-year stint in the computer magazine Chip.

Set to join IIT-Guwahati as assistant professor, he says the recognition may delay his plans.

“I have been receiving calls from the morning and I don't know if I can leave for Guwahati on Friday as I had planned,” he says, while expressing his happiness and thanking his parents and professors for the help they have given him through the years.

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