Symbolic issues

The historic slide of the rupee has inspired many jokes in the social media but in the Indian financial world, where a lot of money rides on superstition and auspicious timing, a popular theory doing the rounds is that ever since rupee symbol replaced Rs as the official symbol, which was in 2010, the rupee has been beset by vaastu problems which explains its steady decline, according to the top executive of a finance firm. The veracity of this theory is thoroughly questionable, of course, since the rupee actually strengthened against the dollar in calendar 2010, ending the year at 44.99, but it does go to show that no one really knows what’s going on with the currency.