Indian-Currency

The Indian rupee (Hindi: रुपया) is the official currency of India. The Indian rupee is subdivided into 100 paise (singular paisa). As is standard in Indian English, large values of Indian rupees are counted in terms of thousand, lakh (100 thousand, in digits 1,00,000), and crore (100 lakhs, in digits 1,00,00,000).Among the earliest issues of paper rupees were those by the Bank of Hindostan (1770-1832), the General Bank of Bengal and Bihar (1773-75, established by Warren Hastings), the Bengal Bank (1784-91), amongst others.Historically, the rupee was a silver based currency. This had severe consequences in the nineteenth century, when the strongest economies in the world were on the gold standard. The discovery of vast quantities of silver in the U.S. and various European colonies resulted in a decline in the relative value of silver to gold. Suddenly the standard currency of India could not buy as much from the outside world. This event was known as "the fall of the Rupee."During British rule, and the first decade of independence, the rupee was subdivided into 16 Annas. Each Anna was subdivided into either 4 pices, or 12 pies.In 1957, decimalisation occurred and the rupee was now divided into 100 Naye Paise (Hindi for new paisas). After a few years, the initial "Naye" was dropped. However many still refer to 25, 50 & 75 paise as 4, 8 and 12 annas respectively, not unlike the now largely defunct usage of "bit" in American English for 1/8 dollar.