It would pain one to see the way our currency notes are handled
by people, the multiple folds, keeping it in awkward places .. .. and
scribbling on it ~ currency notes of
some other Nation do look smart – Australian currency is of polymer .. .. ..
but would our plastic ban and global outcry against polymers apply to this ?? –
AUD is in news !!
Australia’s
national currency is the Australian dollar (AUD) which comes in polymer
(plastic) notes of $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100. The discovery of gold in the country in 1851
led to the coinage of gold coins, stimulating the development of the banking
system. Commercial banks issued their own banknotes, backed by gold, although
people did not completely trust them, especially after several banks filing for
bankruptcy in 1893. The Australian Notes Act, passed in 1910, assigned the
responsibility of issuing banknotes to the National Treasury and introduced the
Australian pound as the official currency. During the first three years
subsequent to its introduction, several private banknotes already existing were
reprinted by the Treasury as a temporary measure until the designs were ready
to use.
Slowly
plastic notes replaced the paper currency.
Polymer banknotes are banknotes made from a polymer such as biaxially
oriented polypropylene (BOPP). Such notes incorporate many security features
not available in paper banknotes, including the use of metameric inks. Polymer
banknotes last significantly longer than paper notes, causing a decrease in
environmental impact and a reduced cost of production and replacement.
Edith Dircksey Cowan OBE ( 1861 – 1932) was an Australian social reformer who
worked for the rights and welfare of women and children. She is best known as
the first Australian woman to serve as a member of parliament. Cowan has
featured on the reverse of Australia's 50-dollar note since 1995. She and the currency is in
news !! Cowan's mother died when
she was seven, and she was subsequently sent to boarding school in Perth. At
the age of 14, her father, Kenneth Brown, was executed for the murder of her
stepmother, making her an orphan. In
1894, Cowan was one of the founders of the Karrakatta Club, the first women's
social club in Australia. She became prominent in the women's suffrage
movement, which saw women in Western Australia granted the right to vote in
1899. Cowan was a key figure in the creation of the King Edward Memorial
Hospital for Women, and became a member of its advisory board when it opened in
1916. She was made a magistrate in 1915 and a justice of the peace in 1920. In
1921, Cowan was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia as a
member of the Nationalist Party, becoming Australia's first female
parliamentarian. She was defeated after just a single term, but maintained a
high profile during her tenure and managed to secure the passage of several of
her private member's bills.
Back home, as you would know, there are 22 official languages mentioned in the 8th
schedule of the Indian Constitution are as follows 1. Assamese; 2.
Bengali; 3 Bodo; 4 Dogri; 5 Gujarati; 6 Hindi;
7 Kannada; 8 Kashmiri; 9 Konkani; 10 Maithili; 11 Malayalam; 12
Manipuri; 13 Marathi; 14 Nepali; 15 Odisha; 16 Punjabi; 17 Sanskrit; 18
Santhali; 19 Sindhi; 20 Tamil; 21 Telugu and 22 Urdu. The Indian bank note (Rupee currency) bears
17 of them – on the obverse or front,
the denomination is written in English and Hindi. On the
reverse is a language panel which displays the denomination of the note in 15
of the 22 official languages of India. The
missing six languages are : Bodo; Dogri; Maithili; Manipuri (Meitei);
Santhali & Sindhi.
On Nov 8, 2016, PM Narendra
Modiji announced demonetisation and
immediately thereafter the highly "secure" new currency notes came
into use. It is another matter that some fools in their zest to cricitise the
Govt in every measure started circulating fake news that the new notes hastily
printed has spelling mistakes and repeat of the same language (everyone becomes
a language expert !) .. .. sad ! .. ..
now read this - Australia's
central bank is taking "responsibilty" – or rather, responsibility – for a microscopic typo on 46 million bank notes.
An
Australian radio station posted a photo on social media Thursday showing the 50
Australian dollar bill ($35 USD) with the word "responsibility"
missing its last "i" in the three times it appears on the
note. The Reserve Bank of Australia confirmed the error on the notes printed in
October and said it will be corrected in the next print run. Australia's $50 bill shows Edith Cowan, the
first Australian woman elected to parliament. The misspelling occurs in a
printed excerpt of her first speech to the Western Australia state Parliament in
1921.
"Responsibility" is misspelled three times on the
note. "It is a great responsibility to be the only woman here, and I want
to emphasise the necessity which exists for other women being here," the
correct quote reads. "The process
of designing and printing a banknote is complex and iterative," a bank
spokesperson said, according to Australian broadcaster ABC. "We have
strict quality assurance processes, but like any manufacturing process, errors
can occur. We have reviewed our processes to remove the likelihood of such an
error occurring in the future."
Interesting
!
With
regards – S. Sampathkumar
10th
May 2019.
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