Wednesday 20 April 2011

Lakhs and crores

The terms lakh and crore are widely used in the English-language media in India — in newspapers and magazines, tv channels, government publications and even in the financial statements of Indian companies — and I think it is about time that we shifted to using hundred thousand and million instead.

The Indian economy has been growing fast for many years and so has international trade but we are still out of tune with the rest of the world in this respect. We use the Gregorian calendar rather than the Hindu calendar, don't we? So why not dispense with lakh and crore, which are understood only in South Asia, and start using the standard terms which are understood throughout the world. Of course, we should continue using lakh and crore in the Hindi language.

What do you think?