Indian Five rupee coins - II

5 rupee, Dandi march(steel)

This coin was released on the occasion of 75 years of the Dandi march, which was undertaken by Mahatma Gandhi on the issue of the government imposing taxes on the salt. the british government had forbidden Indians from making their own salt, and they were made to pay heavy taxes for salt.

So to protest, Gandhiji started walking towards Dandi, a place in Gujarat, to make his own salt. Thousands of Indians joined him on the way, and they broke the salt law along with Gandhiji. This event got to be known as the Dandi march and was one of the turning points in India's struggle for independence.

5 rupee wave (IT theme), 2007

This steel 5 rupee coin was minted for two years : 2007 and 2008, and Information Technology is the theme of the coin. India has witnessed an IT revolution in the last 20-30 years as it is a low cost destination , which is very suitable for outsourcing and maintenace work to be done. India has emerged as one of the four highly developing economies (among the BRIC group), and the major reason for that has been the IT revolution only.

Now, the Indian government has also realized the important contributions of the IT industry to the economy, and has minted certain coins on this theme. A 10 rupee coin with the same theme is also slated to be released by 2010.

5 rupee, Dandi march: copper-nickel

The 5 rupee of Dandi march in copper- nickel is a rare coin and is currently valued at above 1000rs. Its value would have gone really high if it was not released as part of some UNC sets. Many people broke the sets to sell this loose 5rs, and now the sets have also become rarer.

See also: Dandi march UNC set

5 rupee, Indira Gandhi

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi(1917-1984) was the prime minister of India for three terms, from 1966 to 1977; and fourth term from 1980 to 1984, when she was assasinated in the wake of operation blue star.

She is the only female prime minister of India till date, and was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India. She married Feroze Gandhi (no relation to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, also called Mahatma Gandhi). She was brought up in a politically strong and influential household, and after the sudden demise of Lal Bahadur Shastri, she was thrust into the foremost ranks of congress by the congress president K.Kamaraj. She made politically correct moves and very influential, so she came into power. But some inabilities and some inefficiencies led to the enforcing of the emergency in the late 1970s. This caused her to be out of power for three years. She also devalued the rupee from 4 Re to a dollar to 7 Re/dollar, and charges of corruption were proved against her, but she refused to resign.

In 1984, some extremists in Punjab were in the holy shrine of Darbar sahib in Amritsar, and she went through with the hard military operation against those people, forgetting about the place and the civilian pilgrims there. This operation was named 'operation bluestar', and was the cause of her assasination at the hands of two of her bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh.