Indian blank noteA UAE based site (Souq.com) is auctioning blank sheets of original watermarked 5 Rs Indian notes. The current bid is 79 AED. One of India's growing problems is rampant distribution of fake notes to fund terrorist operations. My concern is that such auctions may make it easier for them to procure raw materials to use and experiment with.

The Souq auction claims that the notes were salvaged from a ship sunk in 1940. The ship, as claimed, is SS Brenda which was sunk off Oban, Scotland during WW2. The auctioner is reputed for selling old coins as collectables.

On a different note, two years after India's top level domain (TLD) was made available in open market through accredited registrars, the price of registering a .in domain is still much higher than purchasing .com domain say through GoDaddy. Someone needs to do a GoDaddy on these registrars. Not very long ago registering a .in domain was actually free so long you could prove Indian location of your entity.