Communications and IT minister to launch dot Bharat domain

The Communications and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will be launching the dot Bharat domain name on 21^st August, 2014 in New Delhi to further the reach of internet in the country. The domain name will facilitate multi-lingual internet access as report by ET. The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) are given the responsibility of aiding the dot Bharat ccTLD, which can be registered in Devnagari scripts like Marathi, Konkani, Bodo, Nepali and Maithili.

This initiative is been taken to boost the internet penetration in the country along with the aim to increase the local content and delivery of internet services to the rural parts of the country. The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has assigned the Domain Name (IDN) in seven India languages to NIXI. The association also working in order to formulate a committee, which will work on International Domain Names (IDNs) and will provide domain names in local languages such as Bengali, Punjabi, Guajarati, Tamil and Urdu sometime soon.

As per the data introduced by Ravi Shankar Prasad in the Parliament clearly states that, number of Internet subscribers stood at 238.71 million in December 2013, while Himachal Pradesh with 2.04 million, had the lowest number of Internet users. So, introduction of domain names in localised languages and with local characters will boost the growth and penetration of internet in different parts of the country.