Launch of Bharat Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) Name in Hindi Devanagari Script

The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) has announced that .IN Registry has launched the Bharat ccTLD name ( भारत written in Devanagari script).ccTLD is an Internet top-level domain   generally used or reserved for a   country , a sovereign state, or a   dependent territory . It was launched by Minister for Communications and Information and Law and Justice, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad today. This is soon to be followed in the coming months by similar launches in regional languages such as Tamil, Gujarati, Punjabi, Urdu, Telugu and Bangala etc.

NIXI has been spearheading the goal of multilingual Internet and to this end NIXI has collaborated with Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) in setting up of an expert team on Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).

One of the important requirements for Internet growth is the proliferation of content in the local languages. Growth of the websites in local languages has direct bearing with the development of content in local languages. Depiction of the URL of the website in local language will further go a long way in ensuring inclusive growth of Internet. The domain names in local languages are called Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).IDNs enable common users to navigate through the Internet in their local languages. One can have domain names in his/her local language for example in Hindi, that the domain name will look like www. रजिस्ट्री . भारत

India has 22 official languages which get written majorly in 11 scripts. Some of the scripts support several languages e.g. Devanagari script is used to write 11 official languages out of which 8 share the ccTLD . भारत which are Bodo (Boro), Dogri, Hindi, Konkani, Maithili, Marathi, Nepali, and Sindhi.

The major elements of the new policy are as follows:
Unlimited generic . भारत and कंपनी . भारत registration will be open to public at 2nd level and 3rd level, except as provided herein.

The zones सरकार . भारत and शिक्षा . भारत will be reserved for the Government, and Educational institutions respectively. The registrations at the 3rd level in these zones will be carried out by the Government, or an institution identified by the Government. Taking into account the Internet services offered in their respective sectors, . सरकार . भारत registration will be handled by NIC, शिक्षा . भारत by ERNET, as Registrars in these zones.

State Governments and Union Territories can register under . भारत category.

One character domain registration will not be allowed at the 2nd and 3rd levels for use by the general public

Prior to the opening of registration at 2nd / 3rd levels, following category of names in the respective languages will be reserved.
• Constitutional Authorities
• States/ Union Territories/ Cities
• Specific Names for Registry use

Trademark owners, registered companies and owners of intellectual property have a legitimate interest in protecting their brand. In the Internet domain, it is achieved by having a “Sunrise Period”. A Sunrise period of 90 days from the opening of registration at 2nd/3rd levels will be announced during which genuine registrations with proper verification will be allowed as per the policy for these registrations. The details of sunrise period would be as follows

Thereafter, the registrations will be open to public on first come first served basis.

The Internet Exchange of India is the neutral point of the ISP in India. Its main purpose is to facilitate exchange of doemstic Internet traffic between the peering ISP members. This enables more efficient use of internationa bandwith, saving foreign exchange. It also improves the quality of the services for customers of member ISPs, by avoiding multiple international hops and thus reducing latency.

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) is the premier R&D organization of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Communications& Information Technology (MCIT) for carrying out R&D in IT, Electronics and associated areas.  Different areas of C-DAC, had originated at different times, many of which came out as a result of identification of opportunities.

Source: Press Release: Pess Information Bureau
            Bharat ccTLD name Policy Framework & Implementation by C-DAC, Aug, 2013