The Indian government announced the roll-out of the Dot Bharat country code top-level domain name in the Devnagri script in eight regional languages. The idea is to let the non-English speaking part of the population type URLs in the tongue they understand best. Dot Bharat is technically the English version of Dot IN, just in case you’re wondering.
Websites in regional languages (also called IDNs standing for Internationalized Domain Names) will help encourage the development of content in such localized scripts too. This should slowly but surely allow for inclusive growth of the Internet. The Dot Bharat launch by the government in the Devnagri script encompasses Hindi, Konkani, Marathi and five other languages.
Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, has disclosed that the venture will continue to expand, with all Indian languages expected to be added to the roster in the near future, reports The Economic Times. IDNs in Bangla, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu will also be delivered by the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI).
In a move to push its Digital India initiative, the Indian government has been working on connecting the whole nation with wireless telephony and broadband networks. The government has set aside Rs 20000 crore in order to bring mobile connectivity to 55000 villages in the country over the next five years. Then there’s the National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN) project estimated to cost Rs 35000 crore.
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The aim is to provide high speed Internet access to 2.50 lakh gram panchayats by March 2017. 60000 villages are supposedly going to welcome broadband support in 2014. The years 2015 and 2016 are each anticipated to ring in web connectivity for 1 lakh rural regions. The government is looking towards NOFN to bring about an e-commerce revolution in India.