What’s the news?
Several Union government websites have begun using Hindi domain names as part of the Universal Acceptance (UA) initiative to make the Internet accessible in non-English Indian languages.
Key Features:
Example: The Ministry of Home Affairs now uses a Hindi URL, alongside the original mha.gov.in.
These new addresses replace .in with .bharat or its equivalents in regional languages (e.g., .இந்தியா for Tamil).
Websites are mirrored — both English and Hindi versions are accessible from the new URL.
Why is this important?
The internet has historically relied on ASCII (English-based characters).
IDNs (Internationalised Domain Names) and language-based email addresses aim to break this English-dominant system.
Now, browsers convert non-English URLs into Punycode (machine-readable format), but display them in local scripts.
Challenges:
Adoption has been slow, especially in the private sector.
Despite official support for IDNs in 22 Indian languages, public usage remains limited.
Example: Fewer than one page of Google results exist for Tamil .இந்தியா domains.
Government Push:
Ministries like IT, Minority Affairs, and agencies like NIXI have adopted Hindi domain names.
Bhashanet is a portal by NIXI to help government departments adopt IDNs.
Broader significance:
The move is part of India’s effort to make the Internet linguistically inclusive.
However, widespread adoption will require shifting habits from the default English settings, both for creators and users.
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