BHUBANESWAR: India is all set to roll out domain names in Hindi script by June 2012 under the internationalised domain names (IDN) initiative. The IDN would enable registration of web addresses in vernacular language scripts with ‘.Bharat’ extension. Presently, the urls allow domain names that are predominantly in English with basic Latin characters and some other foreign language scripts. With the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the international regulatory body for domain names approving seven Indian language scripts under IDN, Hindi would be the first language to get incorporated as urls. The ICANN has also approved six other languages of Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali and Kannada as IDNs. The IDNs in these languages would follow Hindi and be ready for roll out by 2013-end. The ICANN would be soon approached for approval in several other IDNs in Indian language script. The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) would start registration and operation of Hindi script urls with ‘.bharat’ extension from mid-2012. The national regulatory body has already started the process of sensitising and training of registrars under it for registration of such domain names. About 86 registrars are functioning under NIXI handling registration of domain names with ‘.in’ extension, said Rajiv Kumar of NIXI during a National Workshop on IDNs here on Monday. The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune, in association with the Department of Information Technology and C-DAC Kolkata and Thiruvananthapuram is developing the IDNs in Indian vernacular language scripts. “We have made significant progress in developing unicodes to digitally enscript all the 22 scheduled languages, including Odia, to enable web addresses in the entire cross section of vernacular languages in the country,” head of Graphics and Intelligence Based Script Technology (GIST) of C-DAC MD Kulkarni said. Having web addresses will not only push Internet penetration but also provides access at the grassroots level. Similarly, it will also boost web content and sites in vernacular languages. Over 85 per cent of Indians work and think in their mother tongue and, therefore, the necessity to customise the web to their own preferred languages. “However, Indian language scripts with their dynamic features, syllables and phonetics pose serious challenges. Extra caution has to be taken to ensure that they are insulated from malpractices like spoofing and phising. An expansive exercise involving language experts, linguists to evolve simple and error-free codes for the digital scripts,” Kulkarni said at the workshop. Emphasising on inculcation of urls in vernacular languages, Additional Director of DIT, Tulika Pandey said that less than one per cent of Odia language content was available on the net. “Somewhere here our cultural ethos and linguistic treasures are missing out on reaching out to the world,” she observed.
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