The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) is a non-profit institution bestowed with the responsibility of the development of Internet infrastructure in the country. Marking the 74th Republic Day of the Republic, NIXI has revealed a huge gift for Indian companies and individuals.
.in and .भारत domains are going to be available for Free! Yes, you heard it right the domain names can be availed for free for the first 3 months after the registration. You can check them at NIXI’s official website here.
What is the offer?
The domain names with the TLD .in and .भारत will be available for free for the duration of 26th January (The Republic Day) to 29th January, 2023. This offer is valid only for Indians.
Along with the domain a secure email ID is also provided. This comes with a free 10GB space. This is a great opportunity for young and many first time startups. A good domain name investment is perhaps the most cost effective and yet the most valuable element of any marketing and branding strategy.
NIXI’s new offer has pushed the cost effective bar one notch higher as these domains are now available for free of cost. Just during the last Independence Day, NIXI launched a similar offer where the domain names were available at ₹75 for 1 year.
Why the offer?
India holds the Presidency of this session of G20 summit. The tenure of the Presidency is from December 1, 2022 to November 30, 2023. This is a time when all the World Leaders of major economies would be present. A record 43 Head of Delegations would preside over India’s presidency of G-20.
This is a brilliant opportunity for all the business entities to present and promote their ideas from India to across the globe. To push this will further, NIXI has come up with free domain names in Indian ccTLDs.
A ccTLD is akin to a Country’s flag on the Internet. It gives a separate identity to the platform so much that its brand is perceived synonymous with the Country whose ccTLD is being used. Hence, the promotion of Brand India will certainly gain support with this move.
.in domain names
As reported by NetCraft, there are 1.77 Billion domain names in the World, of which 199 Million domain names are active. India accounts for 2.9% of this net total domain names. And only half of them are domain names in Indian ccTLDs. This sums out to be roughly 3 Million domain names in Indian ccTLDs.
This number is too low for a country like India. In the global internet presence, India is certainly above the 2.9% share it has in the case of domain names. However, despite an overwhelming global presence, the enthusiasm has not been transferred into the domain names.
A primary reason behind this is the extra cautious registration procedure. To protect the domain names from getting abused by malicious actors, regulatory institutions often bring stringent laws. These laws do prevent threat actors, but they also hamper the usual business exchange associated with the same.
Indian organisations or startups in such cases go for comparatively easily available and more popular .com domain names. .com domain names gives a global appeal to a brand which is also detrimental to the indigenous domains.
Way Forward
India had close to 5.8 million domains registered. This includes domain names across all TLDs registered in India. At the same time the US had 133 million active domains.
China had 18 million, while Germany had 12.9 million domain names. India’s population is significantly greater than Germany, however it has half the domain names.And when compared to China, the Indian domain names are a third of their Northern neighbour.
India is looked forward to by the Western Globe as the challenger to China’s rise. India has been long claimed as a strategic partner of the West. This alliance can be beneficial to India in the economic and technological front as well.
What better opportunity could have been to promote Brand India than this G-20 Summit? With the global exposure, many Indian businesses have the chance to flourish. And with them, we hope Indian domain names also get the much required push.
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