.in

.in is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for India. It was introduced in May 1989. It is currently administered by the National Internet Exchange of India.

.in

Introduced	8 May 1989; 36 years ago (8 May 1989)
TLD type	Country code top-level domain
Status	Active
Registry	INRegistry
Sponsor	National Internet Exchange of India
Intended use	Entities connected with India
Actual use	Very popular in India. Liberalisation of registration rules in 2005 led to a large increase in registrations including overseas registrations.
Registered domains	3 million+ (May 2022)[1][2]
Registration restrictions	No restrictions on who can register second-level domains or most third-level domains; various specific restrictions under some of those specialised subdomains.
Structure	May register at the second level or at the third level beneath generic-category 2nd-level domains
Documents	Policies
Dispute policies	.IN Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (INDRP)
DNSSEC	Yes
Registry website	registry.in

.भारत

Logo for .भारत, (romanized as .bhārata)
Introduced	5 February 2011; 14 years ago (5 February 2011)[3]
TLD type	Internationalised (Devanagari) country code top-level domain
Status	Active
Registry	INRegistry
Sponsor	National Internet Exchange of India
Intended use	Entities connected with  India
Actual use	Getting popular in India.
Registration restrictions	Devanagari script. Also comply with certain Devanagari Phonological rules; restrictions under some specialized subdomains like सरकार.भारत (≈ gov.in) and विद्या.भारत (≈ edu.in)
Structure	May register at the second level or at the third level beneath generic-category 2nd-level domains.
DNS name	xn--h2brj9c
DNSSEC	Yes
Registry website	रजिस्ट्री.भारत (registry.bhārata)

Registry operator

The domain was originally managed by the National Centre for Software Technology (NCST) and its Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). The Government of India issued an executive order in 2004 to transfer responsibility for managing .in domains to the newly created INRegistry under the authority of the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI). The National Informatics Centre (NIC), ERNET, and the Ministry of Defence were appointed as registrars for the gov.in, res.in and ac.in, and the mil.in domains respectively.^[4][5]

In August 2018, NIXI appointed Neustar Data Infotech (India), a subsidiary of Neustar Inc, to be the country's new registry services provider. Neustar completed migration of existing .in domains to its registry infrastructure in March 2019. Neustar added the ability to register Indian-language domains in native script by enabling end-to-end web portal language support.^[6]

Second-level domains

As of 2005^[update], liberalised policies for the .in domain allow unlimited second-level registrations under .in. Unlimited registrations under the previously structured existing zones are also allowed:^[7]

• .in (available to anyone; used by companies, individuals, and organisations in India)
• .co.in (intended for banks, registered companies, and trademarks)
• .com.in (available to anyone; used by companies, individuals, and organisations in India)
• .firm.in (intended for shops, partnerships, liaison offices, sole proprietorships)
• .net.in (intended for Internet service providers)
• .org.in (intended for nonprofit organisations)
• .gen.in (intended for general/miscellaneous use)
• .ind.in (intended for individuals)

Zones reserved for use by qualified institutions in India:^[7]

• .ernet.in (Older, for both educational and research institutes)^[8][9]
• .ac.in (Academic institutions)
• .edu.in (Educational institutions)
• .res.in (Indian research institutes)
• .gov.in (Indian government and State governments)
• .mil.in (Indian military organisations)

The domain .nic.in is reserved for India's National Informatics Centre, but in practice most Indian government agencies have domains ending in .nic.in.

The .in registry launched following sub-domains on Oct 29, 2021 to benefit the growing market:^[10]

• .5g.in
• .6g.in
• .ai.in
• .am.in
• .bihar.in
• .biz.in
• .business.in
• .ca.in
• .cn.in
• .com.in
• .coop.in
• .cs.in
• .delhi.in
• .dr.in
• .er.in
• .gujarat.in
• .info.in
• .int.in
• .internet.in
• .io.in
• .me.in
• .pg.in
• .post.in
• .pro.in
• .travel.in
• .tv.in
• .uk.in
• .up.in
• .us.in

Before the introduction of liberalised registration policies for the .in domain, only 7000 names had been registered between 1992 and 2004. As of March 2010^[update], the number had increased to over 610,000 domain names with 60% of registrations coming from India and the rest from overseas.^[11] By October 2011, the number had surpassed 1 million domain names.^[12] As of March 2016^[update], the number has more than doubled to over 2 million domain names.^[13]

Restrictions on use of .in domains

As per the terms and conditions of the .in registry, domain privacy is not allowed.^[14]

Recently updated EKYC guidelines were issued to all registrars to authenticate new registrants. Hence, the previous rule relating to bulk booking of .in domain names has been withdrawn. Now customers can book unlimited .in domain names as previously in line with promoting .in TLD on par with other popular TLDs like .com and others which also has no restrictions relating to bulk booking.^[15]

Internationalised domain names and country codes

India plans to introduce internationalised domain names in the 22 local languages used in the country. As of October 2016^[update], fifteen of these internationalised domain names were accepted by ICANN:

• .भारत (Devanagari), became available with the following zones:^[16]

Devanagari string	Transliterated string
भारत	.bharat
कंपनी.भारत	company.bharat
विद्या.भारत	vidya.bharat
सरकार.भारत	sarkar.bharat

• .ভারত (Bengali), available as of 2017^[update]
• .ਭਾਰਤ (Gurmukhī), only ਡਾਟਾਮੇਲ.ਭਾਰਤ as of August 2017^[update]
• .ભારત (Gujarati), available as of 2017^[update]
• .இந்தியா (Tamil), available as of 2015^[update]
• .భారత్ (Telugu), available as of 2017^[update]
• .بھارت (Urdu) only ڈاٹامیل.بھارت as of August 2017^[update] (mainly right-to-left character order)

In 2016, an application for eight further domains was accepted. While the Indian government also applied for .বাংলা (Bengali), it was given to a competing applicant, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Company Limited (BTCL).These domains were not available (as of October 2016^[update]):^[17] But, they were later on made available and now are open for domain registration in India.

• .ಭಾರತ (Kannada)
• .ভাৰত (Assamese)
• بارت. (Kashmiri)
• .ഭാരതം (Malayalam)
• .ଭାରତ (Odia)
• .भारतम् (Sanskrit)
• .भारोत (Santali)
• ڀارت. (Sindhi)

See also

• Internet in India