I think the comments on .in going the way of .info is overblown. (.info for most part does not stand for anything - brand value is poor) . I am not opposed to the promotions, in fact they should be reducing the registration/renewal prices on a permanent basis.

The key in India, it still is related to access to high speed internet (or cable modem speeds), that number is somewhere in the 10 million or less (80 million number is mostly dial up or much lower speeds than cable broadband). This needs to take off to really help .in's in my opinion. The obvious competition for .in is .com's that are India related.

Lets face it, it has taken 15 years here in the US for small business to catch on to SEO or Domain Name Importance (some may argue it still is not there), so we need to be patient for .in market to develop.