Thread: Indian domainers opinion?

What do India based domainers think about idn whether it be Hindi or whatever.

Is it as widely though that English is, and will be, the language of the Indian internet for some time to come or is it considered that idn will soon take hold in the Indian cyberspace?

“There are some 150 million English speakers in India, but the rest of the population speaks in one of 22 different languages and they use one of 11 (written) scripts.

“The Indian Government is putting fibre (for broadband connections) into 500,000 villages across the nation, and they are focused on bringing the next hundred million people online.

“Once you start to think about those numbers of people coming on as active users using domain names, then you are confronted with why the DNS has to go from roman characters only to something else.”

DR Twomey

There is ample space for all languages to come up, however English being universally accepted all across India, I think all nationally recognized languages should get visibility on the Internet - and reach wider audience as against restricting it to Hindi alone.

Thx

I think it's going to happen, in fact I think it's pretty much inevitable, but I think it will be a *long* time even by IDN domainer standards (and IDN domainers are already used to waiting a long time).

Originally Posted by pubdomains.in

There is ample space for all languages to come up, however English being universally accepted all across India, I think all nationally recognized languages should get visibility on the Internet - and reach wider audience as against restricting it to Hindi alone.

Thx

I agree with pubdomains.in. Six of the top 20 languages spoken by 60 million native speakers or above, around the world, are languages from one country - India!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

While the proliferation of mobile phones, internet and broadband, for most people, are mere numbers / statistics, for an ordinary small-farmer living in one of the far flung villages about 80 miles away from Tier-III Level towns in India; it could either mean reward for all the hard work he put in across months or exploitation / being marginalised due to ignorance.

Let me quickly explain. As lately as about 5 years ago, small farmers in remote corners of India had no clue about the prevailing price of 100 kgs of paddy during the early hours of a given day when they exchange their produce for cash with the middle-men. This meant that whatever the middle-men quote as the price, they had to sell them off - for survival. All in the name of ignorance!

Today, the same small farmers, minutes before they exchange their produce, can check the existing market price that is updated on websites by reliable government sources and sell them at the right/acceptable price. All this is possible because of the many many thousands of kilometers of fiber optic cable connecting many of the villages.

Most of the farmers are not even literate, let alone being comuter literate. But there is always someone belonging to the younger generation in their family, their neighbour's family or atleast someone in the village who is literate and knows how to get 'connected' and be 'well-informed' about the prices. After all, more than 65% of Indian population is below the age of 25 and are highly fascinated about the kind of change that's sweeping across India through 'telecom/internet revolution'.

What's explained above is just one example of the benefit enjoyed by people of one particular economic segment, due to the trickle-down effect of the telecom/internet revolution. There are many dozens of other segments who too are enjoying the fruits.

As of date, all the 22 Indian languages are in cyberspace. Please refer the link from one of the top English dailies in India.

http://beta.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/article19500.ece

Google is offered in 9 Indian languages. Yahoo and Hotmail too are available in Hindi and other indian languages. For the Emerging India, Internet, especially the content/information in vernacular in the internet means profound things : Transformation, Knowledge, Empowerment, Being Well-Informed and the like.

Most importantly, it means being one of the main catalysts to accomplish Mission 2020!

Interesting thoughts and article.

I think we'll know that the Indian government is serious about this once IDN.in gets released.

If you are chasing buying power in India, I would still focus on the English literate, city and suburbanites. The population that will be early adopters of online purchasing, banking etc...

Websites will offer content in different languages but i dont think Indians will use IDN Domains.

China can be a good deal, as they use their language based keyboards etc..

Originally Posted by Aubits

If you are chasing buying power in India, I would still focus on the English literate, city and suburbanites. The population that will be early adopters of online purchasing, banking etc...

For the next five years or so, I think that will be true. In the long run, that's likely to change. The long run could be a lot of years though.

Originally Posted by PeopleNet Global

I agree with pubdomains.in. Six of the top 20 languages spoken by 60 million native speakers or above, around the world, are languages from one country - India!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

While the proliferation of mobile phones, internet and broadband, for most people, are mere numbers / statistics, for an ordinary small-farmer living in one of the far flung villages about 80 miles away from Tier-III Level towns in India; it could either mean reward for all the hard work he put in across months or exploitation / being marginalised due to ignorance.

Let me quickly explain. As lately as about 5 years ago, small farmers in remote corners of India had no clue about the prevailing price of 100 kgs of paddy during the early hours of a given day when they exchange their produce for cash with the middle-men. This meant that whatever the middle-men quote as the price, they had to sell them off - for survival. All in the name of ignorance!

Today, the same small farmers, minutes before they exchange their produce, can check the existing market price that is updated on websites by reliable government sources and sell them at the right/acceptable price. All this is possible because of the many many thousands of kilometers of fiber optic cable connecting many of the villages.

Most of the farmers are not even literate, let alone being comuter literate. But there is always someone belonging to the younger generation in their family, their neighbour's family or atleast someone in the village who is literate and knows how to get 'connected' and be 'well-informed' about the prices. After all, more than 65% of Indian population is below the age of 25 and are highly fascinated about the kind of change that's sweeping across India through 'telecom/internet revolution'.

What's explained above is just one example of the benefit enjoyed by people of one particular economic segment, due to the trickle-down effect of the telecom/internet revolution. There are many dozens of other segments who too are enjoying the fruits.

As of date, all the 22 Indian languages are in cyberspace. Please refer the link from one of the top English dailies in India.

http://beta.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/article19500.ece

Google is offered in 9 Indian languages. Yahoo and Hotmail too are available in Hindi and other indian languages. For the Emerging India, Internet, especially the content/information in vernacular in the internet means profound things : Transformation, Knowledge, Empowerment, Being Well-Informed and the like.

Most importantly, it means being one of the main catalysts to accomplish Mission 2020!

People who will be using internet in their regional language will be people not litrate in English. For them to use the net in their language the computer operating systems should also also be in that language (right from the keyboard), which at present in not popular. Also the computer education should be in native language, so they know what to do and how to do. Simple laying down of broadband cables or publishing the site in 9 different languages or creating IDN Domains is not going to help the rural user. AND THOSE WHO KNOW ENGLISH PREFER TO USE ENGLISH.

i agree with u