@Ace @Dman
Just chanced upon this thread. There was no need for the slinging match. The actual reason is the way the domain thing started in India.
When the Internet scene burst open it was all COM and that happened almost simultaneously in India along with the USA. So COM got stamped well into the Indian psyche. Then the Indian registry opened up and CO.IN was in. And lot's of multi-national companies setup their regional ops on CO.INs. So that was next in popularity. Then IN gained momentum relatively recently and again it's the outside companies (and domainers) who are registering IN more than the end users.
I did a small research of my own across a variety of average persons on the street, at shopping malls etc. (persons who could be end users). The conversation goes like this:
me - hey! I got some raunchy jokes on this website called licked...
them - you mean licked.com? (100% people asked this)
me - no...
them - ah, so it is licked.co.in? (90%+ asked this)
me - no...
them - then what? net? org? (60%+ asked this)
me - no... it's licked.in.
them - oh! ok. I will check it.
Plus there's another reason many Indian business entities seem to "not venture beyond COM" is because the name they want is available in COM! Surprised! Not to be, because the names people want to register in India are more like vanity oriented than keyword oriented. So, for example, they would go for names like:
dmantechno.com - LOL, this is available
acetechno.com - sorry, this one's not