We earlier reported about the test IDNs created by .IN registry and ICANN has approved India’s application enabling Indian domain names in seven regional languages.
DIT sent a proposal to Icann in May seeking domain names in Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu and Gujarati. Ravi Shankar, joint secretary of DIT, said IDNs will be extended to all of India’s 22 languages eventually. Once approved, domain names, or addresses of websites, can be typed in local languages with India-specific extensions such as “dot bharat” instead of “dot com”. [source]
The bigger question however is whether this will help penetrate the rural market, given all the local language barriers (and lack of local language input mechanism).
Also read : W3C Opens India Office, Local Web to get a boost | .IN Domains Hacked Ruthlessly
Google Gifts PoK to Pakistan
Earlier, Google gifted Arunachal Pradesh to China and now the deal is done for PoK (Paksitan Occupied Kashmir).
Above is screenshot from Google Insights for Search product.
“It is wrong of Google to show PoK as part of Pakistan. If Google did not want to show it as part of India, it could have been shown it as a disputed territory. The Pakistani constitution does not recognise PoK as part of Pakistan, while India has 25 assembly seats reserved in the J&K assembly for PoK,’’ says Vijay Bakaya, ex-J&K chief secretary – source
Interestingly, ToI reported using words (i.e. Google gifts <> to <>) similar to the way we did for our last coverage of Arunachal Pradesh/China issue.
From the Mobile World
Lava B5 Mobile – the first to incorporate rupee symbol in mobile handset
Lava Mobile has introduced Rupee Symbol in mobile phone. Lava B5, the latest model from Lava bears the rupee symbol in its keypad. Incidentally B5 is also the first phone with world’s first Alpha keypad with keys arranged in ABCD order.
HTC Desire Launched
Android based HTC Desire has been launched in India for the price of INR 28,900. The HTC Desire comes with an exclusive offer for TATA DOCOMO users in India, wherein TATA DOCOMO Postpay subscribers will get free data download of 500 MB per month for 06 months.