NIXI offers free access to Indian domain names

The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), has announced its plans to offer .in or .Bharat domain free of cost for three months in India. As part of its Republic Day promotional campaign, the company said that the offer is available for those who purchase the domain between 26 and 29th January, 2023.  

"Users may also opt for personalised and very secured free e-mail ID with 10 GB space", the entity under Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), said in a statement.   

The government of India opened registrations of Indian domains with .in suffixes for public use in December 2004. At present more than 3 million people across the globe are connected with .in or .Bharat domain. Further, the .in domain is declared as seventh most preferred domain globally, primarily owing to its cost-effectiveness.  Besides, when users get a domain name from NIXI he/she can choose from 22 languages so as to help businesses get more visiblility to the regional audience.

“To make countrymen to adopt Digital India initiative especially when India has taken over Presidency of G-20, NIXI took an initiative to build-up Internet Infrastructure in India by empowering citizens with power of domain along with secured and personalised e-mail,” Anil Kumar Jain, CEO, NIXI said in a statement. 

This is not the first time that NIXI has run such a promotional campaign. Last year, in August, NIXI announced its latest promotional rate for Indian domain registrations, priced at ₹75 for the first year. These registrations generally cost ₹400 per year for .in domains and ₹300 per year for .co.in (or other third level) domains, but the special price was applicable only on the first year of usage. 

According to a January 2022 report by internet data services firm Registrar Owl, India has the fifth highest number of domains in the world, with close to 5.8 million domains located in the country. This, however, includes both .com and .in websites registered in India. 
In comparison, the US ranks at the top of global domain registrations — with over 133 million active domains as of December last year. China had 18 million active domains, while Germany had 12.9 million at that time. Active domains in India were less than a third of China, the report said.

However, the report mentioned that Indian domain names did not “truly represent the penetration of information technology in India, when seen in conjunction with the number of companies and public institutions.”

In August last year, NIXI announced the expansion of its footprint in India by launching more and more Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) across the country. The launch of these internet exchanges is aimed at improving the Internet and broadband services at the local level and in neighbouring regions. At present there are 42 such IXPs in India installed by the NIXI, according to a press release issued by MeitY on December 9, 2022. The aim is to have 75 exchanges by end of this financial year so that the government can ensure the penetration of the internet at a deeper level.