.in

.in

Introduced	8 May 1989 (8 May 1989)
TLD type	Country code top-level domain
Status	Active
Registry	INRegistry
Sponsor	National Internet Exchange of India
Intended use	Entities connected with India
Actual use	Very popular in India. Liberalisation of registration rules in 2005 led to a large increase in registrations including overseas registrations.
Registered domains	2.01 million+ (July 2016)
Registration restrictions	No restrictions on who can register second-level domains or most third-level domains; various specific restrictions under some of those specialised subdomains.
Structure	May register at the second level or at the third level beneath generic-category 2nd-level domains
Documents	Policies
Dispute policies	.IN Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (INDRP)
DNSSEC	Yes
Registry website	registry.in

.भारत

Logo for .भारत, (romanized as .bharat)
Introduced	5 February 2011 (5 February 2011)
TLD type	Internationalised (Devanagari) country code top-level domain
Status	Active
Registry	INRegistry
Sponsor	National Internet Exchange of India
Intended use	Entities connected with India
Actual use	Getting popular in India.
Registration restrictions	Devanagari script. Also comply with certain Devanagari Phonological rules; restrictions under some specialized subdomains like सरकार.भारत (≈gov.in).
Structure	May register at the second level or at the third level beneath generic-category 2nd-level domains.
DNS name	xn--h2brj9c
DNSSEC	Yes
Registry website	रजिस्ट्री.भारत (registry.bharat)

.in is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for India. Made available in 1989, only four years after original generic top-level domains such as .com, .net and the country code like .us. It is currently administered by National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI).

Registry operator

The domain was originally managed by the National Centre for Software Technology (NCST) and its Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). The Government of India issued an executive order in 2004 to transfer responsibility for managing .in domains to the newly created INRegistry under the authority of the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI). The National Informatics Centre (NIC), ERNET, and the Ministry of Defence were appointed as registrars for the gov.in, res.in and ac.in, and the mil.in domains respectively.

In August 2018, NIXI appointed Neustar Data Infotech (India), a subsidiary of Neustar Inc, to be the country's new registry services provider. Neustar completed migration of existing .in domains to its registry infrastructure in March 2019. Neustar added the ability to register Indian-language domains in native script by enabling end-to-end web portal language support.

Second-level domains

As of 2005, liberalised policies for the .in domain allow unlimited second-level registrations under .in. Unlimited registrations under the previously structured existing zones are also allowed:

• .in (available to anyone; used by companies, individuals, and organisations in India)
• .co.in (intended for banks, registered companies, and trademarks)
• .com.in (available to anyone; used by companies, individuals, and organisations in India)
• .firm.in (intended for shops, partnerships, liaison offices, sole proprietorships)
• .net.in (intended for Internet service providers)
• .org.in (intended for nonprofit organisations)
• .gen.in (intended for general/miscellaneous use)
• .ind.in (intended for individuals)

Zones reserved for use by qualified institutions in India:

• .ernet.in (Older, for both educational and research institutes)
• .ac.in (Academic institutions)
• .edu.in (Educational institutions)
• .res.in (Indian research institutes)
• .gov.in (Indian government)
• .mil.in (Indian military organisations)

The domain .nic.in is reserved for India's National Informatics Centre, but in practice most Indian government agencies have domains ending in .nic.in.

.in Registry recently launched following sub-domains to benefit the growing market.

• .5g.in
• .6g.in
• .ai.in
• .am.in
• .bihar.in
• .biz.in
• .business.in
• .ca.in
• .cn.in
• .com.in
• .coop.in
• .cs.in
• .delhi.in
• .dr.in
• .er.in
• .gujarat.in
• .info.in
• .int.in
• .internet.in
• .io.in
• .me.in
• .pg.in
• .post.in
• .pro.in
• .travel.in
• .tv.in
• .uk.in
• .up.in
• .us.in

Before the introduction of liberalised registration policies for the .in domain, only 7000 names had been registered between 1992 and 2004. As of March 2010, the number had increased to over 610,000 domain names with 60% of registrations coming from India and the rest from overseas. By October 2011, the number had surpassed 1 million domain names. As of March 2016, the number has more than doubled to over 2 million domain names.

Restrictions on use of .in domains

As per the terms and conditions of the .in registry, domain privacy is not allowed.

Effective from December 27, 2021, bulk domain registrations, with individuals registrant registering for more than 2 or an entity registering for more than 100 .in domains are required to seek prior approval from the CEO of National Internet Exchange of India.

Internationalised domain names and country codes

India plans to introduce internationalised domain names in the 22 local languages used in India. As of October 2016, fifteen of these internationalised domain names were accepted by ICANN:

• .भारत (Devanagari), became available with the following zones:

Devanagari string	Transliterated string
भारत	.bharat
कंपनी.भारत	company.bharat
विद्या.भारत	vidya.bharat
सरकार.भारत	sarkar.bharat

• .ভারত (Bengali), available as of 2017
• .ਭਾਰਤ (Gurmukhī), only ਡਾਟਾਮੇਲ.ਭਾਰਤ as of August 2017
• .ભારત (Gujarati), available as of 2017
• .இந்தியா (Tamil), available as of 2015.
• .భారత్ (Telugu), available as of 2017
• .بھارت (Urdu) only ڈاٹامیل.بھارت as of August 2017 (mainly right-to-left character order)

In 2016, an application for eight further domains were accepted. While Indian government also applied for .বাংলা(Bengali) it was given to competitive applicant Bangladesh Telecommunication company. They were not available (as of October 2016): But, they were later on made available and now are open for domain registration in India.

• .ಭಾರತ (Kannada)
• .ভাৰত (Assamese)
• بارت. (Kashmiri)
• .ഭാരതം (Malayalam)
• .ଭାରତ (Odia)
• .भारतम् (Sanskrit)
• .भारोत (Santali)
• ڀارت. (Sindhi)

See also

• Country code top-level domain
• Internet in India

External links and references

• IANA Whois information
• whois information
• Policies from the INRegistry website
• List of Accredited registrars for .in