Imagine accessing the Internet in your mother tongue. It is now possible with the international body, which manages domain names allowing use of seven Indian languages in Web addresses.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a global non-profit organisation, has taken the decision to allow Web addresses in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi and Telegu. The decision was taken in Seoul, where a conference of ICANN was going on.
Till now, on the Web, all domain names were available only in Latin characters from 'A to Z'. Domain names—.com, .net, .org, .in—are used as identification labels.
Now, users can type Web addresses in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi and Telegu.
Govind, senior director, who was representing the Department of Information Technology (DIT), said, "This will be a revolutionary move on the World Wide Web (www) that would dignify the presence of Indian vernacular languages on the Internet."
He further confirmed that more languages would be added in the near future.
DIT has started giving free fonts in 22 official Indian languages.
The Cyber Café Association of India, which represents internet cafés across the country said it is offering free download of vernacular fonts in its cyber cafés across the nation to support the cause.
Analysts feel that ICANN's decision would help promoting Internet in vernacular languages and in turn boost the penetration of Internet in India. It will also do away with the language barrier which was present on the web till now.
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