We can talk all we want about taking the Internet to the masses, and what have you. But finally, the numbers clinch any argument. How many Indians can read and write English-the lingua franca of most websites in India and many Western countries. Now however, there is an answer to this argument-Network Solutions, which is owned now by VeriSign and which is the world leader in domain name registrations is now accepting domain name registrations in nine Indian languages: Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi (Gurmukhi), Tamil and Telugu, and is screaming it out loud in a publicity campaign.

But how was the English monopoly broken in the field of domain name registrations? i-DNS International established in 1999, and headquartered in Silicon Valley has come up with an Internationalised Domain Name System (that's where they get their name i-DNS from) which allows people to get their domain names registered in the local language. i-DNS has also located its servers at the same sites as Network Solutions.

Currently, i-DNS technology supports the registration of domain names and e-mail addresses in 55 non-English languages--including Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, German, French, Arabic, Thai, and Hebrew. "Over 68 percent of the world's population is non-English speaking. i-DNS seeks to bridge the gap that has previously prevented these people from accessing the Net. Talk about e-governance and taking infotech to the grassroots level is great, but if you cannot do it without English, then the benefits may not reach as many people," says S Subbiah, Vice-President of i-DNS.net International. They are soon launching a separate multi-lingual e-mail service called i-Email.net.

Speaking about the benefits of multi-lingual domains, Arthur Chang, Managing Director, Asia-Pacific, VeriSign, said, "Currently India ranks third in Asia-Pacific domain name registration. The launch of domain name registration services in nine Indian languages is an attempt to take the Internet to the people in India. By breaking through the language barriers small and medium enterprises and individuals can be a part of the global marketplace and conduct business online in their own languages."

According to IDC estimates, there were 4.47 million Internet users in India at the end of 2000. The company expects the figures to grow to 7.27 million in 2001 and 37.59 million by 2005. Going by this figure, India will have the second largest Internet population in the Asia Pacific region. And IDC believes that half of the Internet user population's interface with the Web will be in local languages.

However, Network Solutions' premier partners in India beg to differ. "The main reason local language registration works in China is because of their large non-English speaking population who also use the Net. But in India most people using the Net can speak English. So I don't know whether having domain name registration in local languages is viable in India," says Pankaj Jaiswal, Director, Innovative Creations, one of Network Solution's premier partners in India. Concurs Nimesh Bhuta, Director, Cyberweb Global Services, "It's more difficult to type-in Indian names. I simply don't see any reason why anyone should go for Indian names."

The late Dewang Mehta, in one of his last public appearances in India, however strongly advocated the need for multi-lingual domains in India. He felt that the growth of the Internet would be through Internet cable TV. According to him, there are 38 million cable connections across the country at present and he expected the numbers to significantly grow in the coming years, especially in rural areas. This was supposed to provide greater Net access to people in rural parts of the country. According to Mehta's argument, the launch of language registration was necessary because of the 4,76,000 adult Internet users, 35 percent of whom read dailies in local languages and 29 percent of whom read magazines in local languages. But in real life two-plus-two always does not add up to four. Therefore, as Jaiswal and Bhuta say, it really doesn't make any practical sense in India. "Anyway, the suffix.com still needs to be typed in English. So what's the big deal about this?" asks Jaiswal.

There are doubts expressed about the technology too. Till now, domain names were registered using ASCII English characters. Certain mapping software developed by VeriSign has made it possible for global consumers to register domain names in their own language with appropriate accents and characters. The multilingual domain names registered are currently in phase one of a three-phase resolution process. In phase I and phase II, multilingual domain names will be held in a 'parked' status until they can be matched with a customer's website location also known as domain name resolution. In phase III of the tests, multilingual domain names will be resolved. The registrant would either need a computer with a local language operating system and a special keyboard or software capable of creating the local language characters.

However, Bhavin Chandarana, Director, IndiaLinks, another Network Solutions premier partner has reservations: "The technology is not yet developed, as clearly mentioned in Network Solution's website. So I really don't understand how they are going ahead."

Agrees Subbiah, "We have the technology to support most Indian languages. However, the problem is that most languages have many different encodings. Tamil, for example, had 28 different encodings being promoted by various vendors. So, it was important for us to reach a standard that could be used by everybody. That was a problem as none of the vendors wanted to change their encodings, because each of them already had quite a few customers. We would face the same problem with other languages as well. Since we wanted to do it with everybody's consensus, the launch of some languages took a little while longer, especially with languages like Urdu and Bengali which have cross-border issues. So, we have tied up with C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing), and we accept their standards." C-DAC has an R&D centre in Pune, which is working on developing a unicode for Indian languages.

Having given away the Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi versions of '.edu' and '.gov' to the respective state governments for free, I-DNS intends to generate revenue on '.com' and '.net' domains. They plan to tie up with Satyam to be their registrar for domain names, and have tied up with Vishwabharat.com and e-namaskar.com as their registrar partners for the state of Delhi. These two will be responsible for the promotion and registration of Hindi domain names.

The use of multi-lingual domain names was to be extended through 'e-panchayat'-a concept under experimentation that was to make the Internet more useful to rural Indians. In a few months, NASSCOM plans to introduce this concept of 'e-panchayat' in 230 villages in eastern Uttar Pradesh and in 140 villages in Gujarat. Dewang Mehta had expressed a hope that this would keep people in one village well-connected with neighbouring villages as well as keep them informed about new developments. Now, we can only pray that his hope will be fulfilled.

The uptake on local languages is lukewarm from all accounts. Jaiswal says, "Some corporates are going for these domains, especially if the English name has been squatted upon." He cites the example of GalaxySoftware. In fact, Jaiswal seems to be the only one to get some registrations. "I have got about 8-10 registrations which is less than 5 percent of my total monthly registrations." Both Bhuta and Chandarana have so far drawn a blank vis-à-vis local language registrations, though they have had some enquiries.

Says Jasjit Singh, Member-Technical, C-DAC, "We are working on all Indian languages which run from left to right." However, at the same time, he is not aware of any registrations in local languages taking place as yet. Jaiswal's final parting shot: "This might be a way of trying to reach out to non-English speaking audiences. But how many domain names will be actually taken up remains to be seen."