In the open and global competitive market space of India, any MNC is and should be welcome and a consumer is a king.
As per our data analysis, many government-funded higher education colleges are using .edu, .net, .com, .org etc domain extensions over .in, .ac.in, .edu.in, .org.in etc for their official websites. Prices for these domain extensions(gTLDs) are usually higher than any .in domain extension. In fact, .edu domain is quite restrictive and its price is around $77/year(Rs.6500/year) while .edu.in is under Rs.1000/year. At the same time as we are promoting “Make in India”, why are some prominent government-funded colleges shying away from using .in domain extension? While .in or .bharat (.भारत) already have many subdomain extensions, getting a proper one shouldn’t be an issue for any college in cases of name clashes.
We, as a private company or non government-funded entity, use .com or .net domains, then it must be fine because we are also investing in our domains with our own money. I personally recommend .com or other gTLDs domain extensions to clients. However, if government-funded colleges aren’t paying for their domain name with their own funds, then they must have to use .in domain because they depend on government funds. It not only saves money for the government but also increases our .IN domain extension visibility. If prominent Chinese or Japanese universities are using .cn or .jp extensions, then global visibility for Indian colleges shouldn’t be an issue. University Grants Commission (UGC), National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) and Education and Research Network (ERNET) should collaborate and release guidelines for using .in domain for government funded colleges.
Even, after producing one of the highest numbers of computer science graduates in the world each year and being the second biggest internet consumer country, our .in is not in the top 10 domain extensions. Our policy makers should aim for that place by 2030.
Once again reiterating, this is a personal view and we have no issue with any gTLD. We also recommend them to our clients depending on their requirements.
