Bangladesh has finally got the right to dot bangla (.bangla) domain to express its identity internationally.
“Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today [yesterday] made the announcement of allocating the .bangla domain in favour of Bangladesh,” State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim told BSS over phone from Turkey.
Terming the winning of .bangla domain as another milestone for identity, she said, “It’s one more achievement of Bangla language after the endorsement of February 21 as the International Mother Language Day.”
Overcoming a long procedural fight, Tarana said Bangladesh has won it due to the strong role of Posts and Telecommunications Division (PTD).
She said Sierra Leone also fought for the .bangla domain.
Replying to a query when the use of .bangla domain would start, the state minister, who is now abroad to take part in an official event, said the process would start as early as possible.
Before going abroad, Tarana sent a letter to the ICANN to expedite the root zone delegation process for using .bangla domain and placed it before the meeting of its board of directors.
Earlier, the PDT completed all the procedures from the Bangladesh side and submitted necessary documents as per their (ICANN) requirement. But, the ICANN board was taking time to complete the procedures.
In the letter, Tarana wrote that “We take pride as the Bangla-speaking nation because we are the only nation who sacrificed lives on 21 February, 1952, for the mother language. Now, it is the International Mother Language Day as declared by Unesco.”
“The nation’s emotion and sentiment are mingled with this language. It also earnestly desires to express the language through the cyberspace as well,” read the letter.
“I do appreciate if you kindly cooperate to complete root zone delegation process for .bangla IDNccTLD as early as possible,” she wrote in the letter.
The ICANN issued two domains to Bangladesh which are dot bangla (.bangla) and dot bd (.bd). Though the dot bd (.bd) is active, the country failed to make it effective in three years after obtaining permission in 2012.
The domains work as an international identity for a country in the internet world. For example, if someone enters a website with the domain name dot US (.US), it means that the website is from the United States of America (USA). Dot bangla (.bangla) is also such Bangladeshi domain recognised by Unicode.
According to the Wikipedia, dot bangla (.bangla) is a second country code top-level domain. This domain is meant for web addresses in the Bengali language. It is administered by the posts, telecommunications and information technology ministry of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd controls the use of the domain on behalf of the ministry.
Apart from Bangladesh, the Indian government applied for the dot bangla (.bangla) domain on behalf of the West Bengal government in 2012. The ICANN issued the domain to Bangladesh after verifying every aspect.
Source: The Daily Star
