Bangladesh gets dot bangla or .bangla internet domain 

Bangladesh has been finally allotted the dot bangla (.bangla) internet domain.

Shamim Ahamedbdnews24.com
Published : 5 Oct 2016, 01:24 PM
Updated : 5 Oct 2016, 01:24 PM

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) sent a letter to the government clearing the much-awaited Internationalised Domain Name (IDN) label on Wednesday.

State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim broke the news to bdnews24.com.

Indian state West Bengal and Sierra Leone, one of whose official languages is Bangla, had also applied for the IDN label - dot bangla (.বাংলা in Bangla fonts).

Tarana said ICANN had cleared the IDN for Bangladesh in a board meeting.

"We are proud to be Bangla-speaking people because we are the only nation that sacrificed blood for the mother tongue on Feb 21, 1952. Now it's the UNESCO-announced International Mother Language Day," she said.

"The nation's emotions and feelings are also tied with this language and its people also want to express themselves in this language in the cyber world.

"It was my pledge to launch this domain. Bangla has advanced in the digital world through this allocation," she added.

Bangla-speaking people can now use the language to enter and browse the internet.

The state minister said the .bangla domain will inspire creation of Bangla contents and increase the language's use on the internet.

She thanked the ICANN on behalf of Bangladeshis for the allotment of the IDN.

Tarana in March sent a letter to the internet corporation, urging it to speed up work to introduce the IDN label.

Another ICANN-approved domain label for Bangladesh is dot bd or .bd.

These labels work as a state's recognition, for example - dot UK or .uk websites belong to the United Kingdom.

Now .bangla is Bangladesh's own Unicode domain label.

It is the second country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Bangla websites.

The Posts and Telecommunications Division said Bangladesh Telecommunications Limited (BTCL) would be the technical contact for the .bangla domain label.

Users can enter the BTCL website (www.btcl.com.bd) by typing 'বিটিসিএল.বাংলা' in Bangla fonts in their browser's address bar.