.shiksha Pre-Register Domain - .shiksha Domain Information

Mission and purpose

The mission of .SHIKSHA is to provide a common place for educational institutions, organizations of higher learning, schools, libraries and other centers for education and learning to achieve their internet presence, on a worldwide basis, with a special emphasis on the Indian subcontinent region.

Shiksha is a versatile word which means education, learning, school, study, training, or teaching. For example, teaching or training a group or a class always uses the word Shiksha. Originally from the classical language Sanskrit, Shiksha has become a commonly used word in the Hindi language, spoken by over 490 million people, primarily in the Indian subcontinent.

While the .EDU TLD today provides a trusted place for the educational community in the USA, .SHIKSHA's purpose is to establish an easily identifiable place where educational institutions as well as other centers for learning and training can establish their identity on the Internet.

.SHIKSHA will serve:
• Schools, by providing a space that is synonymous with education and is imbued with the values that matter for such organizations
• Institutions of higher learning, whose identities are often split amongst many TLDs and who do not have a cohesive location on the Internet that immediately identifies with their core mission
• Training Institutes, which have thus far never had a unique TLD that allows them to participate in the education market on the same footing as other educational and training ventures
• Businesses, who are engaged in the education sector, or who provide services to the education and training sector
• Professionals, who provide training, learning, teaching or other services on a vast array of topics
• Libraries, who provide a stable area for learning, education and erudition
• Many other individuals, organizations and institutions who share the values of Shiksha across the world.

We believe there is a large and readily identifiable pool of schools, institutions of higher learning, businesses and professionals who will quickly realize the intrinsic value of the .SHIKSHA TLD and will wish to put up their own sites and addresses in the TLD. These Shiksha-oriented entities will immediately—by actions designed to further their own interests—begin building the ".SHIKSHA" brand on a regional basis.

Therefore, we forecast having approximately 25,000 Domains Under Management (DUMs) by the third year of operation. Our financial responses in questions #45 through #50 go into detail on our funding, cost and revenue projections.

.SHIKSHA will be an open TLD, generally available to self-selected registrants (except in the Sunrise period). The domains can be used for any legitimate purpose, including for educational use, for personal use and by organizations. There are no content or use restrictions for this TLD, as long as applicable laws are respected.

Afilias, the .SHIKSHA Registry Operator, will position, market and manage the .SHIKSHA TLD to become a well-known Internet resource both for entities wishing to serve this market and for schools, institutes, training centers, organizations of higher learning, teachers and businesses looking to promote their services more efficiently. Marketing will include channel support to registrars as well as targeted messaging activities, sponsorships, and other means of establishing the identity on a global basis.

Registrants will benefit by having an Internet name that instantly conveys membership in and/or affinity to Shiksha constituencies. Like .EDU, .GOV and others, .SHIKSHA will connote certain common characteristics and interests enabling interested parties to more readily identify like-minded others on the Internet.

The Annual Report 2000-01 of the Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Government of India states that there are 641,695 Primary schools, 198,094 Middle schools, 116,820 High schools, 7,782 Colleges for General Education, 2,124 Colleges for Professional education and 244 Universities in India alone, for a total of close to 1 million officially recognized institutions of learning (Source: http://indiabudget.nic.in/es2001-02/chapt2002/tab96.pdf). All of these insititutions represent potential beneficiaries of the 〉SHIKSHA TLD.

Internet Users in general will benefit as well. The first benefit is in expanding the awareness that "Shiksha" organizations exist and are such an important group that an entire TLD is dedicated to them. Second, the Indian subcontinent places a tremendous value on learning and education, and spends hundreds of millions in the process of learning. Education is a highly respected pursuit and is required for the burgeoning middle class. And third, accelerating economic development in the Indian subcontinent makes it an area primed for benefiting its large population in the goal of furthering education and training.

Businesses serving the education market will benefit by access to a TLD that both attracts and targets this important market. As services are developed, more traffic will accrue to sites in the TLD, creating more opportunity in a virtuous circle of expanding business.

ii. How .SHIKSHA adds to the current space

The current TLD space serving educational institutions in the Indian subcontinent is fragmented across many TLDs, including .com, .net, .org and others—none of which is tailored for the education market. This makes it unnecessarily difficult to find targeted services in an organized, easy to access manner.

.SHIKSHA solves this problem with a TLD space dedicated to the needs of this audience. And, just as .EDU has evolved to serve as the home of educational institutions in the USA, .SHIKSHA will be the home for educational organizations, teachers and training institutes in the Indian subcontinent.

.SHIKSHA will increase a school or a training institute's ability to establish a meaningful and contextually relevant "Shiksha" Internet identity. In short, a .SHIKSHA TLD creates a materially different and distinct space on the Internet that does not exist today.

iii. User experience goals

One of the primary benefits to registrants of participation in the .SHIKSHA TLD is that they can build clear, easily accessible identities that will facilitate students and more easily enable potential service providers to supply the information institutions and students are seeking. Education oriented companies will be able to establish Internet identities which are more closely aligned with their existing identities and branding, rather than modifying their name or brand to adapt to the current choices available, making it easier to be searched for and discovered by customers and Internet users. This will help to build confidence and reduce ambiguity for users, since each company's Internet identity can now more closely match its registered name.

We plan to create an environment which will stimulate innovation and creativity tailored to the education and training needs in a way that will expand the diversity and range of options for Internet users.

iv. Registry policies

.SHIKSHA will be an open TLD, generally available to all registrants (except in the Sunrise period). Shiksha registration and use policies will be in line with global standards to avoid confusion and stimulate adoption. For example, there may be a policy that all Sunrise names must be registered for an initial term of at least five years.




The roll-out of our TLD is anticipated to feature the following phases:
• Reservation of reserved names and premium names, which will be distributed through special mechanisms (detailed below).
• Sunrise — the required period for trademark owners to secure their domains before availability to the general public. This phase will feature applications for domain strings, verification of trademarks via Trademark Clearinghouse and a trademark verification agent, auctions between qualified parties who wish to secure the same string, and a Trademark Claims Service.
• General Availability period — real-time registrations, made on a first-come first-served basis. Trademark Claims Service will be in use at least for the first 60 days after General Availability applications open.

The registration of domain names in the .SHIKSHA TLD will follow the standard practices, procedures and policies Afilias, the back-end provider of registry services, currently has in place. This includes the following:
• Domain registration policies (for example, grace periods, transfer policies, etc.) are defined in response #27.
• Abuse prevention tools and policies, for example, measures to promote WHOIS accuracy and efforts to reduce phishing and pharming, are discussed in detail in our response #28.
• Rights protection mechanisms and dispute resolution mechanism policies (for example, UDRP, URS) are detailed in #29.

Other detailed policies for this domain include policies for reserved names.


Reserved names

Registry reserved names
We will reserve the following classes of domain names, which will not be made generally available to registrants via the Sunrise or subsequent periods:
• All of the reserved names required in Specification 5 of the new gTLD Registry Agreement;
• The geographic names required in Specification 5 of the new gTLD Registry Agreement, and may be released to the extent that Registry Operator reaches agreement with the government and country-code manager;
• The registry operator's own name and variations thereof, and registry operations names (such as registry.tld, and www.tld), for internal use;
• Names related to ICANN and Internet standards bodies (iana.tld, ietf.tld, w3c.tld, etc.), and may be released to the extent that Registry Operator reaches agreement with ICANN.

The list of reserved names will be published publicly before the Sunrise period begins, so that registrars and potential registrants will know which names have been set aside.


Premium names

The registry will also designate a set of premium domain names, set aside for distribution via special mechanisms. The list of premium names will be published publicly before the Sunrise period begins, so that registrars and potential registrants will know that these names are not available. Premium names may be distributed via mechanisms such as requests for proposals, contests, direct sales, and auctions.

For the auctioning of premium names, we intend to contract with an established auction provider that has successfully conducted domain auctions. This will ensure that there is a tested, trustworthy technical platform for the auctions, auditable records, and reliable collection mechanisms. With our chosen auction provider, we will create and post policies and procedures that ensure clear, fair, and ethical auctions. As an example of such a policy, all employees of the registry operator and its contractors will be strictly prohibited from bidding in auctions for domains in the TLD. We expect a comprehensive and robust set of auction rules to cover possible scenarios, such as how domains will be awarded if the winning bidder does not make payment.

v. Privacy and confidential information protection
As per the New gTLD Registry Agreement, we will make domain contact data (and other fields) freely and publicly available via a Web-based WHOIS server. This default set of fields includes the mandatory publication of registrant data. Our Registry-Registrar Agreement will require that registrants consent to this publication.

We shall notify each of our registrars regarding the purposes for which data about any identified or identifiable natural person ("Personal Data") submitted to the Registry Operator by such registrar is collected and used, and the intended recipients (or categories of recipients) of such Personal Data (the data in question is essentially the registrant and contact data required to be published in the WHOIS). We will require each registrar to obtain the consent of each registrant in the TLD for the collection and use of such Personal Data. The policies will be posted publicly on our TLD web site. As the registry operator, we shall not use or authorize the use of Personal Data in any way that is incompatible with the notice provided to registrars.

Our privacy and data use policies are as follows:
• As registry operator, we do not plan on selling bulk WHOIS data. We will not sell contact data in any way. We will not allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission by e-mail, telephone, or facsimile of mass unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations.
• We may use registration data in the aggregate for marketing purposes.
• DNS query data will never be sold in a way that is personally identifiable.
• We may from time to time use the demographic data collected for statistical analysis, provided that this analysis will not disclose individual Personal Data and provided that such use is compatible with the notice provided to registrars regarding the purpose and procedures for such use.

As the registry operator we shall take significant steps to protect Personal Data collected from registrars from loss, misuse, unauthorized disclosure, alteration, or destruction. In our responses to Question 30 ("Security Policy") and Question 38 ("Escrow") we detail the security policies and procedures we will use to protect the registry system and the data contained therein from unauthorized access and loss.

Please see our response to Question 26 ("WHOIS") regarding "searchable WHOIS" and rate-limiting. That section contains details about how we will limit the mining of WHOIS data by spammers and other parties who abuse access to the WHOIS.

In order to acquire and maintain accreditation for our TLD, we will require registrars to adhere to certain information technology policies designed to help protect registrant data. These will include standards for access to the registry system and password management protocols. Our response to Question 30, "Security Policy" provides details of implementation.

We will allow the use of proxy and privacy services, which can protect the personal data of registrants from spammers and other parties that mine zone files and WHOIS data. We are aware that there are parties who may use privacy services to protect their free speech rights, or to avoid religious or political persecution.

Afilias has adopted the above-mentioned and other policies to ensure fair and equitable access and cost structures to the Internet community, including:
• no new burdens placed on the Internet community to resolve name disputes
• utilization of standard registration practices and policies (as detailed in responses to questions #27, #28, #29)
• protection of trademarks at launch and on-going operations (as detailed in the response to question #29)
• fair and reasonable wholesale prices
• fair and equitable treatment of registrars

As per the ICANN Registry Agreement, we will use only ICANN-accredited registrars, and will provide non-discriminatory access to registry services to those registrars.


Pricing Policies and Commitments

Pricing for domain names at General Availability will be $10 per domain year for the first year. Applicant reserves the right to reduce this pricing for promotional purposes in a manner available to all accredited registrars. Registry Operator reserves the right to work with ICANN to initiate an increase in the wholesale price of domains if required. Registry Operator will provide reasonable notice to the registrars of any approved price increase.

We will protect names with national or geographic significance by reserving the country and territory names at the second level and at all other levels within the TLD, as per the requirements in the New TLD Registry Agreement (Specification 5, paragraph 5).

We will employ a series of rules to translate the geographical names required to be reserved by Specification 5, paragraph 5 to a form consistent with the ʺhost namesʺ format used in domain names.

Considering the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) advice "Principles regarding new gTLDs", these domains will be blocked, at no cost to governments, public authorities, or IGOs, before the TLD is introduced (Sunrise), so that no parties may apply for them. We will publish a list of these names before Sunrise, so our registrars and their prospective applicants can be aware that these names are reserved.
We will define a procedure so that governments can request the above reserved domain(s) if they would like to take possession of them. This procedure will be based on existing methodology developed for the release of country names in the .INFO TLD. For example, we will require a written request from the country's GAC representative, or a written request from the country's relevant Ministry or Department. We will allow the designated beneficiary (the Registrant) to register the name, with an accredited Afilias Registrar, possibly using an authorization number transmitted directly to the designated beneficiary in the country concerned.

As defined by Specification 5, paragraph 5, such geographic domains may be released to the extent that Registry Operator reaches agreement with the applicable government(s). Registry operator will work with respective GAC representatives of the country's relevant Ministry of Department to obtain their release of the names to the Registry Operator.

If internationalized domains names (IDNs) are introduced in the TLD in the future, we will also reserve the IDN versions of the country names in the relevant script(s) before IDNs become available to the public. If we find it advisable and practical, we will confer with relevant language authorities so that we can reserve the IDN domains properly along with their variants.

Regarding GAC advice regarding second-level domains not specified via Specification 5, paragraph 5: All domains awarded to registrants are subject to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), and to any properly-situated court proceeding. We will ensure appropriate procedures to allow governments, public authorities or IGO's to challenge abuses of names with national or geographic significance at the second level. In its registry-registrar agreement, and flowing down to registrar-registrant agreements, the registry operator will institute a provision to suspend domains names in the event of a dispute. We may exercise that right in the case of a dispute over a geographic name.