New Delhi: Several Union government websites have started using Hindi web addresses as well, The Hindu has reported.This comes at a time when there is fierce resistance to the Narendra Modi government’s attempts to present Hindi as the de-facto national language.The Ministry of Home Affairs uses a Hindi URL – “गृहकार्य.सरकार.भारत/en” for the English site. The URL “mha.gov.in/en” also leads to the same site. Both appear as Google search results if you search with “MHA”, although the Hindi site comes first.For this and other Union government websites which have Hindi domain names, the “.in” country code for India is no longer present in the URL.The Hindu’s report notes that the Union government has for years tried to encourage adoption of .bharat doman name systems, which include 22 regional languages aside from Hindi, such as .இந (in Tamil), but notes that private pickup has been scarce.In 2023, the Ministry of Electronics & IT had organised a two-day event on Universal Acceptance Day to promote a “multilingual internet for digital inclusion” in India. While the Hindu report said that MEITy was among government ministries which had Hindi web addresses – at least for the Hindi version of their pages – the MEITy site showed the English URL even for the Hindi version.While the Universal Acceptance movement has been vocal in ensuring that all domain names, including new top-level domains (TLDs), Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs ), and email addresses are treated equally and can be used by all Internet-enabled applications, devices, and systems, the adoption of Hindi as the only ‘domestic’ alternative for government websites is a fraught move.As of 2019, only 43% of Indians speak the Hindi language, which includes many mother tongues such as Bhojpuri, Rajasthani and Hindi. The reading population is likely to be less.The controversy has taken a renewed shape through the National Education Policy (NEP)’s three-language formula. Amidst staunch opposition, the Union government has threatened to stop funding Tamil Nadu under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan if it does not implement the three-language formula.