There is a strong participation from South Asian, Asia Pacific and Indian youth for secure internet governance, Samiran Gupta, Managing Director at Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Asia Pacific.
Stating that ICANN received a “heartening” response from youths during the 85th Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Community Forum, Gupta flagged that it is important for significant markets like India, China, Tunisia, and Malaysia to participate in conversations around internet governance.
“We’ve seen very strong participation from Indian, South Asian or Asia Pacific youth, which is very heartening. This is very important for the future of internet governance, just to see how many young people from this region are coming,” said Gupta.
ICANN also reported greater interest in its latest round of the new gTLD programme that offers new top-level domains to users. However, most organisations have not disclosed whether they intend to apply for competitive reasons, Gupta. There were roughly 1,930 applicants, and about 1,200 top-level domains were delegated in 2012. This means that they completed the process and were added to the root zone.
In terms of regional focus, the majority of applications came from North America, followed by Europe. The exact numbers are publicly available online. However, the greater awareness and access to the guidebook and resources should help the process this time around, as per ICANN.
Published on April 6, 2026