Indian government using 110mb.com for their official web sites

Any department of Indian government, which is willing to run any “e” service, has option for some exclusive tools and services.

GOV.IN / NIC.IN are couple of those exclusive domain extensions, which are only given to official government web sites.

When Internet / online phishing is a real time threat for any Internet user, there, these extensions play a crucial role to distinguish between an official web site and a fake one to help and user to save him / her self from phishing.

Central government of India has their own setup in terms if National Informetics Centre (NIC) under Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. An IT department which is quite capable enough to develop rich and interactive web services such as Indianrail.gov.in and software applications such as, application used by TAX Department of India for any state or central department.

When you find NIC doing its job quite fine then it comes as a shock when you find some alarming facts like some of the state departments are using services from 110mb.com along their sub domain to run an official government web service.

West Bengal Board of Madrasah Education

http://wbmadrasahboard.110mb.com/

An education board under State government of West Bengal isn’t even capable enough to procure a proper hosting for them self and runs their official web site under a sub domain of a free hosting services provider.

B. R. Singh Hospital (Eastern Railways)

http://brsingh.110mb.com/

Indian railways already using NIC extensively however a major hospital under their eastern division is once again using 110mb to run their official web site. Worst, they are using Google Ads !!!

Why I am against 110mb.com ?

Many may be thinking as, hey I am using 110mb.com and they are never a bad service. Then why is Choto Cheeta going against 110mb.com ?

Matter of fact, I am not going against 110mb.com because of their service of any such. I am against it only because of below reasons.

Exclusive Domains, .GOV.IN / .NIC.IN are only authenticate way to identify a real web site over a fake one. For example, I or any other person can use a 110mb or any such free sub domain based free hosting, or even can buy a public domain also to create a fake web site to cheat an online user to steal information of use the web service to infect their PC with Malware. These exclusive extensions are an immediate identification mark for an authenticate web site.
Service hosted by NIC.IN gives full control over the data, as because it is a GOV web site so it is bond to have sensitive information, which is in need to stay tamper proof.
Come on, as a gov org, you can atleast afford to remove ads !!!!

Do drop in your comments as what is your thought in this matter of using such services to run a GOV web site ?

Choto Cheeta on October 20, 2008 | Filed Under My Life, Web Development

8 Comments

Ashfame on October 21st, 2008

Now, this is ridiculous. I completely agree with your point. Lack of awareness and some guy with authority & bull shit knowledge is to blame for this.
A similar situation happens when new hardware is bought in our college.

Ramesh Kumar on October 21st, 2008

I agreed with you !!!

Naraina Singh on October 21st, 2008

You have not done your homework Saurav. The website of B.R. Singh Hospital is just the personal site of one of the doctors there. The hospital does not have any official website of its own. How do I know that? My jijaji is a junior resident doctor in that hospital.

I don’t know about the madrasah, but all OFFICIAL government websites are hosted and protected by NIC. If it is not, then it is not official. It is as simple as that.

Satyam on October 26th, 2008

Well Naraina
may be what you are talking about B.R. Singh Hospital can be right
Also if they dont have an official website than it is a shame
and
what Savurav has written about Madrasah is absolutely right

Fact is their official Site is
http://www.wbmadrasahboard.org (check it yourself)

when you open this it will be forwarded to a subdomain of 110mb.com

The Design look funny & weired like they have made this in year 1999

Anonymous on October 30th, 2008

Well even if the B R Singh hospital site is personal the Dr needs to take prior permissions from Hospital Authorities for the usage of Govt (IR) logos and information to be published in a public domain. If not then he/she has infringed the law and can be questioned by all means

Srikanth on November 3rd, 2008

Man, I can’t believe this!

These are the same people who make decisions about how to run our country. Bravo! And most of the government websites are either: Internet Explorer Dependent and/or sucky-looking and/or, improperly designed and/or .

Sanjiv on December 17th, 2008

Getting Sanction of web-space in govt depts like B R Singh hospital is difficult, & data is controlled by non medical agencies, which are often insensitive to user preference.

Your caution is good, but please do not criticize, as these are amateur attempts.

Choto Cheeta on December 18th, 2008

Hello Sanjiv,

Being an Indian, I completely understand the challenge a technological person would face when in need to educate an illiterate politician about such matter.

However, please note, the reason for writing is, already highlighted under the point “Why I am against 110mb.com ?”

Thanks.

Choto Cheeta Online