The first State/UT in India to get the ‘L-root server’, which provides…

Concept — The Domain Name System is anchored by 13 root-server identities, labelled A to M, which answer queries about the root zone. An identity is not a single machine: it is replicated by anycast, so the same service is answered from many physical instances around the world, and the L-root identity is operated by ICANN. Hosting a local instance means root-zone lookups are resolved inside the local network instead of travelling abroad, which lowers latency and keeps name resolution working even if external links fail.

Application — In April 2022 the Rajasthan government's Department of Information Technology and Communication, working with ICANN, commissioned an L-root server instance at the Bhamashah State Data Centre in Jaipur. This was the first time an Indian State/UT government hosted a root-server instance in its own state data centre, so Rajasthan is the first State/UT in India to get an L-root server.

Cross-check — Root-server instances already existed in India before this — L-root instances at Mumbai and Kolkata and J-root instances at Delhi, Mumbai and Gorakhpur — but those were hosted by network operators and internet exchanges rather than by a State/UT government. That is why the April 2022 Jaipur installation is counted as the first at the State/UT level.

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