Techie created chalosansad.in, NIXI killed it in 3 days and rules not clear why

Indian techie Sriram Vishawanathan created a website called chalosansad.in ahead of the Chalo Sansad march last month. Within days, his domain was taken down by NIXI, which manages .IN domains in India, but the reasons remain unclear. Globally, domain administrators like NIXI usually do not suspend domains just like that.NIXI suspended the chalosansad.in domain in 3 days. (Photo: Screenshot of chalosansad.com)On July 20, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) led a march called Chalo Sansad as it demanded the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Ahead of march, Indian techie Sriram Vishawanathan tried to create some buzz around it and made a website called chalosansad.in. The website was supposed to serve as a public record of the 2026 NEET paper leak protests. But within days, the domain was suspended by NIXI, the Indian domain registrar which has control over the registration and operation of any .IN domain.The weirdest of the whole saga seems to be that NIXI has not clearly specified under what rules it suspended the domain, putting at risk virtually all .IN domains in the country. Because if one can be suspended just like that then any .IN domain can be suspended. Globally, domain suspensions are usually frowned upon and domain registrars are particularly wary of suspending domains unless there are clear legal and judicial directives.The incident, because it is surrounded by a lack of transparency, has attracted the attention of Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), an Indian non-profit that operates at the intersection of tech, policy, and law.IFF spoke to Vishawanathan and came to the conclusion that NIXI had no legal basis to suspend his .IN domain. Vishawanathan told IFF that within three days of him registering chalosansad.in, the domain was suspended by NIXI without notice or any hearing. At the time of writing, the website remains inaccessible. Its mirror website, chalosansad.com that uses a global registrar because of .COM, is online. NIXI, or the National Internet Exchange of India, is a not-for-profit company authorised by India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to operate all “.IN” domains. When you register any .IN domain from a platform like GoDaddy, it is NIXI which actually regulates it.India Today Tech has reached out to NIXI for a comment. The story will be updated as and when the company responds. Sriram Vishwanathan declined to comment when contacted by India Today Tech.Why did NIXI suspend chalosansad.in According to IFF, on 22 July 2026, the .IN Registry run by NIXI placed the domain on serverHold. In simple terms, the website simply went dark. The IFF, which is representing Sriram Vishawanathan because he has sent a legal notice to NIXI, notes in a post that NIXI acted without notifying Vishawanathan. He got to know that his domain was gone only when he couldn’t access the site.Vishawanathan checked GoDaddy’s control panel that showed “Suspended – Invalid WHOIS.” The panel stated the domain’s contact information did not meet the requirements for the extension and had been locked by the registry. But as per the IFF, NIXI later changed the reason for suspension, stating that the domain name “contains a critical keyword.”The wenbsite, the IFF says, carries no advertising, collects no data, or seeks funds. It also carried a disclaimer saying it was not affiliated with the government or any protest group.GoDaddy asks for Aadhaar, NIXI blames critical keywordSriram Vishwanathan contacted GoDaddy support. He was told that the chalosansad.in would be restored in about 24 hours once they matched his Aadhaar details.Viswanathan updated the details the same evening and emailed support@nixi.in with a masked copy of his Aadhaar, asking whether any pre-suspension notice had been issued, and under which provisions the domain had been suspended. He also hoped that his domain would be restored but that did not happen.NIXI sent its first and only substantive response to Viswanathan on 24 July around 12.30 pm. In the email that Viswanathan reportedly received, NIXI had changed the reasoning behind the suspension of his domain.“We noticed that your domain name contains a critical keyword. To ensure accurate registration and protect against potential misuse, we kindly request some additional information,” the email read. “1. Justification for Domain Name: Please explain why you chose this specific domain name and how it relates to your intended use. 2. Purpose of Domain Name: Please describe how you plan to use this domain name.”The email did not name the keyword, cite any policy, rule or law, or disclose any complaint, direction or order. Sriram Vishwanathan sent a follow-up email on 28 July but received no response. He made calls at NIXI’s published telephone number but they were not answered.To give you some context, NIXI states that it can suspend a domain if it violates certain terms and conditions. Though the terms and conditions currently do not mention any “critical keyword” clause. NIXI maintains a Reserved or Restricted Names List at the registration stage, but the IFF says, “chalosansad” was not on that list and has never been notified as reserved or restricted. NIXI also has five conditions to hold back a domain name but none were invoked in this case.While the incident is related to just one domain name, the lack of clarity surrounding its suspension actually impacts thousands of websites that use .IN domains. All of these domains, including this website on which you are reading this piece, depend on NIXI to run India’s country-code registry.The IFF argues that suspending websites like this could be a blunt form of censorship. “It needs no blocking order under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, no judicial process, no reasoned decision and in this case, no communication at all,” the organisation says. It has also raised a separate objection to the use of Aadhaar in the domain registration process.- EndsPublished By: Armaan AgarwalPublished On: Aug 13, 2026 17:01 IST