Kapil Dev, legendary former Indian cricket captain, has snared the .asia version of his domain name, as part of Dot Asia Organisation’s Celebrity Pioneer Programme. In cricket mad India, this will give great publicity to the .asia TLD.

Kapil Dev was unable to register his name as a domain name in the .in and .com TLDs due to previous people having registered them, although one would think if he challenged the registration it is likely he could recover the name.

“Yes, I lost out on securing KapilDev.com and KapilDev.in for myself. However, KapilDev.asia will be my home on the Internet. It is indeed a pleasure to join hands with DotAsia for it is doing commendable work through its Celebrity Pioneers Program. It’s time for all stars – especially athletes and cricket stars – to take their online presence seriously. With .Asia website in their name, they have a perfect platform to connect with their fans and audience,” Kapil Dev said.

Other Indian stars to not own their own names as domain names include Indian stars Amitabh Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor, Kajol, Ajay Devgun, Salman Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Sushmita Sen, Priyanka Chopra, Aishwarya Rai and Deepika Padukone. One of these, Sushmita Sen, is all set to legally sue a Canada-based man for having squatted on her domain name www.sushmitasen.com. Shah Rukh Khan had to pay through his nose to buy back www.shahrukhkhan.com. Most Bollywood filmstars are unaware that their cyber identity has been hijacked or that sites in their names can be potentially misused for abusive purposes.