The government has launched a new database to capture the country’s 400 million informal workers — The International Labour Organisation estimates that almost 90 percent of India’s labour force is in the informal economy. This is around 400 million unorganised workers. Although it was known before, the pandemic shed further light on the plight of these informal workers who are deprived of minimum wages and social…

US lawmakers have introduced a new bill that aims to curb the dominance of the Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store — On August 11, US lawmakers introduced a landmark new bill titled Open App Markets Act that targets Apple App Store and Google Play store, which if passed, will upend the world of apps and cause a huge dent in the revenues of Apple and Google. For years, Apple and Google…

Here’s all you need to know about the long-drawn battle between two retail giants in India — Amazon and Reliance are both doubling down on their online and offline retail presence in India. While Reliance is trying to acquire another retail behemoth, Future Retail, to do this, Amazon is trying to prevent this deal from happening. …

Startups in India raised an unprecedented amount of money in first half of 2021 — $20.5 billion: That’s the amount of money Indian start-ups raised this year as of 24 July, according to a report published by Inc42. This is nearly twice the amount raised in the whole of 2020 ($11.5 billion). Half of this amount was raised just in the month of July, led…

Why the Indian conglomerate might succeed where many haven’t and will the proposed e-commerce rules play spoil sport — With its recent acquisitions in grocery delivery platform BigBasket, fitness start-up CultFit, and online pharmacy 1mg, India’s 153-year old Tata Group appears to be well on track to launch its “super app”. What is a super app? Think of a super app as a digital shopping mall, but with the potential for offering even more…

The Indian government’s proposed rules would drastically change e-commerce by restricting flash sales, private label goods, and other anticompetitive practices — I previously wrote in length about how Amazon and Flipkart are skirting India’s e-commerce laws by engaging in predatory pricing and hurting offline retailers and small sellers on their platform in the process. My main argument in that piece was that Amazon and Flipkart repeatedly find their way around India’s…

Government‘s bid to get private companies to develop UPI-like technologies — On 8 November 2016, Indian PM Narendra Modi made an unscheduled television address to announce the demonetization of ₹500 and ₹1000 banknotes. There were prolonged cash shortages across the country and many people were left stranded in long queues outside banks trying to exchange invalid notes. India’s stock market, industrial…

And what it means for user privacy and content censorship — Last month, the Indian government issued multiple orders to Twitter to block certain tweets and accounts in relation to the ongoing farmers' protest. Twitter complied with the orders and blocked nearly 250 accounts, including accounts of investigative journalism outlets, activist groups, and prominent politicians. These accounts, however, were restored within…

Tech giants continue setting up production in India — Last September, I wrote an in-depth piece on whether Apple will ever choose India over China. This was, and still remains, a challenging question because the US tech giant carries out nearly 90 percent of its manufacturing in China. However, a number of reasons contributed to Apple’s interest in India…