Our 3,000-word handbook on India’s e-commerce policy confusion

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Editor's note: As reported by Reuters, India’s Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, which notified the Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules in July 2020, has proposed amendments to the same a year later. We at The Morning Context have obtained the draft copy issued by the ministry. The amended rules are quite sweeping in both their definitions, including in their ambit the said “e-commerce entities”, as well as the best behaviour (“interests of consumer” in bureaucrat speak) that they want to hold the said entities to. Various government entities wading into the now mature e-commerce industry is nothing new. We reported in January 2020 on how the Competition Commission of India had released a market study with key recommendations. It went nowhere but was probably not meant to. CCI itself stood on the back of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade’s Press Note 3 (2016), which clarified the foreign direct investment, or FDI, policy in Indian e-commerce, followed by Press Note 2 (2018). Coming back to the latest salvo, aimed clearly at the dominant players of Indian retail …