This report is the third in our series covering the discussion on India’s Draft E-commerce Policy (whose fate still hangs unclear). Read the rest here. “It is just a draft for discussion, it is not a law. Give your points, if you have an alternative view, which would fulfill the objectives of digital industry and of public purposes, very well. If in the end we agree that yes, there is no need of localisation... and this is how I'm going to do it, it's very fine,” said Parminder Jeet Singh, Executive Director, IT for Change and a member of the National e-commerce think tank which drafted the e-commerce policy. “But a push back about how this is a stupid policy and stupid start, where people have no idea what they are doing, it is not okay. There are very important ideas which have been put forward," Singh added. Singh said that the draft policy laid out ‘important ideas’ that would help India build a solid framework, not just for the e-commerce sector, but also to the much larger aspect of data ownership. However, other panelists and attendees raised concerns over the lack of public consultation during the course of the this policy’s development. The following are some of the key points made at the #NAMApolicy discussion on India’s Draft E-commerce Policy held in Delhi on the 26th of September 2018. Please note that these points are not necessarily listed in the order they were made and are not verbatim excerpts of the…
