Amazon will be manufacturing its Fire TV streaming device in India, Minister for Electronics & Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Twitter. “Delighted to share that soon Amazon will commence manufacturing of electronics products like FireTV stick in India,” Prasad said. The announcement followed a videoconference meeting between Amazon India Managing Director Amit Agarwal and Prasad. Amazon has had its hardware, like Echo devices, Kindle e-book readers, and Fire TV streaming sticks, made in China. Fire TV devices are among the easiest to manufacture in India, as they are essentially just low-powered computers with an in-build HDMI cable to hook up to a TV.
Ministry of IT @GoI_MeitY is setting up several digital villages. @amazonIN can pick up a few villages in India develop them as fully digital villages.
Amazon should also work with small local shops and make them a stakeholder in the larger efforts of Amazon to grow its business.— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) February 16, 2021
This somewhat diplomatic outreach by Amazon comes a few days after the company was locked in a high-octane conflict that it wriggled out of with some support (and censorship) from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. Amazon censored the TV show Tandav after the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting suggested it do so, with the latter claiming to receive several complaints about the show after an outrage cycle took issue with a play-within-a-play scene where the deity Ram muses about his social media presence. The meeting between Prasad and Agarwal is the highest profile engagement between Amazon and the government since the dispute.
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