The Union Commerce Minister seems to have jumped the gun in his laconic observations on the recent Amazon investment proposal (Inside pages – ‘In Brief’, “Amazon not doing favour to India: Piyush Goyal”, January 17). We may recall that Amazon had promised to create more than 25,000 jobs on a new campus in Long Island City, NY, in return for nearly $3 billion in government incentives. It was a cocky and raw business approach in a nation that is a votary of pure capitalism. Yet the venture failed mostly due to the growing influence of the progressive left in New York. In its current home in Seattle, Amazon is being criticised on rising house prices and inequality that has damaged the city. Now a Minister in our own right-of-centre government has chosen to cast a barb on its predatory pricing policies. This might well be due to the party’s concerns on saving its trader vote bank. But the remarks, credible they may be, could as well have come from a party functionary than from the Minister concerned.
R. Narayanan,
Navi Mumbai
