'Asmbhav' Summit to raise voice against foreign e-tailers
Asmbhav Summit goes live on April 15, 2021 and presents an important forum for participants whose lives and livelihoods have been marred by the highly discriminatory and bullying attitude of foreign e-commerce retailers posing as marketplaces to collectively raise their voice against these partisan practices
image for illustrative purpose
New Delhi: Representatives and supporters of over six lakh small Indian traders, distributors, and merchants, both off-line and on-line, have come together to launch a unique event, titled 'Asmbhav Summit'.
'Asmbhav' or 'impossible', manifests the belief of the sellers that till such time that India continues to allow foreign retailers to masquerade as marketplaces and platforms in India, success for small Indian sellers would be impossible.
The Asmbhav event is being concurrently held with Amazon's event, 'Smbhav 2021' which is ostensibly being positioned as a friend and guide to its small sellers and trader partners.
Asmbhav Summit goes live on April 15, 2021 and presents an important forum for participants whose lives and livelihoods have been marred by the highly discriminatory and bullying attitude of foreign e-commerce retailers posing as marketplaces to collectively raise their voice against these partisan practices and impress upon the government the need for urgent regulatory and legal intervention.
The summit seeks to forcefully bring the traders' severe grievances and the various challenges they face while selling on-line to foreign retailers posing as marketplaces.
The summit is being organized by an Indian Sellers Collective which includes organizations like AIOVA (All India Online Vendors Association), All-India Mobile Retailers Association (AIMRA), PRAHAR (Public Response Against Helplessness and Action for Redressal), AICPD (All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation), FAIDA (Federation of All India Distributors Associations), and FMCG Distributors & Traders Association, Delhi.
The summit has a keynote discussion with Ashwani Mahajan from Swadeshi Jagran Manch followed by a series of panel discussions and presentations and finally culminates with Asmbhav Awards, which recognizes the destructive contribution of individuals against the business interests of small Indian sellers and merchants.
Arvinder Khurana from AIMRA along with the AIOVA spokesperson; Dhairyashil Patil from All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation (AICPDF); Abhay Raj Mishra from Public Response Against Helplessness and Action for Redressal (PRAHAR); Devendra Agarwal from FMCG Distributors and Traders Association; Shriram Baxi of Federation of All India Distributors Associations (FAIDA); Parminder Singh from IT for Change; and Dr. Ganeshvaran, President, TN Distributors Association are participating in a panel discussion on 'Need for a stronger E-commerce policy to reign in the malpractices by foreign marketplace players in India.'
The Union government is working on a draft e-commerce policy which is expected soon. Small traders, who really are the most severely affected party in the e-commerce market upheaval, are hoping that enough safeguards and protection will be made possible by the government in this policy update. In fact, the event is dedicated to the aim of creating awareness around policy loopholes which are being exploited by MNC E-commerce platforms today.
