Sir — This refers to the editorial, “Walmart comes to India” (May 11). Retail giant Walmart has finally acquired Flipkart, India’s biggest and most significant e-commerce startup. This is a win-win for both parties — Flipkart shareholders made a neat profit and the American company accessed a huge, but under-explored market. Unlike “doomsday” critics, who look at the Walmart-Flipkart deal as a “sell-out of the country’s jewels”, I feel the takeover has a lot of positives. First, the Indian customer has a lot to gain. Walmart is the world’s most competitive company. It manages to procure at the lowest prices, its own expenses per unit of sale are low — helped no doubt by its size — and the logistics are amazing, all of which, will help Indian consumers.
Second, Indian farmers can hope to get better returns with a speedy transportation. There should be some savings by cutting out the long chain of middlemen. Hopefully, the multi-billion dollar deal would also persuade the Government to transform its startup policy from a mere catchy slogan to an agent of India’s economic change.