Amazon plans to buy a 9.9 per cent stake in JioMart, the e-commerce venture of Reliance Retail. Launched in May this year, JioMart poses a formidable challenge to Amazon.com's local unit and Walmart Inc's Flipkart.

Earlier this year, Amazon India launched a program to add small local shops on its platform after India went into a lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus outbreak. Controlled by Asia's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, Reliance has raised around $20 billion since late April for its digital arm, including from Alphabet Inc's Google and Facebook Inc.

Indian exporters have been hit hard by new tax regulations, forcing some to close as doing business becomes more difficult.

New Delhi said in June it had identified thousands of exporters that had claimed tax rebates based on bogus invoices and would require them to submit receipts before issuing refunds.

But the process has hit legitimate businesses, already struggling with a fall in orders since March amid a nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, according to interviews with five exporters. The Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), said in a letter to the finance ministry that many businesses were being tagged as “risky” without being offered any explanation.

Some businesses had been harassed by tax officials and asked to submit up to 1,500 documents to prove they were complying with the new regulations, said Ajay Sahai, director general of FIEO. This is causing delays leading to trade volumes dipping by 2-3 per cent every month since January, resulting in a loss of billions of dollars, according to data from the trade body.

The Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India (TRIFED) plans to launch a multi-brand e-commerce platform for locally made products including clothing and jewellery this Independence Day.

TRIFED will run a trial version of the e-commerce platform from July 30 to August 14 and will train artisans on how to register as sellers on the platform. The organisation plans to begin with 5,000 artisans and later bring around five lakh tribal artisans online to help them reach a wider customer base both in India and overseas.

The staff at its 15 regional offices across the country and state government officials working with TRIFED will train these tribals and help get them registered. The online platform will feature 20,000 product categories including clothing, textiles, jewellery, home décor, and accessories among others.

The Union Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda also recently launched a selection of tribal products on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM). The Union Government is promoting locally made products as part of its ‘Vocal for Local’ campaign to encourage Indian shoppers to choose domestically produced products to aid local businesses during the coronavirus crisis.

TRIFED’s Tribes India already retails its locally produced products on Amazon and Snapdeal. The organisation also recently launched web-series ‘Designer and the Muse’ with input from designer Rina Dhaka and actress Gauahar Khan.