India’s government set the goal to grow the country’s digital economy to $1 trillion by 2025–26. Dynamic growth of digital markets is one of the government’s priorities for attaining this goal. Digital platforms are important drivers of growth. Simultaneously, big tech’s non-competitive practices create risks of economic and moral damage for consumers and distort competition in the markets. India’s authorities shape regulation of the digital markets in two main directions: consumer protection and prevention digital platform behaviours which might impair competition. To protect consumers, the government has amended the consumer protection rules and expanded their application to digital enterprises.  India adopted the Consumer Protection Act (2019), the Consumer Protectionin E-Commerce Rules (2020), and theDigital Personal Data Protection Act (2023).  To ensure contestability, fairness, and transparency in digital markets, in 2023 the Competition (Amendment) Act was approved by Parliament, placing digital markets within the legal framework of competition. The Committee on the Digital Competition Law developed a draft Digital Competition Bill (2024) which aims to regulatesystemically significant digital enterprises through an ex ante approach.

The article reviews the government of the Republic of India’s policy on digital platform regulation, exploring the main instruments and difficulties in shaping the new system and determining a regulatory approach. The study draws on a survey of the regulatory bills and rules, reports, bill drafts, experts’ assessments, and research articles. The authors focus on the amendments to the consumer and competition protection laws adopted in recent years. The article concludes with the authors’ views regarding the adoption of the Digital Competition Bill and perspectives on India’s interest in deepening international cooperation on digital markets regulation, including in the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and others) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). 

The article was written on the basis of the RANEPA state assignment research programme.

This article was submitted on 29.03.2024.