While many think that the reason behind Amazon chief Jeff Bezos failing to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi was due to the ongoing investigation on Amazon by the Competition Commission of India, there is a twist in the story
New Delhi: In a surprising turn of events, Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to have given the cold shoulder to Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, by not meeting him.
According to reports, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would not be meeting Bezos. This cold-shouldering has least to do with the ongoing investigation on Amazon by the Competition Commission of India and more with the major role of the Washington Post — owned by Bezos — which is against the Indian government.
Though the top business person has been gathering praise on India and its market ever since he landed up in the country by saying the 21st century would be an Indian century, nothing seems to have brought value as far as a meeting between the two is concerned.
According to Forbes, "Bezos has reportedly sought a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But it has not been confirmed whether the Amazon chief executive would meet with India's head of state."
But as the day progressed, Bezos' ownership of Washington Post appears to have played a significant reason behind it.
The US daily's editorial stand has been extremely critical of the BJP-led Central government, more so after PM Modi swept back to power with 303 seats in the Lok Sabha.
After the abrogation of Article 370, that gave special status to the states of Jammu and Kashmir, the daily published a series of articles, in both news and opinion, where it even took potshots at PM Modi being conferred with the "Global Goalkeeper" award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Recently, the daily has lent its space to journalists like Barkha Dutt, whose blatant claims and criticism of the current exemption only seems to have increased with an international platform, which many in the Modi-led BJP government did not take kindly.
In December 2019, the daily published an article under the headline "India's new law may leave millions of Muslims without citizenship" which appears to have offended the central government.
After the daily's article on CAA, many leaders within the central government stated that the news agency "misrepresented" the legislation with an "ulterior motive".
Also, netizens, followed by the Prime Minister himself, took to Twitter to express their dissatisfaction on the same.
While the Amazon CEO's India visit comes at a crucial time as the Competition Commission of India (CCI) recently ordered an enquiry into the business practices of e-commerce majoring Flipkart and Amazon, its the daily he owns that seems to have come in the way of the meeting.
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