India bans Chinese parts for local drone makers
India has barred local drone makers from using China-made parts due to security concerns in the recently passed months, as per defence documents seen by Reuters. In meetings held in February and March with potential bidders for drone tenders, Indian military officials said that equipment from “countries sharing land borders with India will not be acceptable for security reasons,” according to the report. But the impact of the ban is proving to be costly for domestic drone manufacturers, who are now scrambling to source components from other places.
And despite the government pouring in money to fund private research and development in the defence sector, India is still far away from an independent ecosystem in drone manufacturing. Y. Dilip, director of the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), said that the government-run project to make local Medium Altitude Long Endurance unmanned system has been delayed by at least five more years.
EU reviewing Adobe-Figma $20 billion merger
Adobe’s $20 billion bid for design platform Figma has come under the scanner, after EU antitrust regulators expressed worries that the merger could affect competition in the design market. The European Commission will start a 90-day in-depth investigation now. The acquisition was announced in September last year, and has already been reviewed by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the anti-trust authority in Britain. The regulator warned Adobe that the deal could be blocked if it halted competition and innovation in the industry. Last week, the CMA asked the design company to offer suggestions on how these concerns could be addressed.
While Adobe’s editing software tools like Photoshop and Premiere are market leaders, Figma is a cloud-based interactive design platform which has gained popularity in recent years.
Amazon to meet FTC over antitrust case
Amazon is set to meet US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) officials next week over a long-standing antitrust probe against the retail giant that began under President Trump’s administration. The lawsuit included other Big Tech companies like Google, Facebook and Apple for allegedly flouting antitrust laws. Critics of the Jeff Bezos-founded company have said that the company favours its own products over sellers on its platform, as well as using third-party data to decide which products must be sold, among other allegations. Others have also said that the online retailer exploited its power by refusing competition to advertise their products on the platform while using below-cost prices on goods and services to retain customers, including Prime users.
Amazon has denied all these claims, and is expected to argue its case to prevent the FTC from filing an antitrust suit. The constant tussle between the two has been out in the open especially since the past year. In June 2022, the FTC sued Amazon for enrolling millions of users into Amazon Prime without their consent. The company also agreed to settle twice - once for spying on customers using its Ring doorbell cameras, and again for violating children’s privacy rights after failing to delete recordings made by Alexa despite requests.
