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By Taimoor Hassan
f you have been a business journalist for a while, then you will relate to this. And if you are a reader of financial news, you will also recognise the pattern. Any time a business, or an industry association is interviewed - no matter what that industry is - they will always say the same thing. Relief. They want relief in some form or another. They want relief in the budget, they
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want stimulus packages, they do not want to be taxed, and they do not want to be questioned. And this princely treatment they both expect and demand, and when they do not get it, they whine about it and they whine loudly. So the reader will understand that anytime we hear complaints like this, we are less than receptive to them. Still, we tolerate it because old industries like textiles, agriculture, steel, and others have worked that way for a while and are stuck in their ways. What is surprising is when newer
industries that we expect to behave differently engage in the same sort of behaviour. So when the eCommerce industry went up in arms with a systematic campaign against the budget for the fiscal year 2021-22, it had everyone surprised. On this occasion, however, the campaign may have been justified. You see, this was not complaining or asking for handouts, this was an issue of definitions. In the most recent budget, the government decided to include ‘online marketplaces’ in the category of Tier-1 Retail-
