Politics Drives India’s Rules Curtailing E-Commerce

The Indian government's new e-commerce guidelines, a gamble aimed at curtailing the sales clout of multinationals like Amazon and the Wal-Mart-owned Flipkart while trying to mollify its 25 million vexed brick-and-mortar merchants in an election year, have received little traction from the latter.

The regulations, issued on Dec. 26, are a disappointing re…