NEW DELHI — New Delhi’s Nehru Place, one of India’s largest markets for computer hardware, software and peripherals, has been included in the Notorious Markets List prepared by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office that names the top 30 Internet and physical markets worldwide trading in pirated products.
“Nehru Place is reportedly one of the many markets in major cities throughout India that are known for dealing in large volumes of pirated software, optical media and counterfeit goods,” the USTR report said.
Named after India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and visited by an estimated 200,000 people daily, Nehru Place includes over 1,500 shops, company distributors and other retailers, making it one of the largest computer markets in India. But among the legitimate businesses, Nehru Place is also swarmed by street vendors and hawkers who sell illicit products, from computer games to pirated DVDs and other optical media.
“Our association along with a leading multinational [corp.] dealing in IT products has been trying to crackdown on the business of counterfeit products and pirated business. You can even see juveniles selling these things to vulnerable buyers. Our attempts to remove hawkers who have encroached the market and deal in pirated stuff have so far proved futile,” Industry association Progressive Channels Association of Information Technology executive secretary V. Krishnan was quoted as saying.
Other websites on the list include China websites Baidu, Taobao and 91.com, Swedish-based ThePirateBay, IsoHunt in Canada and Russia-based Rutracker.
Physical markets include Beijing’s Silk Market, Pakistan’s Urdu Bazaar and Thailand’s Red Zones shopping area, in addition to markets in Argentina, Ecuador, Hong Kong, Paraguay and Ukraine.
The USTR report also said the value of counterfeit and pirated products sold worldwide is likely to grow to as high as $1.78 trillion by 2015.
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