News Leak Centre

No Fear No Favour

‘Ready to starve’: ex-employees of Zomato

By Purvi Jain

With the growing outrage against China and the growing call to boycotting Chinese products and companies over the developments in Ladakh, several top Indian companies are also on the target list. That is because most large companies have Chinese investment in them.

Online food delivery company Zomato has a similar case.

The startup founded by Deepinder Goyal in 2008 is financially backed by Ant Financial, an affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba group holdings. In the year 2018, Ant Financial invested $210 million in Zomato acquiring a 14.7% stake. The food delivery major also recently raised an additional investment of $150 million from the Ant Financial.

This Saturday, the company witnessed protests within its own company by its employees regarding Chinese investment in the firm.

A group of Zomato employees in Kolkata reportedly quit their jobs and protested by tearing and burning their official Zomato T-shirts in order to show their anger.

One of the protestors among them said, “Chinese companies are making profits from here and attacking the army of our country. They are trying to grab our land. This cannot be allowed.”

Another protester said they would rather starve than working for companies which have investments from China.

In the month of May, Zomato laid off almost 530, i.e. 13 percent of its employees due to the novel coronavirus.

Since the face-off between India and China took place in Ladakh wherein 20 Indian soldiers were martyred, growing anger amongst Indians is seen.

The anger was seen by firstly uninstalling the Chinese app then boycotting the Chinese products and companies.

Last week it was seen that demonstrators have burned the flag of China and protested outside the Chinese phone maker company Oppo in Greater Noida, Gautam Budh Nagar.

Members of Farmers Body, Bhartiya Kisan Union(Bhanu), and right-wing outfit Hindu Raksha Dal also took part in the protest.

Last week All India Mobile Retail Association(AIMRA) has written to all Chinese mobile making companies highlighting the threats of vandalism at offline stores by people amid calls for boycotting Chinese products.

After this, Xiaomi, the largest Chinese phone brand in India started covering its retail store with ‘Made in India’ logo in white color.

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