OTP Please Online Buyers, Sellers and Gig Workers in South Asia

A great shift is underway in how we buy, eat, move, work and sell owing to technological intervention. Tech platforms—whether a Swiggy, Amazon or Uber in India, a Foodpanda in Pakistan or a Pathao in Bangladesh or Nepal—have eased the pressures of modern life. They have freed up our time, provided jobs to grateful millions and delivered guilty pleasures and last-minute necessities to online buyers.

But behind the dazzle of the digital, much is opaque. Gig workers live a precarious life while internet retailers cope with the oppressive rules of global behemoths. Consumers wonder if there are are consequences to instant gratification and the extreme ease of living.

OTP Please delves into the wondrous new world of electronic commerce by connecting diverse stories and perspectives gathered across South Asia, from Peshawar to Patna and Colombo to Kathmandu. It explores the emotional dynamics between the different actors on this stage, the workings of tech companies and the implications for policy. Deeply researched and breezily narrated, it is essential reading to understand this extraordinary digital age that we inhabit.

Vandana Vasudevan has written extensively for mainstream newspapers and has been a columnist for several years for Mint and DNA. She studied in the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and had worked in the corporate sector for many years. She shifted career tracks and became a development sector professional, consulting for various national and international organizations after obtaining a PhD in urban development from the University of Grenoble, France. Besides OTP Please, she is also the author of Urban Villager: Life In An Indian Satellite Town and Tough Customer.


Despite these serious pursuits, she is a fun person, paranoid of boring people and hence always strives to be interesting and entertaining.

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