 In the shadow of consumerism, there are a lot many ways by which consumers are easily

exploited like adulteration, duplicate/fake copy, poor quality (defective item), lack of safety,
misinformation about quality, product or/and production, availability of product is not on time
or underweight.
And incase of country where a major population comes from rural area, where illiteracy rate is
high, several more methods of exploiting consumers are prevailing, like spreading superstition,
selling items past ‘Best before date’ black marketing, hoarding in godowns or warehouses.

 I was using a cosmetic product since very long time. and being a vegetarian, I also support
animal rights and activism. I was completely unaware of the facts that product I am using is
tested on animals first, keep their lives on risk for our safety. I felt very much cheated by this
ideology of that reputed company. It was nothing but act of exploitation on me as company
didn’t provide enough information about its testing on innocent animals.
1. Another good example is local vegetable sellers are commonly observed to tilt their
weighing balance or modify their balance to sell underweighted vegetables/fruits.
2. Another peculiar example is defective batteries (BL-5C model) sold by Nokia, which were
confirmed to be dangerous, were replaced my Company. Such incident was result
negligence and poor quality (not up to standard) production.

 In order to protect consumers, Government should set some standards and norms in production
and selling. Items in market should be measured for having a standard quality and quantity. And
alongside, Right to Information should be applied to production units and companies to get
information about product and its production procedures and ingredients.
A Consumer awareness program should also be launched to educate and empower semi-literate
or illiterate section of consumers about their powers, rights and various concerned authorities.
Such populations is required to be aware about basic things to be checked before buying
products.