Although India has the second-largest population in the world with more than 1.2 billion people, until recently foreign retailers were allowed to operate there on a very limited basis. Now, this is beginning to change as India loosens its regulations geared toward foreign retailers.

As the marketplace in India changes, the acceptance of foreign retailers by Indian shoppers seems to be generational. As Vikas Bajaj reports for the New York Times: “Those younger than 25, a group that includes about half the country’s 1.2 billion people, appear quite open and eager to try foreign brands and shopping experiences, researchers say. They already while away their afternoons at Western-style malls like the year-old P&M mall here where they try on T-shirts by Benetton, eat pizza from Domino’s, and watch movies in a Mexican-owned theater chain, Cinepolis. But many older Indians who came of age in an earlier era of socialist policies say they are not entirely comfortable with the idea of big-box stores and sprawling malls. They worry that foreign companies will siphon profits and business from Indian competitors, forcing millions of family-owned shops to close.”

Click the photo (which shows shoppers of fashionable clothes at a store in the P&M mall) to read more of Bajaj’s story.

Photo by Prashanth Vishwanathan for the New York Times