Infosys billionaire takes on Amazon, Walmart in India

He co-founded software powerhouse Infosys Ltd., became a billionaire and went on to spearhead a colossal government program to create biometric identification for India's almost 1.4 billion people.

Now 66, Nandan Nilekani has one more ambitious goal.

The high-profile mogul is helping Prime Minister Narendra Modi build an open technology network that seeks to level the playing field for small merchants in the country's fragmented but fast-growing $1 trillion retail market.

Its stated purpose is to create a freely accessible online system where traders and consumers can buy and sell everything from 23-cent detergent bars to $1,800 airline tickets.

But its unspoken objective is to eventually curb the powers of Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc.-owned Flipkart, whose online domination has alarmed small merchants and the millions of local mom-and-pop stores, called kirana, that form the nation's retail backbone.