1) Mo Bus: a bus service of Odisha, has been recognised by the United Nations as one of 10 global recipients of its annual Public Service Awards for 2022.
- The buses are designed to integrate smart technologies such as free on-board Wi-Fi service, digital announcements, surveillance cameras, and electronic ticketing.
- To increase women’s participation in the workforce, and to make women riders feel safer, it is committed to ensuring that 50% of Mo Bus Guides (conductors) are women.
2) e-way bill: An electronic way bill or ‘e-way bill’ system offers the technological framework to track intra-state as well as inter-state movements of goods of value exceeding Rs 50,000, for sales beyond 10 km in the new Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime.
- Under the e-way bill system, there will be no need for a separate transit pass for every state — one e-way bill will be valid throughout the country for the movement of goods.
- The rules specify that the permits would be valid for one day for the movement of goods for 100 km, and in the same proportion for following days.
3) Sao Joao festival: San Janv or São João is an annual Catholic festival celebrated on June 24 in Goa
- After Mass, young Goan Catholic men leap into and swim in local wells, streams and ponds as a tribute to St. John the Baptist.
- Enjoyed by children and adults alike, the festival also includes playing the traditional gumott (percussion instrument), a boat festival, servings of feni, and a place of pride for new sons-in-law.
4) Foreign portfolio investment (FPI): it consists of securities and other financial assets passively held by foreign investors.
- It does not provide the investor with direct ownership of financial assets and is relatively liquid depending on the volatility of the market.
- FPI is part of a country’s capital account and is shown on its Balance of Payments (BOP).
- The investor does not actively manage the investments through FPIs, he does not have control over the securities or the business. The investor’s goal is to create a quick return on his money.
- FPI is often referred to as “hot money” because of its tendency to flee at the first signs of trouble in an economy.
5) Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC): The ONDC aims at promoting open networks developed on open-sourced methodology, using open specifications and open network protocols, independent on any specific platform.
- The project to integrate e-commerce platforms through a network based on open-source technology has been tasked to the Quality Council of India.
- Implementation of ONDC, which is expected to be on the lines of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) could bring various operational aspects put in place by e-commerce platforms to the same level.
- Various operational aspects include onboarding of sellers, vendor discovery, price discovery and product cataloguing etc.
- On ONDC, buyers and sellers may transact irrespective of the fact that they are attached to one specific e-commerce portal.
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