WhatsApp and Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) on Monday(31st Oct 2022) announced a partnership to launch Namma Metro's WhatsApp chatbot-based QR ticketing service.

 

The chatbot is integrated with Unified Payments Interface (UPI) powered payments on WhatsApp and will allow 'Namma Metro' commuters to purchase tickets and recharge their travel pass right within WhatsApp.

 

BMRCL claimed it is the first transit service globally to enable end-to-end QR ticketing on WhatsApp. The corporation said its WhatsApp chatbot is available in English and Kannada for all commuters of 'Namma Metro'.

 

To use the service, commuters need to simply send ‘Hi’ to BMRCL’s official WhatsApp chatbot number +918105556677 and choose from the various options such as recharging metro travel pass and purchasing single journey tickets using payments on WhatsApp..

Source : Hindustan Times

According to a press release by Ministry of Finance, the gross GST revenue collected in the month of October 2022 is ₹ 1,51,718 crore of which CGST is ₹ 26,039 crore, SGST is ₹ 33,396 crore, IGST is ₹ 81,778 crore (including ₹ 37,297 crore collected on import of goods) and Cess is ₹ 10,505 crore (including ₹ 825 crore collected on import of goods), which is second highest till date.

The government has settled ₹ 37,626 crore to CGST and ₹ 32,883 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. In addition, Centre has also settled Rs 22,000 crore on adhoc basis in the ratio of 50:50 between Centre and States.

The total revenue of Centre and the States after regular as well as adhoc settlements in the month of October 2022 is ₹74,665 crore for CGST and ₹ 77,279 crore for the SGST.

The revenue for October 2022 is second highest monthly collection, next only to the collection in April 2022 and it is for the second time the gross GST collection has crossed Rs. 1.50 lakh crore mark. October also saw the second highest collection from domestic transactions, next only to April 2022.

This is the ninth month and for eight months in a row now, that the monthly GST revenues have been more than the ₹ 1.4 lakh crore mark. During the month of September 2022, 8.3 crore e-way bills were generated, which was significantly higher than 7.7 crore e-way bills generated in August 2022..

Source : Business Standard

Noted Malayalam novelist and short story writer, "A Sethumadhavan" has been selected for 2022 Ezhuthachan Puraskaram.

Reason : For his valuable contribution to Malayalam language and literature.

He has also served as the chairman of South Indian Bank, director of State Bank of Travancore and chairman of National Book Trust.

Ezhuthachan Puraskaram is the highest literary award of Kerala government.

The award carries a cash award of Rs 5 lakh and a citation.

The judging panel comprising Kerala Sahitya Akademi president K Satchidanandan as chairman and Prof M K Sanoo, Vaisakhan, Kaladi Sreesankaracharya University vice-chancellor M V Narayanan, cultural secretary Rani George as members chose Sethu unanimously for the award..

Source : Times of India

The prestigious Karnataka Ratna Award 2022 was posthumously conferred on late actor "Puneeth Rajkumar" by the Chief Minister of the state Basavaraj Bommai at a function here on Tuesday(1st Nov 2022). 

 

Later Actor Puneeth Rajkumar was conferred with Karnataka Ratna Award on the 67th Kannada Rajyotsava. Karnataka Ratna Award, the highest civilian award of the state, has been conferred only nine times earlier.

 

Puneeth Rajkumar’s family members attended the award ceremony. The Chief Minister presented the prestigious award to the late actor’s wife Ashwini Revanth. Actors Rajinikanth and Jr NTR were among those present..

Source : The Print

Lieutenant General "Ajai Kumar Singh" took over as General Office Commanding-in-Chief of the Southern Command of the Indian Army on Tuesday(1st Nov 2022), a defence release said.

 

An alumnus of the National Defence Academy, Pune and Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, Lt General Singh was commissioned into 7/11 Gorkha Rifles in December 1984.

 

He has vast operational experience in all types of terrain be it counter-insurgency areas, high altitudes & icy glaciated regions of Siachen or the desert sector, the release said.

 

He commanded 1/11 Gorkha Rifles on the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, an elite brigade in the Western Theatre, a frontline Counter Insurgency Force in the Kashmir Valley and Trishakti Corps in North East.

 

Lt General Singh has also held key instructional and staff appointments including Instructor at Commando Wing, Belgaum, Additional Director General of Military Operations and Director General (Operational Logistic & Strategic Movement) at the Integrated Headquarters of Ministry of Defence (Army), New Delhi.

 

He has also been a diplomat soldier, having done a stint as Officer-in-Charge, PPO Dharan at the Embassy of India in Nepal.

 

After assuming command, he paid homage to the fallen soldiers by laying a wreath at Southern Command War Memorial, Pune..

Source : NDTV

Tech giant Google has acquired Alter, an artificial intelligence (AI) avatar startup that was working on using AI to generate avatars for social media users and brands to express their virtual identity.

 

According to TechCrunch, Google buys the startup for about $100 million in an effort to improve its content game and compete with TikTok.

 

The acquisition was completed about two months ago, but neither company made a public announcement.

 

Some of the top executives of Alter have updated their LinkedIn profiles to reveal that they have joined Google without acknowledging the acquisition, according to the report.

 

A Google spokesperson confirmed that the company had acquired Alter but declined to comment on the financial terms of the transaction, it added.

 

Alter started as Facemoji, a platform that offered plug-and-play technology for helping game and App developers add avatar systems to their Apps.

 

Among its investors are Play Ventures, Roosh Ventures and Twitter, which invested $3 million in the startup. Later Facemoji rebranded as Alter..

Source : Business Standard

China on Monday(31st Oct 2022) successfully launched a second lab module to be part of its ambitious space station currently under construction.

 

The lab module called Mengtian was launched using a Long March-5B Y4 rocket, one of China’s biggest rockets, from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the coast of the southern island province of Hainan.

 

Scientific equipment in the Mengtian module, the second lab component of China’s under-construction space station, will be used for studying microgravity and carrying out experiments in fluid physics, materials science, combustion science, and fundamental physics, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

 

The Wentian lab which was sent earlier focused more on biological and space life sciences.

 

Also, the Mengtian will carry the world’s first space-based set of cold atomic clocks consisting of a hydrogen clock, a rubidium clock, and an optical clock.

 

“If successful, the cold atomic clocks will form the most precise time and frequency system in space, which should not lose one second in hundreds of millions of years,” said Zhang Wei, director of the Utilisation Development Centre of Technology and Engineering Centre for Space Utilisation under the Chinese Academy of Sciences told the state-run Global Times recently.

 

China is currently building its space station and according to an announcement by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASTC) its construction was expected to be completed this year(2022)..

Source : The Print

Bangladesh Prime Minister "Sheikh Hasina" conferred the prestigious ‘Friends of Liberation War’ honour on former US Senator Edward M Kennedy posthumously on Monday(31st Oct 2022) in Dhaka for his contribution to the liberation of Bangladesh.

The honour was handed over to his son Edward M Ted Kennedy Junior.

 

Speaking on the occasion of the honour handing over ceremony, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina recalled the great contribution of Edward Kennedy Senior with gratitude.

She said that Kennedy Senior took a bold stand against the genocide committed by Pakistan on innocent Bengali people despite the US government role during the 1971 liberation war.

Recalling the strong opposition mounted by Kennedy Senior against the US government policy of supplying arms to Pakistan, Prime Minister Hasina said that Kennedy worked hard to stop US military and economic aid to Pakistan till the end of the war..

Source : AIR

 

UPI transactions rose by 7.7 per cent in October 2022 to 730 crore. The total value for the month stood at more than ₹12.11 lakh crore.

 

In September 2022, UPI transactions stood at 678 crore with a total value of ₹11.16 lakh crore.

 

The instant interbank fund transfer through IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) transactions in October stood at 48.25 crore and the value was at ₹4.66 lakh crore.

The transactions were higher by 4.3 per cent as compared to September according to the monthly data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

 

The NETC FASTag, which facilitates automatic toll collection at NHAI's toll booths across the country, registered a 9.3 per cent growth in the number of transactions compared to 28.3 crore in September 2022.

 

The value of transactions stood at ₹4,451.87 crore in October 2022 as against ₹4,244.76 crore in September 2022.

 

While the Aadhaar card-enabled AePS, which facilitates easy, quick and safe banking transactions, increased to 11.77 crore in October compared to 10.27 crore in previous month. The value of AePS transactions rose to ₹31,112.63 crore from ₹26,665.58 crore..

Source : Mint

First Digital Rupee pilot project of India has been launched on November 1, 2022, by RBI for the wholesale segment.

Participated Banks : SBI, BoB, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank, IDFC First Bank and HSBC

CBDC can be classified into two types : Retail (CBDC-R) and Wholesale (CBDC-W)

* CBDC-R : It would be potentially available for use by all.

* CBDC-W : It is designed for restricted access to select financial institutions.