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New Delhi, Jun 24: The Centre has made it mandatory for sellers to enter the 'Country of Origin' while registering all new products on government e-marketplace (GeM).

The e-marketplace is a special purpose vehicle (SPV) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry which facilitates the entry of small local sellers in public procurement, while implementing 'Make in India' and MSE Purchase Preference Policies of the Centre.

Accordingly, the ministry said the move has been made to promote 'Make in India' and 'Atma Nirbhar Bharat'.

The provision has been enabled via the introduction of new features on GeM.

Besides the registration process, the new feature also reminds sellers who have already uploaded their products, to disclose their products' 'Country of Origin' details.

The ministry further said that failing to disclose the detail will lead to removal of the products from the e-marketplace.

"GeM has taken this significant step to promote 'Make in India' and 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat'," the ministry said in a statement.

"GeM has also enabled a provision for indication of the percentage of local content in products. With this new feature, now, the 'Country of Origin' as well as the local content percentage are visible in the marketplace for all items. More importantly, the 'Make in India' filter has now been enabled on the portal. Buyers can choose to buy only those products that meet the minimum 50 per cent local content criteria."

In case of bids, the ministry said that buyers can now reserve any bid for a "Class I Local suppliers. For those bids below Rs 200 crore, only Class I and Class II Local Suppliers are eligible to bid, with Class I supplier getting purchase preference".

In addition to this, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has reportedly called for a meeting with all e-commerce companies such as Amazon and Flipkart to display the country of origin on the products sold on their platform, as well as the extent of value added in India.

Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 18: To raise awareness about protective measures against coronavirus, Kerala Police released a dance video on the State Police Media Centre's Facebook page promoting the washing of hands, here on Tuesday.

In the video, the police officers were seen dancing to the tunes of Kalakkatha from the Malayalam action-drama thriller Ayyappanum Koshiyum while demonstrating the right technique for washing hands.

The video gained over 27,000 likes and over 2,400 comments and more than 33,000 netizens shared the video.

The video has received a positive response with users congratulating Kerala Police for the initiative.

"Congrats Kerala police media for this kind of initiative," one user commented on Facebook. Another user thanked the police in the comments section saying, "Super super thanks to KL (Kerala) police."

The number of people who have tested positive for the coronavirus in Kerala is 25.

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India has reached 147, including 122 Indians and 25 foreign nationals, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare earlier today.

Globally, the virus has infected more than 184,000 people and killed more than 7500, as per the data available on the World Health Organisation website.

In a bid to help struggling small businesses in Covid-19 times, Facebook has introduced Shops to help set up a single online store for customers to access on both Facebook and Instagram.

While Facebook Shops is being rolled out from Wednesday, the company will introduce Instagram Shop, a new way to discover and buy products in Instagram Explore, this summer, starting in the US.

The social networking giant also announced that it will invest in features across its family of apps to inspire people to shop and make buying and selling online easier.

"Creating a Facebook Shop is free and simple. Businesses can choose the products they want to feature from their catalogue and then customise the look and feel of their shop with a cover image and accent colours that showcase their brand," Facebook said in a statement late Tuesday.

Any seller, no matter their size or budget, can bring their business online and connect with customers wherever and whenever it's convenient for them.

People can find Facebook Shops on a business' Facebook Page or Instagram profile, or discover them through stories or ads.

"From there, you can browse the full collection, save products you're interested in and place an order — either on the business' website or without leaving the app if the business has enabled checkout in the US," informed the company.

Last month, Facebook announced $40 million in grants for 10,000 small businesses in the US to help them get through these challenging time.

The grants will go to small businesses in 34 locations where Facebook employees live and work.

The company said that in Facebook Shops, users will be able to message a business through WhatsApp, Messenger or Instagram Direct to ask questions, get support, track deliveries and more.

In the future, they will be able to view a business' shop and make purchases right within a chat in WhatsApp, Messenger or Instagram Direct.

Later this year, Facebook will add a new shop tab in the navigation bar, so people can get to Instagram Shop in just one tap.

Facebook said it is making it easier to shop for products in real time.

Soon, sellers, brands and creators will be able to tag products from their Facebook Shop or catalogue before going live and those products will be shown at the bottom of the video so people can easily tap to learn more and purchase.

"We're starting to test this with businesses on Facebook and Instagram, and we'll roll it out more broadly in the coming months," said the company.

Facebook is also working with partners like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, ChannelAdvisor, CedCommerce, Cafe24, Tienda Nube and Feedonomics to support small businesses.