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Purpose: The first research objective is to understand the role of digital [artificial intelligence (AI)] technologies on user engagement and conversion that has resulted in high online activities and increased online sales in current times in India. In addition, combined with changes such as social distancing and lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, digital disruption has largely impacted the old ways of communication both at the individual and organizational levels, ultimately resulting in prominent social change. While interacting in the virtual world, this change is more noticeable. Therefore, the second research objective is to examine if a satisfying experience during online shopping leads to repurchase intention. Design/methodology/approach: Using primary data collected from consumers in a developing economy (India), we tested the theoretical model to further extend the theoretical debate in consumer research. Findings: This study empirically tests and further establishes that deploying AI technologies have a positive relationship with user engagement and conversion. Further, conversion leads to satisfying user experience. Finally, the relationship between satisfying user experience and repurchase intention is also found to be significant. Originality/value: The uniqueness of this study is that it tests few key relationships related to user engagement during this uncertain period (COVID-19 pandemic) and examines the underlying mechanism which leads to increase in online sales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017, the Government of India launched the goods and services tax (GST), referred to as "one tax, one nation, one market". This tax all Indian businesses are subject to this tax. GST was framed with the objective of bringing tax handling for all businesses onto a single platform and developing a transparent and effective system in which all businesses will pay taxes. This paper identifies and addresses GST implementation challenges and proposes a solution, GSTChain, using blockchain network technology. Currently, GST is collected at the sellers end and bifurcated between the Indian state and central governments. GSTChain is a blockchain system based on trust and autonomy with the objective of making taxpayers' lives easy and tax collection efficient and transparent for the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian sugar industry is the second largest in the world. Sugar is an essential domestic grocery item required in India producing over 25 million tonnes per annum. Sugarcane is the root of sugar products that grow in over 5 million hectares all over India. However, nearly 1.5 million hectares of overall farms are saline soil lands (high salt content). This leads to lower yields in sugarcane agriculture than what would be expected. Therefore, tackling the salinity problem is crucial to achieve strong food security as well as tackle the sustainability of farming practices in India that have reach beyond just sugarcane. This research proposes efficient, sustainable, smart farming techniques for sugarcane cultivation in salt-affected lands with the help of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine Learning (ML). The proposed model has been implemented in a real-world two hectare sugar cane field cultivated from saline soils using Raspberry PI IoT nodes to control the drip irrigation (water supply). The Naïve Bayes model has been used to train and predict the leaching requirement suggested by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for efficient leaching water requirements. The performance of the proposed model has been evaluated in terms of sugar cane growth, cost of cultivation, as well as water requirements leading to an improved outlook for future use. Moreover, our results have been compared with regular sugar cane cultivation to show their effectiveness. • applications of IoT play a significant role in continuous monitoring of soil salinity. • implementing a sensor-based IoT system over salt-affected crop fields. • leaching requirements can be estimated and required irrigation can be automated. • automation process using IoT improves crop growth and increase productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]