Jerome Hayden Powell was sworn-in as the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve for a four-year term on February 5, 2018. The oath was administered by Vice Chairman Randal K. Quarles in the Board Room. He succeeded Janet Yellen, the first woman to lead the US central bank in its 100-year history.

The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on January 18, 2019 notified the 2019 Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms, replacing the existing CRZ norms of 2011. The new CRZ norms, issued under Section 3 of the Environment Protection Act, 1986, aim to promote sustainable development based on scientific principles taking into account the natural hazards such as increasing sea levels due to global warming.

On January 24,2019, The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Ropar, has developed an app Roshni that would help the Visually Impaired to recognise currency notes. The app can recognise both old and new notes and gives audio information as to which note you are holding in your hands.This app was launched in Chandigarh. Roshni is the first Android app,which recognise INR currency notes. The user have to bring the currency note in front of phone camera and the App would give a audio intimation about the currency note denomination. This app is now formed enough to recognise Indian money of any denominations, whereas we can expect its upgrade version in further even to identify the Indian coins as well as foreign currency notes.. This app is bug free and is available in beta version of the play store.

On January 24th,2019 Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd,venture of diary brand Anand Milk Union Limited or Amul has launched the Camel milk first time in the brand name of ‘Amul Camel Milk’ in selective areas of Gujarat. Initially ‘Amul Camel Milk’ will be launched in areas like Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad and the Kutch of Gujarat.Price of 500ml will be Rs.50 and it should be refrigerated with shelf life of three days.Amul has already introduced the Camel Milk Chocolate.

The Indian Railways has named the indigenously manufactured Train 18 as Vande Bharat Express. The train is set to run between Delhi and Varanasi at a maximum speed of 160kmph. The 16-coach train is designed and manufactured by the Chennai-based Integral Coach Factory (ICF) at a cost of approx Rs 97 crore. It is regarded as a successor to the 30-year-old Shatabdi Express. Train 18 is also the first locomotive-less train in the country. The fully air-conditioned train will stop at Kanpur and Allahabad and will have two executive chair cars. It has diffused lighting, automatic doors and footsteps besides GPS-based Passenger Information System.

Oxford dictionaries has declared “Nari Shakti” as the Hindi word for the year 2018. The announcement was made during a session at the ongoing Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) at the Diggi Palace. According to the Oxford dictionaries, the word has been derived from Sanskrit and is used today to symbolise women “taking charge of their lives”. The word was selected by the Oxford Dictionaries (India) with the help of an advisory panel of language experts, including Namita Gokhale, Randhir Thakur, Kritika Agrawal and Saurabh Dwivedi. Oxford had named ‘Aadhaar’ as its Hindi word for the year 2017.

NASA’s Opportunity rover has completed 15 years of its touchdown on the surface of Mars. The rover landed in a region of Mars called Meridiani Planum on 24 January 2004. The solar-powered rover went silent since a global dust storm in June 2018. The rover was designed to travel 1,006 metres and operate on the Red Planet for 90 Martian days.

On January 12, 2019, Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling launched the ‘One Family One Job’ scheme, under which for every family one government job has been allotted, in Gangtok. New recruits were taken for Group C and Group D posts in 12 departments. As part of the scheme, a “Rojgar Mela” (employment fair) was organised at the Paljor stadium in Gangtok, where over 12,000 unemployed youths, from 32 constituencies, were handed out appointment letters. Letters were given to families, by the Department of Personnel, which do not have a government job. He also announced that over 25,000 already employed but unregularised government employees would also be subsequently regularised within 2019. Thus, Sikkim became the first state in the country to carry out such a programme for the people entitling them to state government employee benefits.

The Union Cabinet has approved the Signing of Terms of Reference (TOR) governing the engagement of the designated Indian Expert to provide tax assistance to Swaziland (now known as Eswatini) under the Tax Inspectors without Borders (TIWB) programme between India and Eswatini.

India-born economist Gita Gopinath took over as the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist, becoming the first woman to occupy the top post. Gopinath became the second India-born economist to hold the position after former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan.

On 10th January 2019, Sanskriti Kumbh, a 29 days cultural extravaganza inaugurated by the Governor of Uttar Pradesh, Shri Ram Naik in the presence of the Union Minister of state for Culture Dr. Mahesh Sharma in Kumbh Mela area, Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. Sanskriti Kumbh is celebrating the conglomeration of Spiritual Consciousness and Cultural Heritage of India in the main premises of Kumbh Mela area in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. It is one of the oldest tradition in the world which showcases the unity in diversity of our country. The significance of Kumbh Mela has been enhanced at the Global level as the UNESCO has inscribed Kumbh Mela on the list of Intangible Cultural heritage for humanity in 2017 This time Kumbh is being organized in the city of Prayagraj which is located at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and Mystic river of Saraswati in Uttar Pradesh.

The Union Cabinet on January 10, 2019 approved the establishment of three more All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to boost healthcare infrastructure in the country. Among them, while two will be set up in Jammu and Kashmir’s Samba and Pulwama districts, the third AIIMS will be set up in Rajkot, Gujarat.

RBI on 08 Jan released guidelines on tokenisation for various card transactions including debit and credit cards. Tokenisation is possibly a safer and secure payment system than others. It actually converts the actual card details with a unique alternate code called the Token. This token will be unique for a combination of card, token requestor and identified devices.