• Vikram Misri has been appointed as India's new Ambassador to China on 8th January 2019.

• He is an Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer of the 1989-batch.

• He succeeded Gautam Bambawale. 

• Before to this appointment, Misri served as Indian Envoy Myanmar.

• Earlier, he has served in various capacities at the headquarters of Ministry of External Affairs as well as in the Prime Minister's Office.

• India-born Gita Gopinath appointed as chief economist of International Monetary Fund (IMF) as its 11th chief economist.

• She became 1st female chief economist of International Monetary Fund (IMF).

• She succeeded Maurice(Maury) Obstfeld.

• Gita Gopinath is the 2nd Indian after former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan to hold the position.

• She was born in Calcutta(1971) and grew up in India. She is a US citizen and an overseas citizen of India.

• She completed her Bachelor's degree from the University of Delhi. She did her Master's in economics from Delhi School of Economics and University of Washington and she received her Ph.D. degree in economics from Princeton University in 2001.

• India to become the third largest consumer market behind only USA and China by 2030.

• According to the World economic forum report (WEF), the consumer spending in India is expected to grow 1.5 trillion US dollar to 6 trillion US dollar by2030.

• The report title Future of consumption in Fast-Growth consumer market India was released by World Economic Forum.

• Japan has topped list of most powerful passports while India ranked at 79th position.

• According to the Henley Passport Index, Japan retained its top spot as the world's most travel-friendly passport due to the document's access to 190 countries.

• India jumped two positions from 81st in 2018 to 79th in this year.

• Nepal, Pakistan, and Afghanistan ranked further low at 94, 102 and 104 respectively.

• China jumped 20 places in just two years from 85th in 2017 to 69th in 2019.

• Indian Army signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Panjab National Bank (PNB) on the defense salary package.

• The MoU will benefit a large number of serving and retired Army personnel who have their accounts with PNB and also provide them with an opportunity to access modern banking facilities.

• Salient feature of the improved and update MoU are free 'RAKSHAK PLUS' Scheme for serving pers and veterans, overdraft facility range from Rs 0.75 to 3 lakhs, multicity 'At Par' cheques, instant credit of outstation cheques, preferential allotment of lockers at concessional AMC and free SMS alerts.

• The second edition of Khelo India Youth Games 2019 is held in Pune, Maharastra.

• The games are held in two categories under-17 years school students and under-21 college students.

• Khelo India Youth Games are a part of Khelo India Programme.

• The Khelo India programme has been introduced to revive the sports culture in India at the grass-root level by building a strong framework for all sports played in our country and established India as a great sporting nation.

• Previously called as Khelo India School Games, it has been now renamed as Khelo India Youth Game.

• Reserve Bank of India appointed Nandan Nilekani as Chairman of Digital Payment Committee.

• On 8th January 2019, RBI announced the formation of high-level committee to access the  digitization of payments in the country

• The committee, which will have four other members, will review the existing status of digitization of payments in the country and assess the current level of digital payments in Financial inclusion, according to RBI.

• The chairman of National Solar Energy Federation of India (NSEFI), Pravin Kumar Mehta appointed as the president of Global Solar Council from 1st January 2019.

• He becomes first Indian to head Global Solar Council.

• The Global Solar Council was launched on 6 December 2015, following the historic United Nations Climate Change Conference (UN COP 21).

• India is placed amongst the Top 5 solar players in the world and is the third largest solar market.

Washington, DC is the headquarters of Global Solar Council.

• All India Radio National Poets Conference 2019 will be held in Chennai on 10 January 2019.

• All India Radio host the Sarva Basha Kavi Sammelan.

• Tamil Nadu Government Banwarilal Purohit will inaugurate this event.

• In it, 22 poets representing as many languages included in eight schedules of Consitution would be representing their poems.

• Scholars in Hindi and Tamil will present the translated version of the poems in the conference itself.

• The program will be aired on the 25th of this month.

• The two days, Global Aviation Summit 2019 will be held in Mumbai, Maharastra on 15 January 2019.

• The theme of the Summit is "Flying for all".

• The Summit organized by the Ministry of civil aviation along with FICCI.

• The Summit is supported by International Civil Aviation

• Suresh Prabhu is the Minister of Civil Aviation.