- Lieutenant General Manoj Mukund Narwane, the Deputy Chief of the Indian Army, has become the next Chief of the Indian Army. He has replaced Bipin Rawat. Naravane was commissioned in Sikh Light Infantry Regiment on June 1980.
- Indore was adjudged as the cleanest city in India for the fourth time in a row in the cleanliness survey released by the Union Government on December 31, 2019. While Bhopal stood second in first quarter results, Rajkot was ranked second in the second quarter results.
- Kerala has become the first state in India to pass a resolution demanding scrapping of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The anti-CAA resolution was moved in the state assembly by Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan and it was passed with unanimous support.
- NCP’s Ajit Pawar was sworn in as the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra during the cabinet expansion on December 30, 2019. Shiv Sena’s Aaditya Thackeray was also sworn in as a cabinet minister along with 34 MLAs.
- The ‘India State of Forest Report 2019’ ranked Karnataka (1,025 km), Andhra Pradesh (990 km) and Kerala (823 km) as the top three states with the highest growth in forest area.
- US President’s visit to Afghanistan played a positive role in peace talks as Taliban council agreed for a temporary ceasefire in the country. There are currently about 13,000 U.S. forces as well as thousands of other NATO troops in Afghanistan.
- The central government has launched a web portal, ‘Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR)’, to facilitate blocking and tracing of stolen/lost mobile phones in Delhi. The web portal was first launched in Mumbai this year.
- The deadline to link PAN card with Aadhaar has been extended till March 2020. The Income Tax Department had earlier announced December 31 as the final deadline.
- Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman released a postage stamp to commemorate the distinguished service and glorious contribution by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in protecting the nation.
- The government said that under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) more than one crore houses have been already sanctioned out of a validated demand of 1.12 crore houses in urban areas. He said a total of 57 lakh houses are in various stages of construction of which, nearly 30 Lakh houses have been completed.
