INS Kolkata and Shakti will participate in the International Fleet Review 2019 in which country?

Malaysia resumed a China-backed rail link project after the Chinese contractor agreed to cut the construction cost by one third to 10.6 billion US dollars. The Malaysian government will also take up a multibillion-dollar property and transportation project in Kuala Lumpur involving a Chinese state company, calling it a contribution to China's global "Belt and Road" infrastructure initiative.

For the second year in a row, Iraq has become India's top crude oil supplier in 2018-19 fiscal year and meet more than a fifth of the country's oil needs. According to official data sourced from the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, Iraq sold 46.61 million tonnes (mt) of crude oil to India during April 2018 and March 2019, which is 2% more than 45.74 mt it had supplied in 2017-18 fiscal. Saudi Arabia also maintained its position as the 2nd-largest crude supplier to India during the year followed by Iran and United Arab Emirates (UAE) which toppled Venezuela to become India's fourth largest crude supplier. Despite US sanctions on Iran, the country's crude oil supply to India increased 6.24% to 24 MT in 2018-19. India managed to import a sizeable amount of Iranian crude last year primarily due to waivers and winding down period provided by US.

The UK parliament became the first national legislative body in the world to declare a climate change emergency. The motion was approved without a vote and registers the views of the House of Commons without compelling the government to act on any particular policy proposal. It also calls for the government to work towards carbon neutrality before 2050 and for ministers to draft proposals within the next 6 months to restore the country's environment and create a "zero waste economy".

India and the United States have agreed to strengthen economic co-operation and bilateral trade by ensuring greater collaboration amongst stakeholders, including government, businesses and entrepreneurs.

The United Nations and the European Union (EU) on April 24, 2019 signed a joint framework aimed at strengthening partnership in counter-terrorism efforts. The framework was enacted on the occasion of the second edition of EU-UN Leader's Dialogue on Counter-Terrorism that was held in New York.

The WHO (World Health Organization) has published a research paper titled 'Forecasting the future need and gaps in requirements for public health professionals in India upto 2026' in the 'WHO South-East Asia Journal of Public Health', in which it states that India faces critical shortage of healthcare professionals, especially in Bihar, Jharkhand, U.P. (Uttar Pradesh) & Rajasthan which have the worst hit ratio as compared to Delhi, Kerala, Punjab and Gujarat which are in a relatively better position. Health workforce includes all those people engaged in actions whose primary intent is to enhance and improve the health of the general public affected with any kind of health issue.

India and Sweden have recently launched the India-Sweden Collaborative Industrial Research and Development Programme on the occasion of the Sweden-India Innovation Partnership AI for All Summit in New Delhi. The programme will address a range of global challenges through technology and innovation. The Joint programme is co-funded by Indian Department of Science & Technology (DST) and Sweden's Innovation Agency - Vinnova. The new programme brings together the world class excellence of Sweden and India to address challenges in the area of Smart Cities and Clean Technologies and Digitalization / Internet of Things (IoT). Vinnova will provide funding to Swedish side participants upto 2,500,000 Swedish Krona as grant. On the Indian side, conditional grant of upto 50% with a limit of INR 1.5 crores per project to Indian project partners to be provided. This Programme is technically and administratively managed by the Global Innovation & Technology Alliance (GITA) on behalf of DST in India and Vinnova in Sweden.

First AH-64E (I) - Apache Guardian helicopter was formally handed over to the Indian Air Force at Boeing production facility in Arizona, USA. Air Marshal AS Butola, represented the Indian Air Force and accepted the first Apache.

Iran announced it will pull out of some commitments under 2015 international nuclear agreement signed with world powers, called Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA). Iran said it will stop suppressing its stocks of enriched uranium and heavy water, as these are needed by certain types of the reactor for nuclear fission to take place. It mentioned that such actions are required from Iran as the European Union (EU) and other countries did not have the power to resist US pressure. The move is to secure Iran's rights and bring back the balance after the United States exited from an agreement in 2018.

India and Vietnam reiterated their commitment to build a peaceful Indo-pacific region, with respect to each other's national sovereignty and international law. The announcement regarding the same was made after delegation level talks between Indian Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and his Vietnamese counterpart Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi. Vice President Naidu is on a 4-days visit to Vietnam. During the talks, both the sides deliberated on cooperation in various areas and anticipated for a consensus of concerned countries on a code of conduct in the South China Sea.