The 4th Resilient Cities Asia-Pacific Congress 2019 started in __________.

An asteroid 200 feet wide just plowed into a simulated New York City, sent there by NASA as part of an exercise to study what might happen if astronomers found a giant space rock heading toward Earth. NASA scientists have revealed the outcomes of its asteroid impact drill where they simulated an asteroid heading towards Denver, US. The world's space powers collaborated to hit and deflect the 180-meter-wide asteroid. However, a 60-metre chunk broke off and hit New York City at 69,000 kmph destroying everything in a 15-km radius as political disagreements failed in nuking the rock.

The 21st ASEAN-India Senior Officials' Meeting (SOM) was held at New Delhi to improve the connectivity and strengthen the cooperation in the maritime sector between Indian and the ASEAN countries. It was co-chaired by Smt. Vijay Thakur Singh, SOM Leader and Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs, Govt of India and H.E. Mrs. Busaya Mathelin, SOM Leader and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kingdom of Thailand. India welcomed Thailand for its role as Country Coordinator of the ASEAN-India dialogue partnership for the period 2018-2021 and also praised Thailand for the Chairmanship of ASEAN for 2019. In this Meeting, the senior officials were decided to enhance the cooperation in Renewable Energy and hold an ASEAN-India Conference on Renewable Energy in 2019. In this project, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) will be the co-partners. This partnership was implemented through the 'Plan of Action (2016-20) to execute the ASEAN-India Partnership for Peace, Progress and Shared Prosperity'.

International Workshop on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (IWDRI), a two-day workshop organised by National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in collaboration with United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), and in partnership with the Global Commission on Adaptation, United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank was held at New Delhi. The objectives of the workshop were to: Identify good practices of disaster risk management in key infrastructure sectors. Identify specific areas and pathways for collaborative research on DRI (Transport, Energy, Telecom and Water). Discuss and co-create the broad contours of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) as well as a notional roll-out plan for the next three years. The first IWDRI was held in January 2018 and IWDRI 2019 built upon some of the ideas generated at the IWDRI 2018 as a crucial milestone towards the establishment of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI).

Japan-based Daiki Aluminium Industry Co. Ltd., through its Indian subsidiary, is to set up an aluminium alloy plant at Sri City in Andhra Pradesh. Daiki Aluminium Industry India Pvt. Ltd. would make an initial investment of Rs.250 crore. To be built on a 20-acre plot in the domestic tariff zone, the plant is expected to go on stream by February 2020. The plant will produce aluminium alloy ingots. It will have an annual capacity of 84,000 tonnes. The products will be exported to automobile companies in ASEAN and Japan. The plant is expected to generate direct employment for about 600 people with 80% of them being women. Daiki plans to capture the demand requirements of aluminium alloy in the country and expand the market in stages.

A hyper-local connectivity app called "Bhonga" developed by Mumbai-based Company Linkus Infratech, to connect users to their neighborhood people in the city even without an Internet connection. "Bhonga" is a Marathi word which means megaphone or loudspeaker. This app automatically provides the lists the user living within the radius of one kilometre. The app supports voice notes as well as photos. Anyone can open their phone and send a message that is delivered to other users in the neighborhood.

The two-day Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation began in New Delhi on May 13, 2019. The meeting will conclude on May 14. The participants include ministers from 16 developing nations and six least developed nations.

The Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris, France almost burned down in a devastating fire that began on April 15, 2019. The fire completely destroyed the spire of the iconic structure and two-thirds of its largely medieval roof. UNESCO experts have agreed to help in rebuilding the structure.

The 8th edition Asian Youth Women Handball Championship 2019 will be held in Jaipur from August 21 to 30. This is the first time Jaipur will host this prestigious tournament. Earlier in 2015, Delhi hosted the event and finished at seventh place. This event will be organised by Asian Handball Federation (AHF). In this event, total 10 teams will participate including defending champion South Korea.

The Indian Badminton Tournament 2019 was held at K. D. Jadhav Indoor Hall in New Delhi from 26 to 31 March 2019 and had a total purse of $350,000. Champions of Indian Open Badminton 2019: Men's Singles: Viktor Axelsen (Denmark) Women's Singles: Ratchanok Intanon (Thailand) Men's Doubles: Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin (Chinese Taipei) Women's Doubles: Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu (Indonesia) Mixed Doubles: Wang Yilu and Huang Dongping (China) India's Srikanth Kidambi lost to Viktor Axelsen of Denmark 7-21, 20-22 in the men's singles summit clash.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo inaugurated the country's first mass rapid transit (MRT) system on 24th March. The aim is to ease the traffic congestion in the capital Jakarta. He also presided over a groundbreaking ceremony to mark the beginning of the second phase which is planned for completion by 2024. Passengers can ride for free until the end of the month. Jakarta is one of the top three traffic-congested cities in the world, according to a traffic index developed by the navigation systems company TomTom.