Packed agenda in January for India’s SCO Presidency

It will be a packed agenda for India this month in its Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) presidency. India will be holding four senior officials’ meetings – SOMs, National coordinators meeting in Kashi (Varanasi) and SCO Film festival in Mumbai. Remember, Kashi is the first-ever Tourist and Cultural Capital of SCO for 2022–2023- time frame. SCO is also the partner organisation for the Surajkund mela this year.

India took over the Presidency of the grouping last year at the SCO Samarkand summit and will be for the first time holding the summit of the grouping this year. Other than the summit, India will hold the foreign, defence and NSA-level meetings of the grouping as well.

The over-20-year-old organisation has Russia, India, China, Pakistan and four Central Asian countries Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as its members. Iran is the latest country to become a member and under Indian Presidency will for the first time attend the grouping’s meeting as a full-fledged member.

The grouping covers more than 60 per cent of the area of the Eurasian landmass, 40 per cent of the world population and 30 per cent of the global GDP. More and more countries have shown interest in becoming part of the grouping, especially from the Arab world, many of whom have got the status of dialogue partner.