India focusses on three pillars at SCO summit

New Delhi, Nov, 30: While six Prime Ministers attended the 19th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit meeting on Monday, Pakistan was represented by their Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
The SCO Member States of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan attended the meeting at the level of Prime Ministers. It was chaired by Indiaā€™s Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu.
India put sharp focus on creating three new pillars of cooperation among Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states during the course of its chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of Government in 2020: Startups and Innovation, Science and Technology and Traditional Medicine.
In virtual briefing after conclusion of the 19th Summit of SCO Council of Heads of Government, Secretary (West), Ministry of External Affairs, Vikas Swarup, said that India also proposed many other concrete initiatives.
“India has offered to create and Chair a new Special Working Group on Startups and Innovation and to set up a new Expert Working Group on Cooperation in Traditional Medicine. India has also organized in the virtual format, the first-ever SCO Young Scientists Conclave from November 24 to 28 in which more than 200 young scientists participated,ā€™ā€™ he said in his opening remarks.
The first-ever Consortium of SCO Economic Think Tanks was held on August 20-21 this year and the first-ever SCO Startup Forum was held on October 27. In the B2B format, FICCI has convened the first SCO Business Conclave (23 Nov) with special emphasis on Cooperation in MSMEs through the national chapters of the SCO Business Council.
On the cultural-humanitarian side, India has implemented Prime Minister Narendra Modiā€™s announcements made at the Bishkek Summit at the SCO Heads of State in 2019 that were aimed to bring into sharper focus our millennia-old shared civilizational heritage. These include hosting the first-ever SCO Digital Exhibition on Shared Buddhist Heritage by the National Museum, that has been inaugurated on Monday and the translation of 10 classics of Indian regional literature into Russian and Chinese languages.
“India has also proposed to host the SCO Food Festival in 2021. The underlying thought in these proposals was to move towards creating a shared cultural identity of the SCO region and has found full support from SCO Member States,ā€™ā€™ Secretary (West) said.
India considers the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as an important regional organization to promote cooperation in the areas of peace, security, trade, economy and culture and is committed to deepening cooperation with SCO by playing a proactive, positive and constructive role in the organization.
With the successful conclusion of its Chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of Government, India hopes to further strengthen greater trade, economic and cultural cooperation within SCO by putting human beings at the center of SCO activities and to foster greater peace and prosperity in the region.
India also expressed full support to Kazakhstan as the next incoming chair of the SCO Council of Heads of Government in 2021. The meeting ended with the adoption of the Joint Communique.
The Summit of SCO Council of Heads of Government is held annually at the level of Prime Ministers of SCO and deals primarily with the trade and economic agenda of the organization.
This is the first time that a Summit-level Meeting was held under Indiaā€™s Chairmanship, since it gained full-membership of the organization in 2017. India assumed the Chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of Government on November 2 last year as per rotation from the previous Chair ā€“ Uzbekistan and completed its year-long tenure with the Summit-level meeting which was chaired by Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu.
The SCO is a regional grouping of eight Member States- India, Russia, China, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The SCO also has four Observer States ā€“ Iran, Afghanistan, Belarus and Mongolia.
Apart from the SCO Member States, the four Observer States of SCO also participated at a high-level – including the President of Afghanistan, the First Vice President of Iran, the Prime Minister of Belarus and the Deputy Prime Minister of Mongolia. Turkmenistan was invited as a Special Guest of the Host as per past practice and was represented by the Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers.
The two bodies of SCO were represented by the SCO Secretary General and the Executive Director of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS). The Chairman of the SCO Business Council and the Chairman of the SCO Interbank Association were also present.

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