India to host SCO summit on July 4, to be chaired by Modi
Darpan News Desk IANS, 30 May, 2023 10:05 AM
New Delhi, May 30 (IANS) Under India's first-ever chairmanship of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the 22nd summit of the SCO Council of heads of state will be held in the virtual format on July 4, and will be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
India has assumed the rotating chairmanship of SCO at the Samarkand Summit on September 16, 2022.
According to a statement issued by the ministry of external affairs, all the SCO member states namely China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, have been invited to attend the summit.
In addition, Iran, Belarus, and Mongolia have been invited as Observer States.
As per SCO tradition, Turkmenistan has also been invited as the guest of the Chair.
Heads of the two SCO bodies - the Secretariat and the SCO RATS - will also be present.
Further, heads of six international and regional organisations have also been invited, namely the UN, the ASEAN, the CIS, the CSTO, the EAEU, and the CICA.
The theme of the summit is 'Towards a SECURE SCO'.
The SECURE acronym was coined by Modi at the 2018 SCO summit and it stands for Security, Economy and Trade, Connectivity, Unity, Respect for Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity, and Environment.
These themes have been highlighted during India's chairmanship of SCO, official sources said.
India has set up new pillars of cooperation under its chairmanship - startups and innovation, traditional medicine, digital inclusion, youth empowerment and shared Buddhist heritage.
In addition to this, India has worked towards fostering greater people to people ties that celebrate the historical and civilisational bonds between the nations, the statement said.
These include the various socio-cultural events hosted by Varanasi under the framework of the first-ever SCO Cultural and Tourist Capital for 2022-23.
India's Chairmanship of SCO has been a period of intense activity and mutually beneficial cooperation between member states.
India has hosted a total of 134 meetings and events, including 14 ministerial-level meetings and remains committed to play a positive and constructive role in the organisation and looks forward to a successful SCO summit as the culmination of its chairmanship, it said further.
With these arrests, the police have also solved 30 cases of snatching and theft and recovered 23 snatched mobile phones, several Aadhaar cards, pan cards, debit cards, four two-wheelers and metro cards from the possession of the gang members.
The decision of organising the mahapanchayat was taken in a meeting of the SKM, held in Haryana's Kurukshetra on Thursday, where office-bearers of the farmers' organisations from many states including Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab participated.
The development came a day after the police arrested a juvenile and recovered 15 packets of heroin, weighing 15 kg, and Rs 8.40 lakh drug money from his possession in Amritsar.
The arrested accused has been identified as Vijay Kumar, a.k.a. Toti, while his three aides have been identified as Amardeep Singh, Sooraj Singh and Rahul Lahoch, all residents of Jalandhar. The main accused, Vijay, has been facing 18 criminal cases pertaining to drugs, illegal weapons, kidnapping and extortion.
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has arrested three persons, who were trying to smuggle 17.74 kg gold worth Rs 10.1 crore on a fishing boat, and threw it overboard when intercepted, an official said on Thursday.
The Etah police have arrested four members of a gang including a 30-year-old woman, who robbed men of their valuables after a fake marriage. If the victim family took any action, the gang would threaten them with a fake dowry harassment case.
