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.
The affected girl students of Kasturba Gandhi College in West Maredpally, Secunderabad were hospitalised with complaints of breathlessness and dizziness. The college authorities denied that there was any gas leak from college lab. They said foul smell from garbage dump on the college boundary wall led to students falling ill.
Punjab has only two per cent of India's population, while it has nearly 10 per cent of the total licensed weapons which stand at nearly 4 lakh, or 13 gun licenses for every 1,000 persons in the state.
The Shiromani Akali Dal on Friday asked the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab to list development works initiated by it as well as disclose capital assets created to justify the "unprecedented" borrowing of Rs 39,200 crore for nine months of the current fiscal with Rs 14,700 crore being borrowed for the third quarter.
Shraddha, who was beaten up and strangled to death and then chopped into 35 pieces by Aftab, had conversations with her friends and a co-worker either on WhatsApp or Instagram. She had told them that she has been physically assaulted by Aftab since the beginning of their relationship.
Bhambri Kunal, 26, who first came to Singapore in 2018 to study, pleaded guilty to three counts of dealing with the benefits of criminal conduct. In exchange for at least $100, Kunal, who was jailed on Wednesday, withdrew cash totalling more than $26,000 from Singapore bank accounts.
Earlier, on November 14, SKM's National Council held a meeting at Gurudwara Rakabganj and strongly condemned the Modi government for betraying the farmers by not implementing the written assurances made on December 9, 2021 for legally guaranteed MSP, withdrawal of the Electricity Bill, among other demands.
