Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
New Delhi, November 6
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will share screen-time with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistan PM Imran Khan during the virtual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) next week.
The SCO summit, to be chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin, is scheduled for November 10, will also seek participation by leaders of four Central Asian states as well.
Though bilateral disputes are not aired at the SCO, the preparatory meetings and events have had their share of drama. At a virtual meeting of SCO National Security Advisors, the Pakistani representative pointedly hung a map incorrectly depicting its boundaries from India’s point of view. This led to a symbolic walkout by NSA Ajit Doval.
India also did not participate in an SCO military drill that had Chinese soldiers as it took place in the middle of an aggressive confrontation on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.
During its membership of the last three years, MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said India had intensively engaged with the SCO and used it as a platform to reach out to Central Asian states. Barring Turkmenistan, other Central Asian states – Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan – are members of the SCO along with China, Pakistan, Russia and India.
At the last SCO summit in Bishkek, PM Modi had laid out India’s vision for the SCO by coining the acronym “HEALTH” which stood for cooperation in health, economics, alternative energy, literature & culture, against terrorism and for humanity, said the MEA spokesperson here on Friday.
