Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu will chair the 19th meeting of the council of the heads of government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states on Monday. The summit is held every year at the level of prime ministers, and deals mainly with the trade and economic agenda of the SCO.
India is the host for the meeting for the first time. The meeting would have been a grand affair, had it not been for the pandemic. This year, however, it has been moved to the digital format. With the ongoing tensions India has with two SCO members, Pakistan and China, the virtual format eases some diplomatic headaches.
India assumed chairmanship of the SCO council of heads of governments in November 2019, from Uzbekistan. The chairmanship is on a rotation basis. The SCO has eight members. The prime ministers/premiere of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will be attending the meetings, said a statement form the ministry of external affairs (MEA).
Pakistan will be represented by the Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs Andleeb Abbas, and India by Naidu. Ever since India joined the grouping, the external affairs minister has represented the country at this council while the prime minister has attended the heads of state summit. Narendra Modi recently represented India at the virtual heads of state meet held earlier this month, hosted by Russia. As India is the host this year, it was expected that PM Modi would be attending the meet.
Four observer states will also attend the meet, including President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani, first Vice President of Iran Eshaq Jahangiri, Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko and Deputy Prime Minister of Mongolia Yangu Sodbaatar. Turkmenistan has been invited as special guest of the host. There will also be representatives from various bodies of the SCO itself—the secretary general's office, the regional anti-terrorist structure, SCO Business Council and SCO Interbank Association.
During its year as chair of the council, India focused on creating three pillars of cooperation—startups and innovation, science and technology and traditional medicine. It as 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 also organised a virtual SCO Young Scientists Conclave, the first such meet, and also the first consortium of SCO economic think tanks and startup forum.
India will host the first ever SCO digital exhibition on shared Buddhist Heritage, which will be inaugurated on Monday. India has also translated 10 classics of Indian regional literature into Russian and Mandarin.
India has also proposed to host an SCO food fest next year.