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During summit, eight significant agreements were signed, focusing on issues like SCO’s budget, operations of secretariat, and counterterrorism efforts.
Key Takeaways from Summit:
- India highlighted three evils i.e. Terrorism, extremism and separatism against regional peace and development.
- India did not endorse China's Belt and Road Initiative on grounds of territorial integrity and sovereignty.
- Meeting saw criticism of “unilateral sanctions” that Western nations have imposed e.g. on Russia.
- Meeting further advanced India’s digital agenda, incorporating Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and digital inclusion into SCO cooperation framework.
Significance of SCO for India:
- Countering Terrorism: Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) provides access to key information and intelligence on movements of terrorists and drug-trafficking.
- Forum for Cooperation with Central Asian Countries: Provides India a platform to Help India in pursuing Connect Central Asia policy.
- SCO also provides a forum for closer Indo-Russian cooperation.
- Energy Security: Region is home to 4% of world’s natural gas reserves and approximately 3% of oil reserves.
- Balancing Chinese Dominance in Region: E.g. through Chabahar Port, INSTC etc.
Challenges of SCO:
- Disputes among member countries;
- Competition for dominance between China and Russia,
- Divergent interests of Member countries etc.;
About SCO (HQ: Beijing, China)
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