Defence Minister: attends SCO meeting; signs Bilateral Engagement with Uzbekistan

Defence Minister Raj Nath Singh is to attend key meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He will also participate in bilateral engagements with the Uzbekistan Government.

The Minister is to represent India in the meeting of Council of Heads of Government (CHG) of SCO at Tashkent. The Council meets to discuss on multilateral economic cooperation in the SCO region.

Highlights of the visit

• The Minister will sign bilateral agreements and hold a meeting with his Uzbekistan Counterpart. It is to be noted that the first ever India-Uzbekistan bilateral military exercise “Dostlik 2019” is to begin between November 4 and November 13, 2019.
• The meeting is the third CHG meeting that is being attended by India after it became a member of SCO. The last two meeting were held in 2017 at Sochi, Russia and in 2018 at Dushanbe in Tajikistan.

Council of Heads of Government

The CHG is the second highest decision-making body in the SCO. The Indian representative of the CHG is PM Modi.

The Council of Heads of the State is the top decision-making body in the SCO. It meets during the SCO summits that are held once in a year. President Ram Nath Kovind represents India at the Council.

Month: Current Affairs - November, 2019