Rajnath to lead Indian delegation at SCO meet

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will lead India's delegation to Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting on disaster prevention and relief in the Kyrgyz Republic beginning Thursday during which he will have bilateral meetings with "some" member nations.
 
The SCO members include China and it is keenly watched whether Singh, who on Monday expressed hope that China will take steps to resolve Doklam crisis, would have a bilateral meeting with Chinese leaders there. A senior Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) official said no such meeting has been fixed as of now.
 
China on Tuesday said the only way to end the standoff in Dokalam was for India to unconditionally withdraw its troops from the area.
 
"During the visit, the home minister is likely to have bilateral meetings with the ministers of some of the SCO member states," an official statement said. The members of the Beijing-headquartered SCO are China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, and Pakistan.
 
India and Pakistan had joined the SCO at its annual Summit meeting held in Astana in Kazakhstan in June. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had then attended the summit.
 
The statement said the participation of India as SCO member will open the additional opportunities for giving new impetus to the development of international cooperation in the field of protecting the population and territories from emergency situations within the framework of the SCO and will bring it qualitatively new positions in regional and global formats.
 
The Indian delegation includes senior officers from the Ministry of Home Affairs, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the Ministry of External Affairs.