STATE TIMES NEWS
New Delhi: India on Friday hosted a joint anti-terror exercise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) nations with a broader aim of suppressing the use of the internet for terrorist activities.
The exercise was carried out in New Delhi with the support of the executive committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) of the SCO, an official readout said.
The SCO comprises Russia, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan and Iran.
India has shown a keen interest in deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and RATS, which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.
The anti-terror exercise was aimed at suppressing the use of the internet for terrorist, separatist and extremist purposes, the readout said.
The competent authorities of the SCO member states, with the support of the executive committee of the RATS, conducted a joint anti-terrorist exercise of the competent authorities of the member states to identify and suppress the use of the internet for terrorist, separatist and extremist purposes.
The objective of the exercise was also to increase the level of interaction among the competent authorities of the SCO member states in countering cyber-attacks by terrorist and extremist organisations on the critical information infrastructure of the SCO member states.
Summarising the results of the exercise, the heads of the delegations noted that it was an important step aimed at integrating efforts and strengthening the SCO’s anti-terrorist potential, according to the readout issued by the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS).
The NSCS also organised a seminar on “countering the misuse of internet and new information technologies for terrorists, separatist and extremist purposes” for delegates from SCO member states.