Though ideologically, politically poles apart India and Pakistan would find a common platform in the Bejing-backed Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) soon. What one can say is it is the political compulsion or the survival of economical balance the coming together of both India and Pakistan as members on the SCO holds significance as far as the power-play in Asia is concerned. The political and security grouping – headquartered in Beijing, was founded in 2001 and comprises Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, besides China as full members. It is mainly aimed at military cooperation between the members and involves intelligence- sharing, counter-terrorism operations in Central Asia. Afghanistan, Belarus, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan have observer status. During the 2015 summit in Ufa, Russia, the SCO formally adopted a resolution starting the process to admit India and Pakistan into the organisation as full members. Both the countries signed a Memorandum of Obligations to join the organisation at last year’s summit in Tashkent. Hope the coming together of the two– India and Pakistan– on the economic platform would ease the tension and help in normalising the relations between the two. Hope India and Pakistan strictly follow the charter of the SCO and the idea of good neighbourliness to uphold the SCO spirit, improve their relations and inject new impetus to the development of the SCO. The process to induct them as members began in 2015 and with that the SCO will complete first membership expansion since its establishment. It will become a regional organisation with the largest coverage. The presence of China and India, the world’s most populous countries, would make SCO an organisation with the largest population coverage.
