Context:

Pakistan has formally invited the Indian Prime Minister to attend the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s Council of Heads of Government meeting, in Islamabad. 

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Pakistan holds the rotating chairmanship of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Heads of Government (CHG) and will hold the CHG meeting on October 15-16.

• The SCO Council of Heads of Government (CHG) is the second-highest body in the grouping.
• In the CHG meetings, India has been represented at the level of External Affairs Minister or Defence Minister.
• India hosted the SCO head of government (CHG) level meeting virtually in 2020 where Pakistan was represented by Pakistan’s Parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs.
• SCO Council of Heads of State (CHS) is the highest body in the grouping and is usually attended by Presidents and Prime Ministers.
• India under its first-ever presidency of SCO, hosted the 23rd Meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State (CHS) in July 2023 in a virtual format. 

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)

• SCO is an inter-governmental organization, the creation of which was announced in Shanghai, China in 2001.
• Founding members of SCO include the Republic of Kazakhstan, the People's Republic of China, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tajikistan, and the Republic of Uzbekistan.
• In June 2017, India and Pakistan were inducted as full members of the SCO in Astana, Kazakhstan. This was the first-ever expansion of the organisation since its formation in 2001.
• Iran joined SCO in 2023, bringing the total number of member states to nine.
• Recently in July 2024, Belarus became the 10th member state of the SCO. 
• The supreme decision-making body of the SCO is the Council of Heads of States (CHS). It meets once a year and decides upon all the important issues of the Organization. 
• The official languages of the SCO are Chinese and Russian. 
• The city of Varanasi was nominated as the first-ever SCO Tourism and Cultural Capital during the period 2022-2023. 
• Almaty became the cultural and tourism capital of the SCO for 2023-2024.

The goals of the SCO are:

• To strengthen mutual trust, friendship and good-neighbourliness between the Member States.
• To encourage effective cooperation between the Member States in such spheres as politics, trade, economy, science and technology, culture, education, energy, transport, tourism, environmental protection, etc.
• To jointly ensure and maintain peace, security and stability in the region.
• To promote a new democratic, fair and rational international political and economic international order.