Critically examine the aims and objectives of SCO. What importance does it hold for India?

Use the Bishkek summit for the SCO's current agenda, what India gains from it, and the limits India faces within the grouping.

• The 26th SCO summit at Bishkek (31 August and 1 September 2026) marked 25 years and adopted the Bishkek Declaration, four MoUs and over 20 decisions on climate, nuclear safety, energy conservation and drugs.
• India pressed its Security, Connectivity and Opportunity pillars; its proposals on English as an official SCO language and a Civilisational Dialogue Forum found place in the outcomes.
• The SCO is India's main platform with Central Asia, Russia and China together, but eight members backed the Belt and Road Initiative while India did not, and Pakistan chairs for 2026-27.

Use it to show the SCO's value to India as a multilateral platform that stays open even when bilateral ties with Pakistan are frozen, and to note its limits.

• The SCO was founded in 2001; India and Pakistan became full members in 2017; its Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) in Tashkent gives India a forum to press its case on cross-border terror.
• India sent Additional Secretary Alok Dimri to the SCO national coordinators' meeting in Islamabad, treating attendance as a membership obligation and a way to gain situational awareness of Pakistan's presidency.
• Limits: in June 2025 India refused to endorse an SCO defence ministers' joint statement in Qingdao that left out the Pahalgam attack.