Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) grew out of the Shanghai Five, a grouping consisting of China and its post-Soviet neighbours (Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) formed in 1996 in order to reduce tensions along the nearly 7,264 km long border.
The right to development of populace residing in disputed territories is being left unattended in international development discourse.
It can well be stated that the India-Pakistan relationship holds considerable significance in South Asia, although the two neighbours have a checkered history of disturbed bilateral relations.
The US Congress has recently taken a decision that inadvertently worked in favour of India. In an intrepid foreign policy decision, Congress came down heavily on the offer made by the Obama administration to Pakistan for the sale of the state-of-art, all-weather, and multi-role fighter defence equipment and refused to utilise American taxpayers’ money to fund the eight fighter jets to Pakistan.
The so-called Islamic State (IS) has effectively replaced Al Qaeda and its affiliates at the vanguard of the global jihadist movement. Under the leadership of Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi, the movement remains determined to build upon its powerbase in Iraq and Syria and unite the entire Muslim world under its version of the Islamic Caliphate. In his Ramadan address in October 2014, Baghdadi laid out plans for the expansion of IS networks into what it calls Khorasan – parts of the Indian subcontinent and its near-neighborhood.