Declaring India's readiness to contribute to global efforts to overcome the economic crisis, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in Yekaterinburg on Monday night to attend the Summits of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and Brazil-Russia-India-China.
"India has consistently articulated its desire to play a more constructive and meaningful role as an observer at the SCO," External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said, addressing the 10th summit of the forum in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent.
India, along with some other members, objected to the proposal and due to lack of consensus or concurrence, the meet has been cancelled.
Jaishankar also emphasised the need for ensuring that Kabul's neighbours are not "threatened by terrorism, separatism and extremism".
It is the first time in nearly nine years that India's foreign minister travelled to Pakistan even as the ties between the two neighbours remained tense over the Kashmir issue and cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
In the midst of a spat between India and China, an official Chinese newspaper on Friday spoke of a possible meeting between the prime ministers of the two countries next week in Thailand.
In the midst of a war of words between the two countries, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Wednesday expressed his desire to meet his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh.The Chinese leader's remarks come a day after Beijing raked up its claim over Arunachal Pradesh, questioning Prime Minister Singh's visit there on October 3. India hit back on Wednesday, reacting strongly to Chinese plans to get involved in projects in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir.
Pakistan turned to China after the US refused it a civilian nuclear agreement.
Apart from emphasising the importance of India's economic development, and its re-integration into the global economy, Dr Singh has repeatedly emphasised the importance of the ideas that define the Indian civilization and the Indian Republic for global peace, security and challenges, ranging from terrorism to pandemics.
Addressing the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Yekaterinburg (Russia), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday said that India is seeking an external environment conducive to its sustained high economic growth which is necessary to meet its developmental objectives.
In the first top-level contact since the Mumbai terror attacks, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met President Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday during which he is understood to have made it clear that Pakistan should take concrete action against terrorism directed against India.
The idea of a Russia-India-China triangle was first floated in 1998 by the then premier Yevgeny Primakov.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is in Moscow on a four-day visit to attend the meeting of foreign ministers of the SCO of which both India and China are members.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is likely to hold bilateral talks with his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu on the sidelines of the SCO defence ministerial conclave in Delhi, people familiar with the matter said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for trying to help find a peaceful solution to the Ukraine crisis.
In the first top-level contact between India and Pakistan after Mumbai attacks, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari will meet in Russia on the sidelines of a multilateral summit next week to break ice in the bilateral ties.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is still a developing entity and it is essentially due to Russian and Chinese efforts. The moot question is can India benefit by attending it?
'Whenever it hears the term SCO, Delhi faces an existential dilemma -- of its own making.'
India and China on Wednesday held 'constructive' and 'forward-looking' diplomatic talks to resolve the over four-year border standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh but there was clear no indication of any breakthrough.
India and Pakistan's admission to the Beijing-backed Shanghai Cooperation Organisation will be formalised at the grouping's summit in Kazakhstan next week, China said on Thursday.
A video shows that Shehbaz was asking an aide for help, however even after the aide's assistance, his headphones dropped once again.
"The current border situation is overall stable," the Chinese diplomat said.
The brief exchange and handshake between Jaishankar and Sharif took place at a banquet dinner hosted by the Pakistani prime minister at his residence in honour of the delegates attending a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
In his opening remarks at the virtual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Modi also said that some countries use cross-border terrorism as an instrument of their policy and the grouping must not hesitate to criticise them.
It will be for the first time in nearly nine years India's external affairs minister will travel to Pakistan even as the ties between the two neighbours remained frosty over the Kashmir issue and cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
'As one former Indian diplomat put it to me, Delhi has access to the White House, but Islamabad has access to Mar-a-Lago.'
Russian President Vladimir Putin told a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on Friday that the group should consider staging its own major sporting competition.
India would not be seen to be anything but rude with the Pakistanis. In the big picture, who is the bigger adversary right now? Who is the bigger pain in the neck? And who is it that is keeping more than 3,000 km of our borders active, throwing our military posture and deployments into imbalance? asks Shekhar Gupta.
India, which has an Observer status for the past 10 years, will technically become the member by next year.
India and Tajikistan on Monday pledged to further deepen their cooperation to fight terror and agreed to step up defence ties besides boosting trade and investment.
If the Pakistani foreign minister attends the meeting in person, it will be the first such visit from Islamabad to India since 2011.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday said Modi will lead the Indian delegation at the summit. "The prime minister will lead the Indian delegation to the 20th summit of the SCO council of heads of state which will be held in the virtual format on Nov 10. The meeting will be chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin," MEA Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said.
After India firmly told China that its violation of the border pacts has "eroded" the entire basis of bilateral ties, China's defence ministry on Friday said the situation at the border is "generally stable" and both sides should put the boundary issue in an "appropriate position" and promote its transition to "normalised management".
The regular membership of India and Pakistan, who are observers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, has been approved and they will be inducted formally next year.
'Russia remains in a unique position since it has special strategic relations with both India and China and these relationships are independent in nature'
Pakistan has responded to a letter by India asking to start negotiations for the review of the Indus Water Treaty, the foreign office said on Wednesday.
During the meeting, President Xi addressed the ministers and discussed the bilateral issues among the countries and the issues affecting the South-Asian regions.
However, the details of the meeting were not officially confirmed.
