News Excerpt:

India hosted a joint anti-terror exercise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) nations in New Delhi.

Objectives of the exercise:

• Improving the mechanisms of interaction between the competent authorities of the SCO member states to identify and suppress the use of the Internet for terrorist, separatist, and extremist purposes;
• Exchange of positive experience between the competent authorities of the SCO member states in countering the use of digital assets to finance terrorist, separatist and extremist activities; 
• Increase the level of interaction between the competent authorities of the SCO member states in countering cyber-attacks from terrorist, separatist and extremist organizations on the critical information infrastructure of the SCO member states.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO):

• The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an intergovernmental organization founded in Shanghai on 15 June 2001.
• The SCO currently comprises 9 Member States which are China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
• It has 3 Observer States interested in acceding to full membership (Afghanistan, Belarus, and Mongolia) and 14 “Dialogue Partners” (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bahrain, Egypt, Cambodia, Qatar, Kuwait, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Sri Lanka.).
• Since its inception in 2001, the SCO has mainly focused on regional security issues, its fight against regional terrorism, ethnic separatism and religious extremism.
• To date, the SCO’s priorities also include regional development.