All eyes will probably be on whether or not PM Modi offers any indication that he would attend the SCO summit 2027 in Islamabad. Picture Credit score: X/@Narendra Modi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s four-day visit to Uzbekistan and the Kyrgyz Republic is extra than simply an outreach to 2 necessary states in Central Asia or the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). The agenda will embody engagements geared toward three further multilateral platforms — the upcoming BRICS Summit in September, the two-year UN Safety Council time period of 2028-2029, and planning for the long-pending India-Central Asia Summit, which has not met since 2022. Consultants say the delay has led to hypothesis within the area that New Delhi has misplaced curiosity within the engagement, particularly compared with Mr. Modi’s first foray in 2015, when he visited all 5 Central Asian states. His greatest problem throughout this go to will probably be to reverse that notion.
In a speech given at Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev College in Nur Sultan, addressed to the “folks of Central Asia”, Mr. Modi had then promised that India would rebuild connectivity to the area. “In an age of globalisation, Asia can not stay fragmented. And Central Asia can not stay distant and disconnected from India,” he stated. Since 2012, when the earlier Manmohan Singh authorities had launched the ‘Join Central Asia’ coverage, there had been appreciable hope that extra commerce, journey, and pipelines would comply with. Nevertheless, whereas commerce in items has risen from $500 million in 2010 to greater than $2 billion in 2025, connectivity prospects have been significantly minimize on account of geopolitical shifts.
Printed – August 29, 2026 06:57 pm IST
