SCO Conference on “Shared Buddhist Heritage”

• Recently, the first international conference of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on Shared Buddhist Heritage was held in New Delhi.
• Nodal Ministry: It was organized by the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of External Affairs and the International Buddhist Confederation.
• Objective- To re-establish trans-cultural links and seek out commonalities, between Buddhist art of Central Asia, art styles, archaeological sites and antiquity in various museum collections of the SCO countries.
• Focus of the Conference: India’s civilizational connection with the SCO nations.
• The event, under India’s leadership of SCO has brought together Central Asian, East Asian, South Asian and Arab countries on a common platform to discuss Shared Buddhist Heritage. It will celebrate Buddhist common heritage and build stronger and deeper bonds amongst the countries.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

• It is a permanent intergovernmental international organisation of Eurasian Nations.
• The SCO currently comprises of eight Member States (China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), four Observer States interested in acceding to full membership (Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia) and six “Dialogue Partners” (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka.
• Secretariat- Beijing, China.