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What does the abbreviation 'SCO' stand for?
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Answer: Option D — Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
Detailed Solution
SCO stands for the "Shanghai Cooperation Organisation", a Eurasian political, economic and security organisation.
Structure of the SCO:
- Heads of State Council (HSC): the supreme decision-making body; meets once a year (the SCO Summit).
- Heads of Government Council (HGC): meets once a year to discuss economic cooperation and approve the budget.
- Council of Foreign Ministers.
- Secretariat: in Beijing, headed by a Secretary-General (three-year term).
- Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS): in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
- Its official languages are Russian and Chinese.
- The chairmanship rotates among members every year, in alphabetical order (in Russian).
Its "family" of members:
- Full members: China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (ten).
- Observer states, such as Mongolia and Afghanistan.
- Dialogue partners, such as Turkey, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Cambodia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others.
- The SCO, together with its partners, covers about 40 per cent of the world's population and a large share of the Eurasian landmass.
Recent summits:
- 2023: hosted virtually by India.
- 2024: Astana, Kazakhstan.
- 2025: Tianjin, China (31 August-1 September); Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended.
India and the SCO:
- India had observer status from 2005 and became a full member in 2017.
- India uses the SCO to discuss terrorism, connectivity, trade and energy security with Central Asian countries and Russia.
- India has refused to endorse the Belt and Road Initiative in SCO declarations.
- In 2025, India declined to sign an SCO defence ministers' joint statement that did not mention the Pahalgam terror attack.
Related abbreviations:
- RATS: Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure.
- CSTO: Collective Security Treaty Organization (Russia-led).
- CIS: Commonwealth of Independent States.
- BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (and new members).
Why not the other options?
- ✗"South China Organisation" is not the correct expansion.
- ✗"Shanghai Commonwealth Organisation" is not the correct expansion.
- ✗"Silk-route Cooperation Organisation" is not the correct expansion.
Quick tip
Remember: SCO = Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (Secretariat Beijing; RATS Tashkent; languages Russian and Chinese; ten members; India full member since 2017); 2025 summit = Tianjin, China.
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International Economic Organisations — Preparation
This question tests your understanding of International Economic Organisations, a key topic in the General Knowledge section. The detailed solution above uses a step-by-step approach to show the reasoning, and where available, a shortcut that helps you solve similar questions in under 90 seconds during the actual exam.
This topic covers international economic and financial organisations: the IMF, the World Bank group, the WTO, the Asian Development Bank, the New Development Bank, the AIIB, OPEC, the OECD and groupings such as the G20, along with their headquarters, founding and functions. Questions usually ask where an organisation is headquartered, when it was set up, and what it does. For example, the IMF and World Bank were created at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, the WTO replaced GATT in 1995, and the New Development Bank, set up by the BRICS countries, is headquartered in Shanghai. Practise the international economic organisations questions below, written in the style of the general awareness sections of exams such as SSC, banking, railways, CUET GAT, MAH CET and CLAT. Each question comes with a detailed explanation that adds related facts, so every question helps you revise more than one point.