India will host the 19th council of heads of government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in 2020.

It is the first high-level meeting of the eight-member grouping to be organised in New Delhi after its admission into the grouping in 2017.

The SCO is a China-led 8 member economic and security bloc in which India and Pakistan were admitted as full members in 2017.

Its founding members included China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

The SCO has 4 observer states, namely Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia. It has 6 dialogue partners, namely Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkey and Sri Lanka.