Modi's SCO Tour Bundles BRICS, UNSC, Central Asia Agendas
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- PM Modi is undertaking a four-day visit to Uzbekistan and the Kyrgyz Republic, with the agenda extending beyond the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit to the upcoming BRICS Summit in September, India's bid for a 2028-2029 UN Security Council term, and the long-pending India-Central Asia Summit
- India-Central Asia Summit has not convened since 2022, fueling regional speculation that New Delhi has lost interest in the engagement compared with Modi's 2015 tour of all five Central Asian states
- Modi pledged at Kazakhstan's Nazarbayev University in 2015 to rebuild connectivity to Central Asia, declaring that 'Central Asia cannot remain distant and disconnected from India', but connectivity prospects have since been cut by geopolitical shifts
- 'Connect Central Asia' policy, launched in 2012 under the Manmohan Singh government, drove bilateral goods trade from $500 million in 2010 to more than $2 billion by 2025, though trade flows have not translated into the connectivity gains originally envisioned
Why it matters: Modi's biggest challenge in Central Asia is reversing the perception that India has retreated from the region — the India-Central Asia Summit has sat dormant since 2022 even as trade quadrupled from $500 million to over $2 billion. Connectivity remains the gap: Modi's 2015 promise to integrate Central Asia has been undercut by geopolitical shifts, and New Delhi now must deliver tangible follow-through at the SCO, BRICS, and UN Security Council tables simultaneously.
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