Modi to meet Chinese President Jinping on SCO sidelines today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday on the sidelines of the SCO summit, the government confirmed on Thursday. The summit will see both India and Pakistan joining the group as full members.
Modi arrived in Astana on Thursday and attended a banquet hosted by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev in which Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif was also present.Official sources continued to maintain until late Thursday that no bilateral meeting was scheduled for Modi with Sharif.
The highlight for India is expected to be the Modi-Xi meeting, the first this year. It will also come soon after India's boycott of the OBOR conference which was attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
India abstained from the summit to highlight its concerns over the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which is part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and passes through Gilgit and Baltistan, a region India maintains is integral to the state of J&K.
The differences with China over the issue of India's bid for NSG membership are also expected to be touched upon by Modi during the meeting.
Modi called on Nazarbayev on Thursday and discussed ways to expand bilateral ties with Kazakhstan.
The SCO summit being held on June 8-9 in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, is special for India as it would be formally admitted into the China-dominated six-nation grouping along with Pakistan .
Till now China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are the group's full members. Afghanistan, Belarus, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan have observer status .
The admission of India and Pakistan will enlarge the group's footprints for the first time to South Asia from Central Asia.