Comment : 'Until philosophers are kings, or kings and prices of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, cities will never be rest from evil.'

Plato knew that the root cause of the problems in Athens was corruption. Plato wants to make Athens an ideal state. With the above statement, Plato was providing a solution to make an ideal state and proposed an institution of a philosopher king. 

To make an ideal state first method is to teach political king philosophy. Plato wants to combine politics with philosophy. Therefore he sends teachers to train political leaders the philosophical truths. The results were rarely what Plato could have desired, for the same irrational politics prevailed no matter what the philosopher thought and this disappointed him. He made two attempts in his life to teach political leaders the philosophy but he failed both times.

 According to Plato, the present institution of politics is guided by sophist's methods. Sophists believe that the ultimate source of happiness is money. In their just society model, might is right. In pursuit of happiness, men can disobey the state law to follow their own interests. According to Plato, the institute of philosopher king will bring justice and real happiness. Philosopher king is the man of reason and therefore his knowledge is mightier than any law or ordinance. He is a symbol of sacrifice. Plato justifies this with his theory of communism. Philosopher king has no desire for family and property.  According to Plato, family and property have an essence of self which can distract the king from his duty toward the state.

He has knowledge of philosophy. With this, he can provide real happiness to the people and make Athens an ideal state. According to Plato, a man of integrity is more important than a man of wealth or a man of property. Integrity is the quality of being honest and having high moral principles. The institute philosopher king holds such high standards.

Comment: 'Reality is the shadow of ideas'.

This statement tells Plato's conception of reality. According to Plato, reality is a shadow of an idea. According to Plato, idea is the ultimate reality. Ideas belong to the world of essence which is beyond the world of appearance. Idea is the perfect form of anything. Physical objects may change but idea is permanent. 

His theory of ideas comes from Socrates theory of knowledge. Plato wants to make an ideal state. To make an ideal state there must have an idea of it. Man of reason has idea. According to Plato, reality is important for a good life. It tells about 'what it is'. But ideas transform from 'what it is' to 'what ought to be'. It is the essence of everything. It is intangible. In order to establish his view, Plato gives the allegory of the cave. According to Plato when we are in a state of ignorance, we consider a world of appearance as real. Our situation is like the man inside the cave with his back toward the sunlight and hands tied. Only when this person is pushed out of the cave, he will realize that what he was considering real was just the illusion of reality or shadow of reality. Only when he has true knowledge he can understand the difference between reality and idea. True knowledge is permanent in nature and did not change like the physical world.

The message behind the above statement is that the ruling class should understand that the physical world is temporary in nature. They should understand that money is not the ultimate source of happiness. It is more important to be a man of integrity rather than a man of wealth or a man of property. Integrity is the utmost virtue or quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.

We can say that Plato has established the superiority of idea over matter, philosophy over physics and he should be rightly called as 'Father of Political Philosophy'.

Comment : 'For, no law or ordinance is mightier than knowledge. '

The justification of absolute power enjoyed by the philosopher king is the theme of the statement. Plato wants to make Athens an ideal state. And according to Plato, until a king become a philosopher or philosopher become king ideal state can not be established. 

According to Plato, Philosopher king is the symbol of knowledge and sacrifice. Plato has given absolute power to the philosopher king with only one exception of the constitution which he cannot change. Philosopher king has the ultimate knowledge which cannot be challenged or changed by the common people or the book of laws. If we limit the powers of philosopher king with ordinary wisdom of people that would be foolish to limit the expert of medicine by the book of medicine. He is a man of reason and has knowledge of philosophy and he knows the path of "good life". According to Plato, good life is the final justice to the people and path of a just state by the just king only.

Aristotle is the critique of the Institution of philosopher king. Aristotle prefers rule of law over the rule of men. Howsoever knowledgeable he is. It is impossible to find a philosopher king. Philosopher king was also a human being. If he has a reason, he also has an appetite. It may happen that appetite becomes dominant over reason. Until now law has served the purpose. Law represents collective wisdom and wisdom of ages.

According to Aristotle, Plato is sacrificing good for the sake of best. But best is unachievable. If the rule of philosopher is best then rule of law is best practicable. The ideas of Aristotle are more practical than Plato. It appeals to common sense as suggested by Lord Acton, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Hence, there should be checks and balances.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

 Regionalism in world politics is an old concept. It generally happens to ensure power balance or wisely says building the capacity of regional members relatively. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is one of the regional groupings. SCO is a permanent international intergovernmental organisation having headquarters in Beijing, China. Generally, the organisation is found to fulfil the common interest of the founding members and mostly the common interest changes with time which changes the structure and objectives. Its founding leaders are the two great powers of the East- China and Russia. Its other initial members were Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan to the northwest of china roughly shares 3 million sq km of border and Uzbekistan all together form SCO in 2001 a few months before the 9/11 attack, signed the charter in 2002 and enter into force in 2003.

 The SCO was preceded by the creation of a 'Shanghai Five'- Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The three former Soviet republics shared a long frontier with China. The purpose of the Shanghai Five was to stabilise this frontier as well as building on the shared Sino-Russian interest in preventing American meddling in their Central Asian backyard. India and Pakistan were inducted as full members in 2017. Iran reached its track to full membership on 17 September 2021 which have ethnic and linguistic links with the Persian-speaking Afghan Tajiks.

Besides Afghanistan, Belarus and Mongolia are observers. The SCO has several "Dialogue partners". They include Armenia, Azerbaijan from the neighbouring Caucasus region, Turkey a step further to the West and newly added two from the Middle East- Saudi Arabia and Qatar and one from the other side of the Red Sea, Egypt.

Nepal and Sri Lanka from the subcontinent and Combodia from southeast Asia are also dialogue partners. For an organisation that bears the name of Shanghai, but is focused on Central Asia, its associates look disparate.

Central Asia is a part of India's extended neighbourhood and provides a platform to connect with its traditional friends and challenging neighbours. A platform to express India's outlook toward central Asian developments and find converging areas for mutual benefits and growth.

SCO members are well aware that India is an energy deficient country. Central Asia and Russia are extremely well endowed with Fossil fuels, Natural gas as well as nuclear and Hydropower potential. India's rapidly expanding energy need will provide an assured and stable market to these countries. TAPI pipeline and IPI pipeline are few steps taken in this direction.