Greeting from Project SESEI!!!
Dear Readers,

A very warm welcome to all the readers to the fifth edition of our “SESEI Newsletter India” for the period of July to September 2020. This newsletter carries overview of the various activities, policy decisions, technological advancements and standardization activities carried out in Europe.

Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected all spheres of human life. Social, financial, mental, physical health, economy, education, and all other aspects are reeling under the adverse effects of this pandemic. Researchers and scientists are working hard continuously to develop vaccine and the trials are going on to save the mankind.

While the COVID-19 pandemic continues, the eurozone's economy like others also took an unprecedented hit due to coronavirus pandemic, with the bloc's GDP contracting by 12.1% in the second quarter of 2020. Now on the road to recovery, Governments intervened with unprecedented support measures targeting households, businesses, and self-employment. The EU supported national efforts by providing flexibility in state aid regulations and fiscal rules. Europe came together to save its citizens, businesses, and member countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The European Green Deal is an endeavor of achieving green economy and global climate target of net zero by 2050. An extensive policy guideline which will be essentially standards driven, involve all stakeholders in processes, and is going to prioritize reduced emissions, reuse of materials, and clear links between the sustainability performance and incentives. EFTA countries have also adopted the Green Deal resolution for creating a sustainable, ecologically, and environmentally rich economy in sync with the European Green Deal. The European Commission have also adopted a Communication on a new European Research Area for Research and Innovation which will help accelerate its transition towards climate neutrality and digital leadership, support its recovery from the societal and economic impact of the coronavirus crisis, and strengthen its resilience against future crises. The other important plan presented by the European Commission in this context is to ensure reduction in EU Greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030. This new target is based on a comprehensive Impact Assessment of the social, economic, and environmental impacts. CEN and CENELEC, as two of the officially recognised European Standardization Organizations (ESOs), know that European Standards (ENs) have a key role to play in making the Green Deal a reality. This role, acknowledged by the European Green Deal itself, is presented in the newly-published position paper “Standards in support of the European Green Deal Commitments”.

To ensure the strength, consistency and continuity of the standardization and accreditation system, CEN CENELEC have renewed their cooperation agreement with the European Co-operation for Accreditation (EA).

A new European standard EN 16662-1:2020 for road vehicle safety is released by CEN. This standard defines testing methods to ensure both operational and passenger safety and a minimum quality of performance on snow and ice for all devices, independent of their material and construction.

Internet of Things / Machine to Machine will be the key future technologies for sustainable and smart living solutions. We may all be aware that the development of smart cities in India & Digital India has been given a boost by the decision of government’s arm Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC) in making the TSDSI’s transposed oneM2M specifications, the globally recognized standard, as the National Standard that will enable interoperability through greater collaboration between IoT Solution developers. The ETSI SmartM2M technical committee have also extended its IoT SAREF ontology with four new sectors addressing the automotive, eHealth/Ageing-well, wearable and water domains. SmartM2M had already developed six extensions, and now supplemented with these four new specifications.

The other new standards released by ETSI in the last quarter are ETSI MEC GS 028 by the Industry Specification Group on Multi-Access Edge Computing (ISG MEC), which specifies a new MEC service for Wireless LAN Information, allowing applications to take advantage of up-to-date information from the underlying WLAN access networks. The Quantum-Safe Cryptography (QSC) group have also released a Technical Report TR 103 619 defining migration strategies and recommendations for Quantum-Safe schemes, and enhancing cryptography awareness across all business sectors.Open Source MANO (OSM) Release EIGHT was also announced by ETSI in the last quarter which brings a new framework for the real-time gathering of metrics and alerts, designed to manage service assurance in large production deployments.

Apart from the above sneak peeks, the newsletter carries latest updates on the issues related to cyber security concerning power distribution, 5G Rollout and other important standards development and policy related news. Recent releases of White Papers & Technical reports and the events, webinars being conducted by the European Standardization bodies also form an important part of our newsletter.

With this, I would like to invite you to read the newsletter at your leisure and use the information provided for your benefit. Wishing you and your families and friends good health and safety.

Warm regards,
Dinesh Chand Sharma (Seconded European Standardization Expert in India)
Director – Standards & Public Policy
Mobile: +91 9810079461, Desk: +91 11 3352 1525
E-mail: dinesh.chand.sharma@sesei.eu