ELCINA and SPGI are delighted to announce their decision to merge and work together for the progress of the electronic systems design and manufacturing industry with SPGI functioning as a focussed group for the security sector, within ELCINA. The decision was taken during the Annual General Meeting of SPGI held on 1 September 2021, at India Habitat Center, New Delhi. The two associations are coming together to benefit from each other’s synergies and the key role of electronics technology in the security industry. Security products market is growing rapidly, estimated at 22% per annum and this growth will sustain upto 2025 and beyond. Globally the electronic security market was valued at USD40.93 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach USD68.57 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 8.98% over the forecast period from 2021 to 2026. India CCTV market, which comprises the lion’s share in security industry, is estimated at about Rs.10,000 Cr and expected to register a CAGR of 22.35% over the forecast period from 2021-2026. Speaking during the SPGI AGM & Industry Meet, ELCINA President Paresh Vasani said, “ELCINA welcomes SPGI members and we believe that as a leading electronics industry association we will bring great value to SPGI as well as synergies with ELCINA members. In our pursuit of promotion of electronics manufacturing and expanding markets, we look forward to supporting the growth of the security sector and bringing its benefits to SPGI – ELCINA members and the domestic electronics industry at large.” SPGI Chairman, Sanjeev Sehgal, MD of Samriddhi Automations (Sparsh CCTV) informed the gathering, “For last 7 years SPGI has strived to be the voice and representation of India’s Electronics security industry at all public platforms, leading to the successful recognition of CCTV as a sub-sector under the Atmanirbhar Bharat policy. As the industry continues to evolve, it is imperative to take the next steps in the right direction, to advance the interests of all stakeholders at bigger platforms and under a strong banner. I firmly believe synergies with ELCINA will strengthen our mission to drive greater impact towards securing policy support and build on SPGI’s long term vision of elevating India’s Security Industry.” SPGI consists of longstanding players who have contributed to the development of the industry over the last 3-4 decades. Some of its key members including Reliance Electronics, Hanwha International, Bosch as well as MSME’s such as iota international, Securico, Vighnaharta among several others were present for the Industry Meet. Sanjay Agarwal, Sr Vice President ELCINA and MD, Globe Capacitors Ltd and Amrit Manwani, Immediate Past President, ELCINA and CMD Sahasra Group expressed delight at this positive development and conveyed their optimism at this merger which would give a boost to the security industry which was one of the fastest growing sectors in the country. Some of the SPGI members are already ELCINA members and vice versa and SPGI leadership has been working closely with ELCINA over the years. Vinod Sharma, Past President ELCINA and MD, Deki Electronics Ltd spoke passionately about the growing opportunities that were available to electronics manufacturers today and the shifting supply chains which India must capitalize on. Collaboration and cooperation were the mantras that Indian companies must embrace which would strengthen the Indian industry. Shashank Agarwal, Secretary SPGI and MD, Target Security presented the achievements of the association since inception seven years ago alongwith Anoop Sahu, Treasurer SPGI and MD, Hope Security. ELCINA Secretary General Rajoo Goel commented, “We must target a 20-25% share of the global market by 2025 and aspire for a US$10 Bn security products industry by aggressively pursuing export opportunities. We are delighted at the opportunity to work with SPGI members and the security industry members which has synergy with manufacturers and designers of electronic components and products. The strategic importance of homeland security is growing due to the changing geopolitical scenario which challenging our internal security fabric. State of the art security equipment consists largely of electronic components and assemblies which designed using the latest electronics technology.”  

Fortinet® a leading global player in broad, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions, recently announced an expansion to its FortiCare and FortiGuard security services offerings, adding a new security service called FortiTrust. FortiTrust security services offer user-based licensing across all networks, endpoints and clouds, which traditionally have been siloed. Initial service levels are being offered for zero trust network access (ZTNA) and identity verification, with more offerings forthcoming. Redefining the future of security services with FortiTrust FortiTrust provides security services that follow the user across an organization’s entire security platform, enabling organizations to easily manage and secure across all form factors. Other benefits of the new offering include: Flexible user-based licensing of security services, eliminating the need to track device counts or bandwidth consumption and making it easy to calculate total cost with built in volume discounts. Integrated single license for security services delivers desired use cases across the Fortinet Security Fabric. Easy implementation of new security services allows users to transition across various form factors, enabling organizations with hybrid architectures to shift from on-premises to cloud-delivered security. Easy options to upgrade and migrate between services. Fortinet’s expanding security services portfolio FortiTrust adds to Fortinet’s existing FortiCare and FortiGuard security services portfolio. FortiCare services are available for all Fortinet Security Fabric products. FortiCare offers three levels of services – including Essential, Premium and Elite – all providing 24×7 technical support and timely issue resolution. FortiCare also offers several product and account-based services options to address the unique needs of any organization. Through FortiCare, organizations have access to Fortinet experts to help accelerate technology implementation, provide reliable assistance through advanced support, and offer proactive care to maximize security and performance of Fortinet deployments. FortiGuard Security Services provide organizations different services tied to their Fortinet devices, enabling coordinated and consistent real-time defense for the latest cyberattacks. FortiGuard Security Services are tuned around different customer segments to include individual services for enterprises, bundles for commercial, and packages for SMBs. Leveraging industry-leading threat intelligence from FortiGuard Labs, FortiGuard Security Services offer a suite of market-leading, AI-enabled security capabilities that continuously assess risks and automatically adjust protection across the Fortinet Security Fabric. Updates and additional expansions to these services will be forthcoming. Security services that protect people, devices and data everywhere The proliferation of new devices and edges along with investments in digital innovations continue to expand the digital attack surface. Many organizations are challenged with protecting across their entire infrastructure as the threat landscape has become much more sophisticated and harder to manage with isolated point products and disparate services. This complexity is compounded with different pricing structures for services and multiple licensing models ranging from device-based, hardware-based and user-based that have remained siloed across form factors. Expanding on the Fortinet Security Fabric’s ability to protect people, devices, applications and data everywhere, FortiTrust provides organizations a unified services offering to secure across any network, endpoint or cloud with simplified consumption and one licensing model for all form factors. As a result of Fortinet’s expanded services offerings, organizations can further protect the growing digital attack surface, securing critical devices, data, applications, and connections from the data center to the cloud to the home office and more. FortiTrust Access and FortiTrust Identity FortiTrust’s initial services portfolio includes FortiTrust Access and FortiTrust Identity with additional services options for SASE and CASB planned to be released. FortiTrust Access enables organizations to deploy zero trust network access (ZTNA) with user-based licensing. Zero trust network access (ZTNA) is crucial to maintaining consistent protection, visibility and control across today’s hybrid and highly distributed networks. ZTNA enables organizations to extend secure access controls to applications for any user. FortiTrust Access provides organizations services for ZTNA, including the ZTNA agent and cloud-based orchestration. This further builds on Fortinet’s ZTNA solutions which uniquely identify and classify all users and devices seeking network and application access, regardless if users and their devices are on or off the network or applications are on-premises or in a cloud environment. Another FortiTrust service level is FortiTrust Identity. FortiTrust Identity offers cloud-based multi-factor authentication for identify verification. FortiTrust Identity complements FortiTrust Access, providing the necessary multi-factor authentication recommended for controlling application access. All Fortinet’s services are also available through partners, presenting an opportunity for channel partners to further grow their business and offerings to customers. Rajesh Maurya, Regional Vice President, India & SAARC at Fortinet said, “As the digital attack surface expands with billions of edges that need to be protected, organizations are struggling to support an array of point security solutions and disparate services. Solution and services sprawl has now grown too difficult and too expensive to manage when they are siloed across various form factors. According to Gartner, organizations are moving towards security solutions with integrated services offerings. Fortinet is redefining services by expanding its security services options – which currently include FortiCare and FortiGuard – with FortiTrust, enabling a unified offering with one licensing model for flexible consumption options across networks, endpoints and clouds.”  

Hikvision India, the leading video security solution provider, has recently launched a new Hikvision India Channel on YouTube, the popular video sharing platform on the internet. This channel will evangelize the latest video security products and solutions from Hikvision India. These wide range of videos featured on Hikvision India YouTube Channel will act as a knowledge resource for system integrators, installers, dealers, distributors,’ consultants and end-users, and other security professional community. The newly launched Hikvision India channel on YouTube, is designed to give access to the latest promotional videos, product demos and presentations. In addition, there will be regular updates on events, conferences and CSR activitities. “We are pleased to announce our latest digital initiative. Hikvision India YouTube channel would add another digital dimension to our marketing and promotional activities. We are also happy that our YouTube Channel subscribers’ base has grown to a sizeable number in a short span of time,” said Ashish P. Dhakan, MD & CEO, Prama Hikvision India Pvt. Ltd. He further added, “We are constantly looking at innovative ways to enhance the product and technology knowledge of our customers and partner ecosystem. The YouTube Channel is a valuable addition, which has the potential to deliver, in a convenient video-based format, the latest video content to assist with the product knowledge, technology update and vertical solutions. It would also act as a marketing resource to address the security industry ecosystem. The current initiative is just the beginning of our digital foray on the YouTube channel. We have planned the regular updates and hope to offer video demonstrations of our new products and solutions to spread awareness among security professional community.” Hikvision India is the India’s leading provider of video surveillance products and solutions. Driven by the ‘Make- in-India’ vision, the company manufactures a wide range of video surveillance products at its state- of -the- art manufacturing facility near Mumbai. Backed by 21 RMA centers, the company offers smart IP cameras, HD analog cameras, speed domes, NVRs, DVRs, video management software, access control and alarm systems, encoder, decoders, and other elements of sophisticated security systems and CCTV technology for any security need. Hikvision India offers a diverse set of vertical market solutions including retail, banking, power petroleum oil and gas (PPOG), transportation, education, hospitality, tourism, government, healthcare, pharma, heavy industries and real estate etc.  

Anil Puri CMD, APS group A thought leader and an action catalyzer rolled into one – Anil Puri is a rare combination of a visionary and one who has mastered the art of strategic and tactical thinking to the core. He has been using this combination to seed new ideas and to lead them to their implementation on-ground. This has been a consistent feature of his career. He has rich experience of approximately 35 years in corporate in diverse domains & from functional managerial level to be the founder of a successful business empire which he now heads as chairman of a corporate group. Security and Safety of schools and education institutes has come to APS Group as a heritage. Huge number of clientele from this domain prompted him to jot down his perception of the current landscape in the light of almost two years of onslaught by COVID 19 into the education ecosystem, constraints of the regulatory authorities and dilemma of parents to continue with on line learning Platform or switch to off line traditional campus learning as was in past. GoI, State Govts and UTs have issued the exhaustive guidelines and advisories on the subject to address and safeguard the health & safety of children volunteering to revert back to school/ college campus environment of learning. Many models globally experimented/ contemplated are available for study and analysis. While authorities are keen to open up and revert back to Pre COVID times but for obvious reasons, the response of the parents has been very reserved and more of reluctance. The prolonged period of virtual learning and loss of near and dear ones due to COVID has emotionally rendered the environment at a loss. Here he shares his thoughts on this live issue . . . Introduction COVID has been both a health and an education disaster. All schools were closed without any hesitation when COVID struck. Cautious reopening has begun at higher levels but primary and upper schools have remained closed for approx 500 days. This is a new ground with no precedents. It requires careful planning, ample funding and flexibility to adjust to difficulties and challenges that arise. After a gap of more than one year, schools have finally started to re-open. Going back to school has elicited a jumble of emotions for teachers, parents, students and administration who wanted to see children back in schools but feared the infection. Most students are thrilled to be back. Economists have shown that human capital skilling, starting with schooling, is far more important than financial capital. Various survey reports of school education also show that 97% of parents in rural households want school reopening, not to mention the educators and economists because India’s human capital is being eroded by the school closure. However, the researchers have also highlighted the need for an extended transition to help teachers and students overcome the scars of the COVID. ‘A business as usual’ approach risks dooming entire age group to functional illiteracy. School opening is a must but should be accompanied by a completely new transitional approach to help students make up for the 500 days lost. Most teachers are also looking forward to offline schooling. Governments response The Central Govt’s response has been highly proactive and balanced keeping in mind numerous environmental and socio-economic factors. MHA has issued a very exhaustive and detailed checklist for safe school environment. The Ministry of Home Affairs vide Order no. 40-3/2020-DM-I(A) dated 30 September 2020, has issued guidelines for re-opening, following lockdown measures put in place for containment of COVID-19 in the country under the under the Disaster Management Act, 2005. Among the activities permitted outside the containment zones is the re-opening of schools and coaching institutions in a graded manner, it has been left open to the State/ UT Government to take a decision in consultation with the respective school/ institution management, based on their assessment of the situation and subject to the following conditions: Online/ distance learning shall continue to be the preferred mode of teaching and shall be encouraged. Where schools are conducting online classes, and some students prefer to attend online classes rather than physically attend school, they may be permitted to do so. Students may attend schools/ institutions only with the written consent of parents. Attendance must not be enforced and must depend entirely on parental consent States/ UTs will prepare their own standard operating procedure (SOP) regarding health and safety precautions for reopening of schools/ institutions based on SOP to be issued by Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSEL), Ministry of Education, Government of India, keeping local requirements in view. Schools which are allowed to open, will have to mandatorily follow the SOP to be issued by Education Departments of States/ UTs prepared as above. Accordingly, the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education, has prepared the following guidelines/ SOP for re-opening of schools. SOP for health hygiene and safety protocols The Guidelines are divided into two parts: Part I refers to the health and safety aspects for reopening schools. These are based on the prevailing instructions of Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare with regard to health and safety protocols, and maybe implemented by adopting/ adapting in accordance with the local situation in all states/ UTs. These SOPs cover every possible aspects of safety protocols such as: SOPs for health, hygiene and other safety protocols ‘before opening’ of schools. SOPs for health, hygiene and other safety protocols ‘after opening’ of schools. SOPs for serving ‘mid-day meal’ in school. SOP for health hygiene and safety protocols before opening of schools It is pertinent to note that many schools have been used as quarantine centers, therefore, it is of utmost importance to properly sanitize/ deep clean all of these schools before reopening them. School re-opening must be safe and consistent and aligned with India’s overall COVID-19 health response, with adequate measures taken to protect students, teachers, other staff, cook-cum-helpers and their families. For…