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Currently, a divergence is observed between the aggregate of gross state domestic products (GSDPs) and the gross domestic product (GDP) of India. Though a thorough exercise is required to find out the reason, this difference has public policy implications for the country.

The divergence between the recorded output of Indias constituent states put together and the national output, which is taken to signify the size of the economy, gives rise to doubt if the GDP numbers put out by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) accurately capture the countrys economic growth. This divergence, if found true, could complicate assessments of the outcomes of various policy measures.

In 2019-20, as per available official data, Indias 20 states and Union territories (UTs) combined recorded growth of 6.9%, compared to national-level GDP growth of 4.2%. There have been reasonable differences between the two numbers in the past, and after the introduction the 2012 series of the National Accounts Statistics (NAS), this difference averaged 0.3 percentage points over fiscal years 2012-13 through 2018-19. The added-up GSDP growth of states/UTs has been consistently higher than that of national GDP during the last five years. But the growth difference of 2.7 percentage points in 2019-20 is not only abnormally high, it also suggests that the deceleration of growth at the sub-national level was not as sharp as the national number may suggest.

In India, states release only annual data of their GSDP and not quarterly data. Also, they do not provide GSDP figures with a break-down of consumption and investment. However, in their annual GSDP sectoral estimates, not only do they follow the same methodology of data compilation used by the National Statistical Agency (NSA), but the data is also discussed and vetted by the NSA. The comparable estimates of GSDP for 2015-16 to 2017-18 that the NSA prepared for the Finance Commission indicate that states estimates were quite consistent with these; specifically for 21 states, the ratio of one to the other varied between 0.99 and 1.01. Even the average annual growth at current prices of the NSAs comparable GSDP for 2015-16 to 2017-18 at 12% was a just a shade lower than 12.4% for the aggregated GSDP as compiled by the states themselves. This suggests that state estimates did not suffer from any methodological or estimation flaws. Further, the aggregated GSDP of states/UTs was also aligned with national GDP in 2011-12, the first year of the new NAS series, with the ratio of aggregated GSDP of sub-national constituents being 1.012. Aggregated GSDP growth after that was expected to show a similar growth trajectory. The gap of 2019-20, however, raises a question: Is there an emerging disconnect?

Before we look at the implications and ways of resolving it, it is important to look at two issues. The ministry of company affairs MCA-21 data for corporate output across all sectors and the data on railways, financial institutions, public administration and defence is allocated by the NSA to various states. Their respective directorates of economics and statistics incorporate that data in their overall compilation of GSDP. Each states share differs, and tends to exceed 60% of total GSDP for most. Hence, differences in GSDP growth can be inferred to arise from only that part of GSDP which is solely in the states domain. Often, discrepancies in GDP estimates (including sharp revisions) get attributed to the informal sector. The overall share in GDP of households and non-profit institutions serving households, which is the informal sector, has been around 45%, and this is almost equally distributed across agriculture, industry and services. Though there are differences in growth across those three broad sectors, industrial growth is significantly more robust from a data perspective.

Some questions arise in this regard. Has the issue of a sharp, persistent and secular deceleration of GDP growth been overplayed? The average annual growth of GSDP of Indias 20 major states/UTs during 2012-13 to 2018-19 was 7.15%. This measure of growth in 2019-20 at 6.89% was only a shade lower than 6.97% achieved in 2018-19, and showed a marginal deceleration from the trend medium-term growth. Seven of these states (six of them major), namely Tamil Nadu, Haryana, West Bengal, Sikkim, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh recorded higher growth in 2019-20 than the previous year. Could it be that Indian states are making a more accurate assessment of the growth situation on the ground? After all, considerable changes have taken place in the composition of the economy over the last five years, especially in the informal sector.

The methodology of the survey used by states to gather data has the approval of the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO). The NSSO, however, lacks the expert capacity to supervise these surveys, and this makes data robustness hard to ensure. Should this bottleneck not be eased for us to obtain clarity?

If the states GSDP reflects the situation correctly, has Indias unorganized sector bounced back faster after demonetization (in 2016) and introduction of the goods and services tax (in 2017) than anecdotal data suggests? And if this is so, will it not be prudent to ensure that the sector gets access to capital as part of the countrys stimulus strategy? And finally, will the 15th Finance Commission use GSDP or CSO data in deciding on its devolution of resources to states?

R. Gopalan and Manak C. Singhi are respectively, former secretary in the department of economic affairs, ministry of finance, and former senior adviser at ministry of finance, Government of India.

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An odd divergence between India and its constituents - Mint

The Federal Government has asked states across the nation should take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement in a bid to attract investments to the states for economic productivity.

This was disclosed by Francis Anatogu, Secretary, National Action Committee (NAC) on AfCFTA, while on a courtesy visit to Mr. Asishana Okauru, the Director-General, Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) on Friday in Abuja.

Anatogu said the FG wants states and private stakeholders to maximize the trade deal to ensure Nigeria takes full opportunity of the African Market.

He added that the FGs Committee on AfCFTA implementation wants the Governors to implement regional and local policies to integrate the AfCFTA in their states through sponsorship and participation in AfCFTA sensitization programmes.

It is no longer news that we have been clamoring for the diversification of our economy over the years.

As a committee, we are now working toward how we as a nation can properly utilize business doors being offered by AfCFTA. The NGF represents the states as good channel to reach out to the state government and that is why we have reached out to it.

We want them to take advantage of AfCFTA because as a nation, we need to produce what we sell; we need to invest and attract investors. To attract investors, we need good policies, infrastructure, and good conditions for ease of doing business.

He added that free trade is important to diversify Nigerias economy and all necessary leaders need to be on board. He urged that Governors must provide partnership for coordination at local levels.

Trade and all the things around it are very important for the development of our country, so we have to get our principals involved in this project.

To make any meaningful impact from this project, the sub-national leaders must be involved and the forum we will provide that platform for easy coordination.

They all know that we have signed this agreement but how to get them involvedis very importantfor the benefit of all, he said.

What you should know

Nairametrics reported last week that the FG announced that it ratified Nigerias membership to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), ahead of the December 5, 2020 deadline. The agreement goes into effect from the 1st of January 2021.

Yewande Sadiku, CEO of Nigerian Investment Promotion Council (NIPC),said in September that Nigeria was more ready for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), due to her domestic market manufacturing value addition capacity, which is 7 times the average of the top 20 economies in Africa and others.

Mr. Francis Anatogu, stated earlier that the agreement would reduce the erosion of the naira, which has suffered nearly 90% devaluation since 2016, through exports of Nigerian-made goods and services, and give the naira exposure to other currencies.

See the article here:
Terrorism: Nigeria and USA committed to defeating ISIS, Boko Haram and others - NSA - Nairametrics

The 5G transformation has reached a critical phase. 5G is the fifth generation wireless technology and also known as the fastest, most reliable and lowest latency technology ever. Yet, there are multiple scenarios determining how 5G rollouts will take place, including use of a Stand Alone (SA) or Non-Stand Alone (NSA) architecture.

Compared to 4G (LTE) networks, 5G brings:

5G has three main use case categories defined by 3GPP and GSMA:

In addition to this, the network slicing feature brings crating virtual networks in a service based & software defined architecture that allows more secure, differentiated and protected networks based on specific needs.

The following ITU (International Telecommunications Union) chart shows applications used in 5G use cases to enable us to visualize real deployments in a 5G environment:

Mobile networks consist of 2 major modules: Radio network and core network parts.

Two major 5G deployment alternatives are defined by 3GPP (Global Initiative creating standards for mobile networks): NSA (Non-Stand Alone) and SA (Stand Alone).

For both NSA and SA, new radio network technology (NR) is being used. New radio will satisfy high bandwidth needs such as VR, 8-12K video, etc., which is called eMBB (Enhanced Mobile Broadband).

For mobile operators who seek mainly high-speed connectivity to their customers, 5G NSA deployment could be enough at the start. However, 5G capable handsets and devices will be required.

The major first step taken by iBASIS to prepare for 5G video bandwidth explosion is deploying 100Gbps interfaces for 5G NSA.

The real 5G deployment is Stand Alone (SA) because it brings all possible use cases to the 5G mobile network, such as high throughput, low latency communications, massive IoT, network slicing, etc.

Thats why iBASIS is introducing its 5G signaling exchange testing platform for 5G SA enabling multiple scenario and use case testing.

Excerpt from:
What is 5G, SA, NSA? | iBASIS

By Staff | on November 04, 2020

(The Great Seal of the National Security Organization. Image courtesy of Wikicommons, Public Domain.)

It was just 68 years ago today, November 4, 1952, when the National Security Agency (NSA) began protecting the American people. Intelligence agencies have been around since the dawn of civilization, and in fact, the NSA was really just renamed on this date from the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA). Our Nation faces constant threats, both foreign and domestic, so it is no surprise that the NSA has one of the largest budgets of any such intelligence gathering organization.

The NSA, even still today, has been kept a secret. In fact, the joke of the day was that NSA stood for No Such Agency. Today we face the question as Americans on how far are we willing to give up freedoms for our security. In many cases, there is no real answer, we want to be safe, but this is the land of the free, and privacy is key. In any case, governments that are both regarded as corrupt or just, have always portrayed the idea that whatever invasion of privacy they are doing, is for the greater good. Many opinions vary on the NSA, but they got started, 68 years ago, today.

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This Day In History, November 4th, 2020 - "They're Watching You" - Signals AZ

from the build-them-or-we'll-just-build-our-own dept

It's been more than a half-decade since it made headlines, but the NSA's hardware manipulation programs never went away. These programs -- exposed by the Snowden leaks -- involved the NSA compromising network hardware, either through interception of physical shipments or by the injection of malicious code.

One major manufacturer -- Cisco -- was righteously angered when leaked documents showed some of its hardware being "interdicted" by NSA personnel. It went directly to Congress to complain. The complaint changed nothing. (Cisco, however, changed its shipping processes.) But even though the furor has died down, these programs continue pretty much unhindered by Congressional oversight or public outcry.

One legislator hasn't forgotten about the NSA's hardware-focused efforts. Senator Ron Wyden is still demanding the NSA answer questions about these programs and give him details about "backdoors" in private companies' computer equipment. The DOJ and FBI may be making a lot of noise about encryption backdoor mandates, but one federal agency is doing something about it. And it has been for years.

Not only has the NSA installed its own backdoors in intercepted devices, it has been working with tech companies to develop special access options in networking equipment. This allows the agency to more easily slurp up communications and internet traffic in bulk. Senator Wyden wants answers.

The agency developed new rules for such practices after the Snowden leaks in order to reduce the chances of exposure and compromise, three former intelligence officials told Reuters. But aides to Senator Ron Wyden, a leading Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, say the NSA has stonewalled on providing even the gist of the new guidelines.

Secret encryption back doors are a threat to national security and the safety of our families its only a matter of time before foreign hackers or criminals exploit them in ways that undermine American national security, Wyden told Reuters. The government shouldnt have any role in planting secret back doors in encryption technology used by Americans.

No one knows what's in the guidelines and whether they forbid the NSA from backdooring hardware or software sold to US buyers. All the NSA is willing to say is it's trying to patch things up with domestic tech vendors by, um, giving them more stuff to patch up.

The agency declined to say how it had updated its policies on obtaining special access to commercial products. NSA officials said the agency has been rebuilding trust with the private sector through such measures as offering warnings about software flaws.

This is a welcome change after years of exploit hoarding. But there's no reason to believe the NSA isn't holding useful flaws back until they've outlived their exploitability. As for the built-in backdoors, the NSA refuses to provide any details. It won't even answer to its oversight. And if it won't do that, it really needs to stop saying things about "robust oversight" every time more surveillance abuses by the agency are exposed.

There's more to this than potential domestic surveillance. Any flaw deliberately introduced in hardware and software can be exploited by anyone who discovers it, not just the agency that requested it. The threat isn't theoretical. It's already happened. In 2015, it was discovered that malicious hackers had exploited what appeared to be a built-in flaw to intercept and decrypt VPN traffic running through Juniper routers. This appeared to be a byproduct of the NSA's "Tailored Access Operations." While Juniper has never acknowledged building a backdoor for the NSA, the circumstantial evidence points in No Such Agency's direction.

[Juniper] acknowledged to security researcher Andy Isaacson in 2016 that it had installed Dual EC [Dual Elliptic Curve] as part of a customer requirement, according to a previously undisclosed contemporaneous message seen by Reuters. Isaacson and other researchers believe that customer was a U.S. government agency, since only the U.S. is known to have insisted on Dual EC elsewhere.

This is the danger of relying on deliberately introduced flaws to gather intelligence or obtain evidence. Broken is broken and broken tools are toys for malicious individuals, which includes state-sponsored hackers deployed by this nation's enemies. It's kind of shitty to claim you're in the national security business when you're out there asking companies to add more attack vectors to their products.

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Filed Under: 4th amendment, backdoors, nsa, ron wyden, surveillanceCompanies: cisco, juniper

Read more from the original source:
Senator Wyden Wants To Know If The NSA Is Still Demanding Tech Companies Build Backdoors Into Their Products - Techdirt