Amul

Amul ("priceless" in Sanskrit. The brand name "Amul," from the Sanskrit "Amoolya," (meaning Precious) was suggested by a quality control expert in Anand.),[1] formed in 1946, is a dairy cooperative in India. It is a brand name managed by an apex cooperative organisation, Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF), which today is jointly owned by some 2.8 million milk producers in Gujarat, India.[2]

History
The india District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union was registered on December 14, 1946 as a response to exploitation of marginal milk producers by traders or agents of existing dairies in the small town named Anand (in Kaira District of Gujarat).[7] Milk Producers had to travel long distances to deliver milk to the only dairy, the Polson Dairy in Anand. Often milk went sour as producers had to physically carry the milk in individual containers, especially in the summer season. These agents arbitrarily decided the prices depending on the production and the season. Milk is a commodity that has to be collected twice a day from each cow/buffalo. In winter, the producer was either left with surplus / unsold milk or had to sell it at very low prices. Moreover, the government at that time had given monopoly rights to Polson Dairy (around that time Polson was the most well known butter brand in the country) to collect milk from Anand and supply it to Bombay city in turn. India ranked nowhere amongst milk producing countries in the world because of its limitations in 1946 British Raj. Angered by the unfair and manipulative trade practices, the farmers of Kaira District approached Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (who later became the first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister of free India) under the leadership of the local farmer leader Tribhuvandas Patel. Sardar Patel advised the farmers to form a Cooperative and supply milk directly to the Bombay Milk Scheme instead of selling it to Polson (who did the same but gave low prices to the producers).[8] He sent Morarji Desai (who later became Prime Minister of India) to organize the farmers. In 1946, the farmers of the area went on a milk strike refusing to be further oppressed. Thus the Kaira District Cooperative was established to collect and process milk in the District of Kaira in 1946. Milk collection was also decentralized, as most producers were marginal farmers who were in a position to deliver 1-2 litres of milk per day. Village level cooperatives were established to organize the marginal milk producers in each of these villages. The Cooperative was further developed and managed by Dr. V Kurien along with Shri H M Dalaya. The first modern dairy of the Kaira Union was established at Anand. Indigenous research and development and technology development at the Cooperative had led to the successful production of skimmed milk powder from buffalo milk the first time on a commercial scale anywhere in the world.[citation needed]

The success of the dairy co-operative movement spread rapidly in Gujarat. Within a short span five other district unions Mehsana, Banaskantha, Baroda, Sabarkantha and Surat were organized. In order to combine forces and expand the market while saving on advertising and avoid a situation where milk cooperatives would compete against each other it was decided to set up an apex marketing body of dairy cooperative unions in Gujarat. Thus, in 1973, the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation was established. The Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers Union Ltd. which had established the brand name Amul in 1955 decided to hand over the brand name to GCMMF (AMUL). Dr. Verghese Kurien, the World Food Prize and the Magsaysay Award winner, was the architect of Indias White Revolution, which helped India emerge as the largest milk producer in the world. Impressed with the development of dairy cooperatives in Kaira District and its success, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Prime Minister of India during his visit to Anand in 1964, asked Dr. V Kurien to replicate the Anand type dairy cooperatives all over India. Thus, the National Dairy Developed Board was formed and Operation Flood Programme was launched for replication of the Amul Model all over India.

The Three-tier "Amul Model"

The Amul Model is a three-tier cooperative structure. This structure consists of a Dairy Cooperative Society at the village level affiliated to a Milk Union at the District level which in turn is further federated into a Milk Federation at the State level. The above three-tier structure was set up in order to delegate the various functions, milk collection is done at the Village Dairy Society, Milk Procurement & Processing at the District Milk Union and Milk & Milk Products Marketing at the State Milk Federation. This helps in eliminating not only internal competition but also ensuring that economies of scale is achieved. As the above structure was first evolved at Amul in Gujarat and thereafter replicated all over the country under the Operation Flood Programme, it is known as the Amul Model or Anand Pattern of Dairy Cooperatives. Responsible for Marketing of Milk & Milk Products Responsible for Procurement & Processing of Milk Responsible for Collection of Milk Responsible for Milk Production

Village Dairy Cooperative Society (VDCS) The milk producers of a village, having surplus milk after own consumption, come together and form a Village Dairy Cooperative Society (VDCS). The Village Dairy Cooperative is the primary society under the three-tier structure. It has membership of milk producers of the village and is governed by an elected Management Committee consisting of 9 to 12 elected representatives of the milk producers based on the principle of one member, one vote. The village society further appoints a Secretary (a paid

employee and member secretary of the Management Committee) for management of the day-to-day functions. It also employs various people for assisting the Secretary in accomplishing his / her daily duties. The main functions of the VDCS are as follows:

Collection of surplus milk from the milk producers of the village & payment based on quality & quantity Providing support services to the members like Veterinary First Aid, Artificial Insemination services, cattle-feed sales, mineral mixture sales, fodder & fodder seed sales, conducting training on Animal Husbandry & Dairying, etc.

3.2 District Cooperative Milk Producers Union (Milk Union) The Village Societies of a District (ranging from 75 to 1653 per Milk Union in Gujarat) having surplus milk after local sales come together and form a District Milk Union. The Milk Union is the second tier under the three-tier structure. It has membership of Village Dairy Societies of the District and is governed by a Board of Directors consisting of 9 to 18 elected representatives of the Village Societies. The Milk Union further appoints a professional Managing Director (paid employee and member secretary of the Board) for management of the day-to-day functions. It also employs various people for assisting the Managing Director in accomplishing his / her daily duties. The main functions of the Milk Union are as follows:

Procurement of milk from the Village Dairy Societies of the District Arranging transportation of raw milk from the VDCS to the Milk Union.

.3 State Cooperative Milk Federation (Federation) The Milk Unions of a State are federated into a State Cooperative Milk Federation. The Federation is the apex tier under the three-tier structure. It has membership of all the cooperative Milk Unions of the State and is governed by a Board of Directors consisting of one elected representative of each Milk Union. The State Federation further appoints a Managing Director (paid employee and member secretary of the Board) for management of the day-to-day functions. It also employs various people for assisting the Managing Director in accomplishing his daily duties. The main functions of the Federation are as follows:

Marketing of milk & milk products processed / manufactured by Milk Unions. Establish distribution network for marketing of milk & milk products.

Impact of the "Amul Model"

The effects of Operation Flood Programme are more appraised by the World Bank in its recent evaluation report. It has been proved that an investment of Rs. 20 billion over 20 years under Operation Flood Programme in 70s & 80s has contributed in increase of Indias milk production by 40 Million Metric Tonne (MMT) i.e. from about 20 MMT in pre- Operation Flood period to more than 60 MMT at the end of Operation flood Programme. Thus, an incremental return of Rs. 400 billion annually have been generated by an investment of Rs. 20 billion over a period of 20 years. This has been the most beneficial project funded by the World Bank anywhere in the World. One can continue to see the effect of these efforts as Indias milk production continues to increase and now stands at 90 MMT. Despite this fourfold increase in milk production, there has not been drop in the prices of milk during the period and has continued to grow. Due to this movement, the countrys milk production tripled between the years 1971 to 1996. Similarly, the per capita milk consumption doubled from 111 gms per day in 1973 to 222 gms per day in 2000. Thus, these cooperatives have not just been instrumental in economic development of the rural society of India but it also has provided vital ingredient for improving health & nutritional requirement of the Indian society. Very few industries of India have such parallels of development encompassing such a large population. These dairy cooperatives have been responsible in uplifting the social & economic status of the women folk in particular as women are basically involved in dairying while the men are busy with their agriculture. This has also provided a definite source of income to the women leading to their economic emancipation. The three-tier Amul Model has been instrumental in bringing about the White Revolution in the country. As per the assessment report of the World Bank on the Impact of Dairy Development in India, the Anand Pattern has demonstrated the following benefits:

The role of dairying in poverty reduction The fact that rural development involves more than agricultural production The value of national ownership in development The beneficial effects of higher incomes in relieving the worst aspects of poverty The capacity of dairying to create jobs The capacity of dairying to benefit the poor at low cost

Achievements of the "Amul Movement"

1. The phenomenal growth of milk production in India from 20 million MT to 100 million MT in a span of just 40 years has been made possible only because of the dairy cooperative movement. This has propelled India to emerge as the largest milk producing country in the World today. 2. The dairy cooperative movement has also encouraged Indian dairy farmers to keep more animals, which has resulted in the 500 million cattle & buffalo population in the country the largest in the World.

3. The dairy cooperative movement has garnered a large base of milk producers, with their membership today boasting of more than 13 million member families. 4. The dairy cooperative movement has spread across the length and breadth of the country, covering more than 125,000 villages of 180 Districts in 22 States.

Products
Amul's product range includes milk powders, milk, butter, ghee, cheese, Masti Dahi, Yoghurt, Buttermilk chocolate, ice cream, cream, shrikhand, paneer, gulab jamuns, flavoured milk, basundi, Nutramul brand and others. In January 2006, Amul plans to launch India's first sports drink Stamina, which will be competing with Coca Cola's Powerade and PepsiCo's Gatorade.[12] In August 2007, Amul introduced Kool Koko, a chocolate milk brand extending its product offering in the milk products segment. Other Amul brands are Amul Kool, a low calorie thirst quenching drink; Masti Butter Milk; Kool Cafe, ready to drink coffee and India's first sports drink Stamina. Amul's sugar-free Pro-Biotic Ice-cream won The International Dairy Federation Marketing Award for 2007.[cit

Windows 98
On 25 June 1998, Microsoft released Windows 98 (codenamed Memphis). It included new hardware drivers and better support for the FAT32 file system which allows support for disk partitions larger than the 2 GB maximum accepted by Windows 95. The USB support in Windows 98 is far superior to the token, unreliable support provided by the OEM editions of Windows 95. It also controversially integrated the Internet Explorer browser into the Windows GUI and Windows Explorer file manager, prompting the opening of the United States v. Microsoft case, dealing with the question of whether Microsoft was abusing its hold on the PC operating system market to unfairly compete with companies such as Netscape. In 1999, Microsoft released Windows 98 Second Edition, an interim release. One of the more notable new features was the addition of Internet Connection Sharing, which was a form of network address translation, allowing several machines on a LAN (Local Area Network) to share a single Internet connection. Second Edition was also much easier to use and much smoother than the first edition of Windows 98. Hardware support through device drivers was increased. Many minor problems present in the original Windows 98 were found and fixed which make it, according to many, the most stable release of Windows 9x familyto the extent that commentators used to say that Windows 98's beta

version was more stable than Windows 95's final (gamma) version.[7]

Windows XP
In 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP (code named "Whistler"). The merging of the Windows NT/2000 and Windows 95/98/Me lines was finally achieved with Windows XP. Windows XP uses the Windows NT 5.1 kernel, marking the entrance of the Windows NT core to the consumer market, to replace the aging 16/32-bit branch. The initial release met with considerable criticism, particularly in the area of security, leading to the release of three major Service Packs. Windows XP SP1 was released in September 2002, SP2 came out in August 2004 and SP3 came out in April 2008. Service Pack 2 provided significant improvements and encouraged widespread adoption of XP among both home and business users. Windows XP lasted longer as Microsoft's flagship operating system than any other version of Windows, from 2001 to January 30, 2007, when it was succeeded by Windows Vista. Windows XP is available in a number of versions:

Windows XP Home Edition, for home desktops and laptops - lacked features such as joining Active Directory Domain, Remote Desktop Server and Internet Information Services Server. o Windows XP Home Edition N, as above, but without a default installation of Windows Media Player, as mandated by a European Union ruling Windows XP Professional, for business and power users contained all features in Home Edition. o Windows XP Professional N, as above, but without a default installation of Windows Media Player, as mandated by a European Union ruling Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE), released in October 2002 for desktops and notebooks with an emphasis on home entertainment. Contained all features offered in Windows XP Professional and the Windows Media Center. Subsequent versions are the same but have an updated Windows Media Center. o Windows XP Media Center Edition 2003 o Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 o Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, released on October 12, 2004. Included Windows XP Service Pack 2, the Royale Windows Theme and joining a Windows Active Directory Domain is disabled. Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, for tablet PCs o Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 Windows XP Embedded, for embedded systems Windows XP Starter Edition, for new computer users in developing countries Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, released on 25 April 2005 for home and workstation systems utilizing 64-bit processors based on the x86-64 instruction set developed by AMD as AMD64; Intel calls their version Intel 64 Windows XP 64-bit Edition, is a version for Intel's Itanium line of processors; maintains 32-bit compatibility solely through a software emulator. It is roughly

analogous to Windows XP Professional in features. It was discontinued in September 2005 when the last vendor of Itanium workstations stopped shipping Itanium systems marketed as "Workstations". o Windows XP 64-bit Edition 2003, based on the Windows NT 5.2 codebase.

Carputer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Carputer is the predominant term used to describe a category of mobile computer designed or modified to specifically be installed and run in automobiles. Originally these were based on industrial personal computer technology, but as smartphones and PDAs have become more powerful, and have included useful technologies like GPS and Bluetooth, they have become the predominant base platform for developing carputers. Many do-it-your-selfers have built carputers from laptops and small form factor computers like the Mac Mini. The recent popularity of carputers has caused the creation of more advanced units that use touch screen interfaces, integrate with vehicles via OBD-II link, and offer a variety of other add-ons like rear-view cameras and GPS. It is now possible to find assembled carputers complete with wireless capabilities and built-in microphones for sale on the internet.

Personal digital assistant

A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant,[1][2] is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet. A PDA has an electronic visual display, enabling it to include a web browser, but some newer models also have audio capabilities, enabling them to be used as mobile phones or portable media players. Many PDAs can access the Internet, intranets or extranets via Wi-Fi or Wireless Wide Area Networks. Many PDAs employ touchscreen technology. The term PDA was first used on January 7, 1992 by Apple Computer CEO John Sculley at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, referring to the Apple Newton. In 1996, Nokia introduced the first mobile phone with full PDA functionality, the 9000 Communicator, which grew to become the world's best-selling PDA. The Communicator spawned a new category of mobile phones: the "PDA phone", now called "smartphone". Today, almost all PDAs are smartphones. Over 150 million smartphones are sold each year, while "stand-alone" PDAs without phone functionality sell only about 3 million units per year.[3]

A smartphone is a mobile phone that offers more advanced computing ability

and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone.[1] Smartphones and feature phones may be thought of as handheld computers integrated with a mobile telephone, but while most feature phones are able to run applications based on platforms such as Java ME,[2] a smartphone allows the user to run and multitask applications that are native to the underlying hardware. Smartphones run complete operating system software providing a platform for application developers.[3] Thus, they combine the functions of a camera phone and a personal digital assistant (PDA). According to an Olswang report in early 2011, smartphones are experiencing accelerating rates of adoption: 22% of UK consumers already have a smartphone, with this percentage rising to 31% amongst 24-35 year olds.[4] Growth in demand for advanced mobile devices boasting powerful processors, abundant memory, larger screens, and open operating systems has outpaced the rest of the mobile phone market for several years.[5] According to a study by ComScore, over 45.5 million people in the United States owned smartphones in 2010 out of 234 million total subscribers.[6] Despite the large increase in smartphone sales in the last few years, smartphone shipments only make up 20% of total handset shipments, as of the first half of 2010.[7] In March 2011 Berg Insight reported data that showed global smartphone shipments increased 74% from 2009 to 2010.[8] A tablet computer, or simply tablet, is a complete mobile computer, larger than a mobile phone or personal digital assistant, integrated into a flat touch screen and primarily operated by touching the screen. It often uses an onscreen virtual keyboard or a digital pen rather than a physical keyboard.[1][2] The term may also apply to a "convertible" notebook computer whose keyboard is attached to the touchscreen by a swivel joint or slide joint so that the screen may lie with its back upon the keyboard, covering it and exposing only the screen for touch operation. An ultra-mobile PC[1] (ultra-mobile personal computer or UMPC) is a small form factor version of a pen computer, a new class of laptop whose specifications were launched by Microsoft and Intel in spring 2006. Sony had already made a first attempt in this direction in 2004 with its Vaio U series, which was however only sold in Asia. UMPCs are smaller than subnotebooks, have a TFT display measuring (diagonally) about 12.7 to 17.8 cm, and are operated like tablet PCs using a touchscreen or a stylus. There is no clear boundary between subnotebooks and ultra-mobile PCs. The first-generation UMPCs were simple PCs running Linux or an adapted version of Microsoft's tablet PC operating system. With the announcement of the UMPC, Microsoft dropped the licensing requirement that tablet PCs must support proximity sensing of the stylus, which Microsoft termed "hovering". Second-generation UMPCs use less electricity and can therefore be used longer (up to five hours) and also support Windows Vista.

Originally codenamed Project Origami, the project was launched in 2006 as a collaboration between Microsoft, Intel, Samsung, and a few others. Despite prediction of the demise of UMPC device category according to CNET[2] and the comparatively dominant sale of netbooks, the UMPC category appears to continue to be in existence and may possibly see a rise in demand[3] as a media consumption device as evidenced by the introduction of Apple iPad, Google Android (and the upcoming Chrome OS), BlackBerry Tablet OS, Nokia's upcoming MeeGo and HP's upcoming webOS 2.0.