Of course, there is more than one reason why the success of GCMMF is both unique and critical, particularly in the Indian environment. In a country where farmers have been the most neglected stakeholders, GCMMF has shown how, with the right intent and vision, a farmer cooperative can function like any other professionally run corporation, compete in this fiercely competitive FMCG market, keep operational costs low, and yet succeed and set up an example, which is completely unheard of. The federation’s success also goes on to show how – in a country where ageless apathy of the Indian farmer is a reality and none, including the government, has bothered to make them partners of growth and success – an organization solely run by farmers can not only sustain but also succeed and plan to achieve more, making life more meaningful for the staggering 26 lakh farmers associated with it. At a point in time where farmer suicides across the nation is a regular feature, and adding to their apathy is the current spree of land grabbing, GCMMF’s achievement indicates that in this market economy too, it is possible to build a humane organisation and take development to the last level of the social hierarchy.

Truly, GCMMF – a co-operative revolution that was envisaged by Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel in 1946 – has come a long way. With humble beginnings with two cooperatives and 250 litres of milk procurement per day, it has grown to 13 cooperatives and an average of an incredible 6.75 million kilograms of milk procurement per day.

In fact, the entire credit of making India the largest producer of milk (from a milk deficit nation, if one remembers) goes to this organisation and its iconoclastic leader, Varghese Kurien (also known as the father of this white revolution), who gave birth to the brand Amul. India, as such, has one of the largest livestock in the world with 16% of the world’s cattle, 57% of buffaloes, 17% of goats and 5% of sheep. But what is close to miraculous is the federation’s brilliant success in converting this livestock advantage and translating the same to thousands of farming households in Gujarat. And by doing so, they have been able to productively engage the rural poor and thus create an impact in their overall socio-economic condition. The impact of the federation has been such that studies have proved that the general standard of living and quality of life of associated farmers are remarkably better when compared to other regions in the country.

Among other things, another notable aspect of GCMMF is their success in one of the most ‘relinquished’ sectors of our economy, namely agriculture. At a period where the capital formation in agriculture has been constantly shrinking, what with investments from both government and corporations not forthcoming, and even global markets, particularly the developed ones, leaving no stone unturned to protect their farmers, the federation has successfully shown that it (aka, agriculture) is not only prudent business, but a hugely profitable one for that matter. Almost a decade back in one of my books, ‘Planning India’, I had proved why it makes economic sense to invest in agriculture and allied industries particularly in the Indian environment. The argument went – and holds more strongly now – that not only do we have a rural advantage (as a majority of our population is based in rural hinterlands, ergo, providing productive engagement becomes easier), but also that agriculture and allied industries have a relatively much lower incremental-capital-output ratio as compared to other industries, whereby returns could be generated even with relatively smaller dosage of investments, provided products are of quality and marketed well. But thanks to our government, we have completely failed in nurturing this advantage. Forget nurturing the agri-advantage, what has been most unfortunate is the kind of pathetic market environment that has been created, whereby half a litre of sweetened water in a pet bottle sells for Rs.20, but for a litre of milk, consumers nonchalantly bargain even to pay even Rs. 18. All that apart, what Amul has done is something that is completely irreplaceable and irrevocable, and that is that it has won the trust of consumers. In a country where this factor is grossly deficient, Amul has given us the same in abundance. And that is why when Amul achieves, it is not just an organisation’s achievement, or even the achievement of those 26 lac associated farmers, but truly, a national achievement! The taste of India? Oh yes…

Kartik
http://www.articlesbase.com/management-articles/when-amul-achieves-it-calls-for-a-national-celebration-prof-arindam-chaudhuri-710266.html

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Product Specification :

ISBN :0831800070
Format :Hardcover: 952 pages
Publisher :Amer Law Inst
Date Published :12/01/2007
List price :199

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There comes a point in every person’s life where it is appropriate and prudent to begin planning for the post death division of property and assets. It is necessary to anticipate and plan for the quagmire that is probate. For many facing the task of planning their estate, the mere idea of paying an estate planning attorney can be painful and many simply choose to forego such a task by using cheap or free online forms. While choosing the easy way out may save you money now, it will cost your estate significantly more in the future. The pitfalls of cheap online wills and trusts writing programs are many.

The premise is simple enough. You want a means of distributing your property after your demise but you do not want to pay more than necessary. The problem is dead serious. On their face, online wills and trust programs appear to be a bargain. You can prepare your own will or create a trust for less than $20.00, a tiny fraction of the cost of a good estate planning attorney. Unfortunately for your family though, the inherent inadequacies of such services are not discovered until after your death. Any remaining heirs will be forced to pick up the remains of your estate and force it through probate, taking substantial amounts of both time and money. The money spent today on a good estate planner will save your estate exponentially more in the future.

Numerous amounts of problems arise when deciding to use online wills and trusts services. Most often these services do not take into account specific state law regarding the administration of probate or trusts. Only an attorney in your state can effectively advise you regarding the various jurisdictional issues that may affect many of your decisions regarding your estate. Many states have varying requirements regarding the number of witnesses that must attest to the creation of a will. Failure to comply with state requirements regarding the order of attestation and witnesses will sometimes lead a court to completely invalidate your will as a means to distribute wealth and property. See, Stevens v. Casdorph, 508 S.E.2d 610 (1998). By refusing to extend the Doctrine of Substantial Compliance, many state courts, like the Casdorph court, have stressed the importance of proper will execution. Online will services do not take into account the varying requirements among states. Only a skilled estate planning attorney can advise you regarding the proper methods to ensure that your will is upheld during probate. Failure to comply with these requirements will force all property through intestacy, which is where the state decides who gets what. Moreover, intestacy is not something that the online services will tell you about. Additionally, the plain meaning rule, which instructs court’s to look only at the plain meaning of words contained in the will, stresses the importance of obtaining professional advice. Using an incorrect word or clause can dramatically alter the effect of the will, invalidating the very purpose of its creation.

Trusts are often used as a tool to avoid the probate system completely, and many online services use this very idea as a marketing tool. There are many kinds of trusts used in estate planning (i.e. revocable, irrevocable, discretionary, spendthrifts, marital, special needs and testamentary trusts, to name a few) and only an experienced attorney has the knowledge and ability to advise you regarding the proper form of trust for your desired purpose. In addition, online services do not address the various issues faced when creating a trust. As trustee, beneficiary or settlor, there are various rights and obligations associated with each party. Violation of any imposed obligation or duty can serve to completely invalidate the trust document itself. In order to properly address your needs, an estate planning attorney considers all relevant factors and will recommend the best option for you.

Online services fail take into account all available means of wealth transfers and do not begin to address all pertinent issues, such as tax impacts, ease of administration, imposed rights and duties and the potential pitfalls. Only a qualified attorney can ensure that your estate does not find itself stuck in the murky and troublesome world of probate and intestacy. Wise planning now could spare your family the unpleasant pain of probate in the future.

Michael Goldstein, Esq.
http://www.articlesbase.com/affiliate-programs-articles/the-pitfalls-of-online-wills-76644.html

Your Toronto real estate agent should have a list of standard conditions to include in your offer. The more experienced agents will also have a set of special conditions that will make the deal a little bit better for you.

Although these conditions are included in the initial offer it does not mean the seller will accept them. But its always worth a try.

Listed below are just some standard conditions that you will want to include in your offer.

Building Inspection

Building inspections should always be done prior to purchasing a Toronto property.

In general Toronto is very accepting of building inspection conditions in offers. The typical length of the home inspection condition is three days.

Have an inspector lined up before a particular time frame in the offer is committed to. Make sure to have extra time once the inspection has been completed to review the results before the condition expires.

Financing

Be sure to get prequalified and preapproved before arriving at the offer stage.

Make sure to also look over any commitment documentation you may have received from a mortgage broker or lender. Discuss with them any restrictions or limitations that may be attached to the mortgage.

You may not need to, but be sure that if you are not completely satisfied that your mortgage has been secured then it is a good idea to include an adequate financing condition.

Conditions on the Sale of Your Current Property

If your property has not had many showings, or has been on the market for quite some time, then you may want to make the deal conditional upon the sale of your current property

Contingencies

Be reasonable if you want your offer taken seriously. Trust your instincts but be realistic.

Balance of Terms and Clauses

Items up for negotiation include the irrevocable period, chattels to be included in the sale, and the closing date of the transaction.

DEPOSIT

How Much is Needed for a deposit on a Toronto Home?

The typical deposit amount in Toronto is about five percent, but generally you only need to put down enough to assure the vendor that your intent to purchase is serious.

If you are able to put more up front it can put you at an advantage. Larger deposits tend to impress the vendor and may get you a slightly lower price in the end.

Is My Deposit Safe?

The risks in Toronto are very low as the province of Ontario mandates all deposit funds be put into the brokers trust account within two days.

To ensure the safety of your deposit funds make sure that your cheques is payable to the real estate companys name, In Trust. These funds are tightly regulated with very strict laws.

What Happens to the Interest?

If specified in the Agreement of Purchase and Sale, the funds will be deposited in an interest bearing instrument within the trust account and any interest accrued will be for the buyers benefit.

When Must the Deposit Money be Available?

The Agreement of Purchase and Sale will say that the deposit must be submitted either upon acceptance or herewith the offer.

NOTE, DEPOSIT FUNDS ARE A LEGAL PURCHASER OBLIGATION.

If the deposit funds are not immediately available the vendor that the legal right to terminate the transaction.

Another option to consider is a two stage deposit if you cannot access the total of your proposed deposit funds.

Evan Sage
http://www.articlesbase.com/real-estate-articles/tips-on-making-an-offer-on-a-toronto-home-conditions-and-deposit-751798.html

Do you worry about whether your aging parents have their “affairs in order?” You should. After all, you’re the one who will have to pay unnecessary taxes and endure time-consuming court procedures if your parents don’t have an effective estate plan. Without some forethought on their part and your part, you could be facing a lot of wasted time and money in addition to a lot of frustration. All of the waste and frustration can easily be avoided.

Experts predict $10 trillion will be transferred in the next two decades from parents to baby boomers. The average inheritance will be $200,000. The parents have spent all of their lives saving to leave something to their family. For most boomers, their inheritance will be the largest single financial transaction most they will ever handle. Depending upon the planning done today, the amount actually transferred could be doubled.

During the final years of a parent’s life, the family can lose a lot of the estate in rest home expenses or legal fees. Too often the family has to get a court order to have a parent declared incompetent and get permission to manage their affairs. After both parents die, probate will eat 2-5% of the estate, and estate taxes can take another 37-50%. Additionally, the estate mess can take many days of time out of the boomer’s busy life. Not only money is lost, but life styles often have to be altered just to work through the mess.

Good planning is worth every effort made and every dime spent, not just

in the money and timesavings, but also in the peace of mind it will give to both the parents and the kids. Boomers need to help get the planning done. However, discussing money, especially in this context, is very unpleasant for most families. The kids don’t want to appear grabby or look like they are just waiting for their parents to die so they can get their inheritance. The parents don’t want to face their own mortality, and they don’t want the kids nosing in their financial affairs. The bottom line is nothing gets done.

The sooner this discussion takes place the better. Everybody has to recognize that planning is good business and financial management. The parents have an obligation to take care of it for the children’s sake, and the children have an obligation to help their aging parents. The discussion will take place at some point. The worst time to have the discussion is when a parent is in intensive care.

The following six tips will help protect a parent’s hard-earned money, transfer the maximum amount of inheritance to the family, and ease the family’s legal and emotional burden.

1. Review current wills and/or living trusts. Do the documents reflect the parent’s current wishes? Have there been changes in family relationships, such as divorces, marriages, or new grandchildren?

2. Look into living trusts. All wills that transfer property must go through a court process called probate. Probate eats time and money – lots of both. Today, many families use living trusts to avoid probate, reduce legal fees, and pay the least possible taxes. Living trusts work well, provided they are handled properly during the parent’s life. Is the living trust being used properly?

3. Dodge family disputes. Make sure either the will or trust distribute personal items with a list describing the item and the intended recipient. Most states allows distribution of personal items through a “personal letter,” which is just a list of items and their intended recipient. The letter is not part of the will until death, and then it essentially becomes part of the will. Thus, the letter can be rewritten

or updated as often as desired without a trip back to the attorney. The letter must be “authorized” by the individual’s will in order for it to be effective. If specific distribution of personal items like the shot gun, wedding ring, and the family stamp collection is made in the letter, family fights will be avoided.

4. Split trusts to save taxes. If mom and dad have over $1.5 million in their estate, including the life insurance, retirement money, and business, they should either have an individual trust for each or have a trust that “splits” into two trusts when the first one of them dies. This shields up to $3 million from estate taxes that eat away at a family’s wealth.

5. Protect life insurance. Life insurance is taxed. The family doesn’t have to pay income tax on the money they get, but the money is taxed in the departed loved one’s estate and the IRS will routinely take up to 50% of it. A living trust can help in smaller estates, and an irrevocable insurance trust can totally eliminate the tax in bigger estates.

6. Solve the incompetence problem. Use a durable power of attorney to transfer power to someone when the parent can no longer take care of their own business affairs. The power of attorney has to have language in it that states it will endure the incompetence of the individual making the power of attorney.

W ith the power of attorney, there isn’t any need to have the parent declared incompetent and have a court appoint a guardian. It removes a lot of rustration.

The parents need to soften up and realize that estate planning and asset protection is something they need to talk about and be taking care of. If they cannot do it for themselves, they need to realize that their children are the ones that they have to turn to. The boomers need to take their parents’ estate planning very seriously. The boomers have a lot at stake – a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of frustration.

Attorney Lee R. Phillips is a nationally recognized expert in the field of finance, estate planning, and asset protection. Lee is licensed to practice law before the United States Supreme Court & also holds licenses in insurance and securities. Lee is a dynamic speaker & has spoken to over a half million people throughout United States, Canada & the Pacific Rim helping them understand the law.

Lee R. Phillips
http://www.articlesbase.com/law-articles/baby-boomers-will-they-be-able-to-afford-their-parents-82694.html

Last December, the White House Conference on Aging held its first meeting in 10 years. The conference addressed the growing number of baby boomers reaching retirement and highlighted how a large number of them are contemplating volunteering.

More and more retirees are volunteering for charities and non-profits in an effort to contribute to their community and stay active and healthy. Even the Peace Corps has seen a large increase in the number of older volunteers. But there’s a way you can contribute to society without going overseas, and it’s called a charitable trust. It has become an increasingly popular way to contribute to charity as well as save money on taxes.

Trusts, simply put, are a way for you to transfer assets and property into one solitary group. With a charitable trust, the assets and property contained within it provide an income for you during your lifetime. After you pass away, the remaining assets are given to the charity within the trust. There are two major forms of charitable trusts: charitable remainder trusts, and charitable lead trusts. Charitable trusts have a host of other benefits, as well as a few drawbacks, but here are the basics.

Charitable Remainder Trust (CRT)

A charitable remainder trust has two beneficiaries. In most cases, one of them is you (and possibly your spouse), and the other is the qualified charity or tax-exempt organization you plan on supporting. During your lifetime you receive a set percentage of income from the charitable trust. Once you pass away, the charity then receives whatever is left over. (If your spouse was receiving income as well, he or she will continue receiving it until passing away.)

One of the benefits of a charitable remainder trust is that you may be able to become the trustee and make decisions about the assets within the trust, including investment choices and other important matters. Unfortunately, charitable remainder trusts are irrevocable, but you may be able to change the beneficiaries when you wish. This allows you some degree of personal freedom, especially if you find a charity or non-profit that you feel is more deserving of your gift.

With a charitable remainder trust you get to choose the amount of income you’ll be paid from the trust on an annual basis. According to the IRS, every year you must distribute at least 5% of the value of the trust’s assets. Depending upon the type of trust, you can value the assets for distribution purposes at the time the trust is funded or on an annual basis. Some beneficiaries choose to take more, but it’s generally recommended to take no more than 10%.

All realized profit from investment sales within the trust is not subject to capital gains tax. This is because you are benefiting a charity. Charitable trusts are especially helpful when it comes to highly appreciated assets with limited income-producing potential. By avoiding the capital gains tax, more money goes to your charity instead of Uncle Sam. You also get an income tax deduction because your CRT supports a charity. Please note, however, that income from trust assets is subject to federal income taxes.

Charitable Lead Trust (CLT)

A charitable lead trust is basically the same concept as a charitable remainder trust, but in reverse. With a CLT, a charity receives a certain percentage of income every year. Once you pass away, whoever you’ve named as the beneficiary (a spouse or children) receives the assets that remain. A CLT offers the same advantages of a remainder trust, but the roles are reversed.

Both charitable remainder trusts and charitable lead trusts offer a variety of advantages over traditional estate planning tools. Above all, they allow you to give back to society while still taking advantage of tax deductions and exclusion from capital gains taxes.

There are numerous details and complex steps to take when looking at a charitable trust as an estate planning option. You should always find a trusted financial professional to help guide you through the process. They can usually refer you to a known estate planning attorney who will also help. Like all estate planning options, trusts have their pros and cons, but they’re certainly a good option worth considering if you wish to save on taxes, support a good cause, and feel great about it in the process.

Robert Valentine
http://www.articlesbase.com/finance-articles/estate-planning-supporting-a-noble-cause-70021.html