ICT has potential to make significant inroads in a traditional agrarian economy like India. Indian agro-sector has been exploiting the benefits to ICT. Innovative ICT application platforms are being created by private sector players in conjunction with local farmers. One such private initiative has been by ITC Ltd in the state of Madhya Pradesh. It has helped the farmers in many ways, such as developing of local leadership, shared ownership of the assets created in this initiative, access to the latest knowledge for the agro-sector, sustainable income levels and skill development for productivity improvement. This initiative from ITC[1] has become a benchmark today in the ICT initiatives in agro-sector. Several best practices can be learned from this initiative, namely:
· ease of replicability and scalability
· customization to meet the specific local needs and
· organizational commitment.

E-CHOUPAL CONCEPT

e-choupal is a Hindi word which means “village meeting place”. Market is a meeting place where vendors and customers come together to do transactions. e-choupal is a virtual market place where farmers can transact directly with a processor and can realize better price for their produce. e-choupal has the advantages of the market but spans very large varieties of vendors and customers. Geographical distances do not restrict participation in the e-choupal. The main disadvantage of conventional market is that information asymmetry is inherent in the market where as e-choupal provides for transparent transactions. This enables the participation of smaller as well as larger players. Elimination of some layers of intermediaries allows for larger share of profits to reach the lower end of value chain. The main attractiveness of e-choupal is that it can be used for connecting large producers/small producers and small users/large users, thereby eliminating the need for hierarchy of brokers. Internet is used as a low transaction cost backbone for communication. Physical delivery of produce to the processor is still done through the existing intermediaries. e-choupal does not attempt total elimination of intermediaries, as intermediaries are indispensable in economy like India where intermediaries are adding value to the every step of value chain at a low cost. Intermediaries have the expertise in storage, transportation, quality assessment and counter party risk reduction, which are difficult to replicate. e-Choupal provides farmers with all the market information and this helps them to become market oriented. In e-choupal intermediaries are leveraged but they are disintermediated from the market information flowing to the farmers.

The success of e-choupal has heralded a new era in the Indian agro-sector. The work needs to be carried forward and replicated in the other untapped areas. Creating business channels that can create a win-win situation both business and farming community has enormous economies of scope. Once a channel is created it could be used for many products and services as shown in this case study. The main reasons for the success of the platform have been the involvement of local farmers and maintenance of the rural IT network by the corporate entity.

Questions to be answered:

· What is the role of ICT in creating a successful market in Rural India?
· Explain the concept of E-choupal and its impact?

Coca-Cola India made a hat-trick by bagging the coveted Golden Peacock Award third year in a row for CSR. Of the four Golden Peacock Global Awards for Corporate Social Responsibility given at Lisbon in Portugal, Coca-Cola India once again bagged a special commendation for its contribution in India towards its efforts in community development. Some of the other recipients of the awards were The TATA Power Company Ltd, Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, IBM India Private Ltd, Hindalco Industries Limited etc.
Mr. Ola Ullsten, Former Prime Minister of Sweden , gave away the award in the presence of Dr Madhav Mehra, President World Council for Corporate Governance at the 5th Global Conference on Social Responsibility held in Portugal. This year the Conference was based on the theme - ""Profiting from your business by turning it into a cause. The prime objective of the conference was to demonstrate how social and environmental agenda have increasingly become the biggest competitive differentiators and help companies to generate profits by focusing on social and environmental causes.
The award's citation recognized Coca-Cola's contribution as ""Coca-Cola India has supported community programmes with a focus on education, health and water conservation. The Company has commissioned 400 rainwater harvesting systems, provided clean drinking water to more than 100 schools, supported school projects and driven reform in sustainable packaging, disaster relief and rehabilitation""
As a responsible corporate, Coca-Cola India has always placed high value on good citizenship. The company provides extensive support for community programs across the country, with a focus on education, health and water conservation. In the area of Water Conservation, Coca-Cola India has commissioned over 500 RWH structures with a recharge capacity of 500 crore liters in 20 states, touching over 1 million people. The Company also organized Health Camps in urban slum and rural areas in several parts of country, which benefited over 40000 women and children.
In the field of education, over 500 merit cum scholarships have been awarded to over 135,000 students from 116 Army Schools spread across the country. These scholarships catered to the educational needs of child for a year which included Fees, Books, Stationary and Uniforms. These scholarships were given to wards of non commissioned (85%) Army personnel (Jawans). Additionally, Coca-Cola India also established Rain Water Harvesting systems in all of 39 villages of SOS Children's villages to provide for water security to over 6000 children. The Company regularly supports several education and health initiatives in addition to Disaster Relief and Rehabilitation programs as and when required. Coca-Cola India awarded the Bombay Stock Exchange Award for Social and Corporate Governance 2009

Questions to be answered:

· What are the activities for which Coca cola was bestowed the above mentioned award?
· According to you to what extent do these activities play a major role in the development of the society and the growth of the company?

It was once recorded that a Jaguar left skid marks that were 290m in length. Assuming that the Jaguar skidded to a stop with a constant acceleration on -3.9m/s, determine the speed of the jaguar before it began to skid.
I have done this twice and I always get 0 for an answer...I figured that the final velocity is 0, the distance 290 and the acceleration -3.9...is this incorrect? I use the vf{squared}=vi{squared}+2ad equation...am i using the wrong one...or am i just calculating it incorrectly? Please help...I really don't like physics right now... =(