India’s milk pouch model appeals to Europe, Pakistan

April 22, 2013

Indias_milkVadodara, Apr 22: Mother Dairy, Gandhinagar, a unit of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) has now emerged as world's largest milk film manufacturer. And, the Indian dairy model of supplying daily milk to consumers in the form of pouches is now being adopted by the western world and even in neighbouring Pakistan.

Marketers of Amul brand, GCMMF, has enhanced the milk film producing capacity of the Bhat village-based plant near Gandhinagar as the demand for pouched milk is fast increasing in the country.

The plant, which had a capacity of producing 8,000 metric tonnes of milk film, now can produce 17,000 metric tonnes a year with capacity expansion that was carried out with Rs 80 crore investment.

To top it, the homegrown dairy major has already decided to double the milk film producing capacity from the present 17,000 metric tones per annum to 34,000 metric tones per annum by next year.

If one puts all dairy brands together, a total of 8 crore milk pouches are sold daily across India. Of these, Amul counts for 1.80 crore milk pouches.

"Even after expansion, the entire capacity of our Gandhinagar plant is fully utilized for packaging our own products including milk, buttermilk and dahi. Now, we will be doubling this capacity," managing director of GCMMF R S Sodhi said.

"For the western world, supplying milk in pouches was earlier an unthinkable idea. Traditionally, they have used plastic jars for supplying milk to their consumers. But now they too are shifting and adopting the Indian model because supplying milk in pouches in easy, cost-effective and environment friendly. In Pakistan and some parts of Europe, they have already started supplying milk through pouches while we regularly get delegations to study the milk film packaging at our plant," said Sodhi.

Named 'Amul Sealk', the Gandhinagar plant of GCMMF is the backbone of Amul's liquid milk business and ensures supply of milk film (about 424 brand variants) to 16-member unions of the federation which are having about 41 milk packing stations across India.

The fully automatic plant with machineries imported from Germany manufactures three-layer polythene from 100 per cent virgin material. "This film is very environment friendly," said Sodhi.

The habit of Indian women of stocking empty milk pouches and selling it to kabadi or pastiwallas ensure that these pouches are re-cycled for manufacturing of irrigation pipes used in the agriculture sector and for manufacturing of tarpaulin sheets used during monsoon.

"You will never find empty milk pouches in dustbins or garbage bins as even after the milk is drained out, the empty pouches remain a profitable business for waste pickers!" he said.

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News Network
May 28,2020

New Delhi, May 28: With 6,566 more coronavirus cases and 194 deaths reported in the past 24 hours, India's COVID-19 tally reached 1,58,333 on Thursday, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Affairs.

The number of active coronavirus cases stands at 86,110, while 67,692 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, it said. The death toll due to the infection has reached 4,531 in the country.

Maharashtra is the worst affected state with 56,948 cases. Tamil Nadu has recorded as many as 18,545 cases while Gujarat and Delhi have recorded 15,195 and 15,257 coronavirus cases respectively.

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News Network
May 7,2020

New Delhi, May 7: Air India has opened bookings for eligible foreign nationals and valid visa holders of the UK, the USA and Singapore for outbound repatriation flights that will be operated between May 7 and May 14 under the Vande Bharat mission, officials said.

Foreign nationals or valid visa holders will be charged the same fare as Indian nationals who want a seat on the inbound repatriation flights, they said.

For all flights between India and the USA under the Vande Bharat mission, Air India is charging a fixed fare of Rs 1 lakh per passenger.

For flights between India and Singapore, the charge is Rs 18,000-20,000 per passenger, and it is Rs 50,000 per person for India-UK flights.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Home Affairs had clarified that a person who has an Overseas Indian Citizenship (OCI) card, or citizenship of a foreign country, or a valid visa of more than one year of that country, or the green card of that country can travel on repatriation flights leaving India under the Vande Bharat mission.

Air India will be conducting 64 flights to 12 countries between May 7 and May 13 to bring back approximately 15,000 Indians stranded due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had announced on Tuesday.

However, some flights have been delayed and therefore, this set of 64 flights will be operated between May 7 and May 14, the airline officials said.

On Wednesday, an Indian businessman and his cook landed at Delhi airport from Lusaka in Zambia in a plane that was supposed to come without any passengers, senior government officials said.

The private chartered aircraft was scheduled to come empty and take around 40 Zambian nationals to Lusaka in a repatriation flight, they added.

"We had not permitted any incoming passengers. We will seek explanation from the airline (private operator) as to how it happened. BOI (Bureau of Immigration) has a very stringent protocol for dealing with such deviations, which must have been acted upon," said a senior official of aviation regulator DGCA.

It is not clear if the businessman and his cook were deported or sent to a quarantine facility within India.

India has been under a lockdown since March 25 to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. All scheduled commercial passenger flights have been suspended during the lockdown.

However, cargo flights, medical evacuation flights and special flights permitted by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) have been allowed to operate during this time.

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News Network
January 19,2020

New Delhi, Jan 19: Reacting to a tweet by ace lawyer Indira Jaising urging her to forgive the four men on death row for brutally raping that finally took her life, Nirbhaya's mother said on Saturday: "Even if God asks me, I won't forgive them."

Speaking to news agency, over the phone, the mother who had been fighting for seven long years to send her daughter's killers to the gallows, said, "...even if god comes and asks me to forgive them, I will not. People like these (Jaising) are a blot on the society."

Commenting on Jaising's tweet, she said: "Who is she to tell or suggest to me to forgive them. What relation does she have with me. I have nothing to do with such people. She can be a relative of those (the convicts) that she is having a soft corner for."

"She is an insult to women. She is running a business in the name of human rights. She is a veteran, she should give a message to the society. But she instead will go against her own kind," she added.

Earlier in the day, Jaising had requested Nirbhaya's mother to follow the example of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who had moved for the clemency of a woman, Nalini Murugan convicted for the assassination of her husband and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

"While I fully identify with the pain of Nirbhaya's mother I urge her to follow the example of Sonia Gandhi who forgave Nalini and said she didn't want the death penalty for her. We are with you but against death penalty," Jaising tweeted on Friday.

A Delhi Court on Friday issued fresh death warrants against the four convicts -- Akshay, Pawan, Mukesh and Vinay in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case.

Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Satish Kumar Arora fixed 1 February as the date of execution of the four death row convicts. They will be hanged at 6am.

The move came after the prosecution moved an application seeking issuance of fresh death warrants following the rejection of the mercy plea of one of the convicts Mukesh by President Ram Nath Kovind.

The 23-year-old victim was brutally gang-raped and tortured on December 16, 2012, which later led to her death.

All the six accused were arrested and charged with sexual assault and murder. One of the accused was a minor and appeared before a juvenile justice court, while another accused committed suicide in Tihar Jail.

Four of the convicts were sentenced to death by a trial court in September 2013, and the verdict was confirmed by the Delhi High Court in March 2014 and upheld by the Supreme Court in May 2017, which also dismissed their review petitions.

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