Its a festival for the cooperators across the globe. Its a big time as the expression of  pride of being a cooperator is writ large everywhere.

It is the international year of cooperatives. The cooperatives all over the world are making an all-out effort to reach out big time as they see in it an opportunity to attract global attention. But it is not so with the National Cooperative Union of India.

The NCUI organized a useful workshop on the 97th amendment on Friday in N Delhi but saw to it that the media is excluded from the event. It prepared a press release that was routine and hackneyed and sent it to various publications without bothering about the fact if it would see the light of day or not.

The workshop assumed significance as it discussed the epoch-making amendment threadbare. The cooperative ministers of at least four states and the cooperative registrars of several states participated in the discussions. It could be a treat for developmental journalists who could have gained firsthand experience of the cooperatives. The workshop could have been still more useful but for the apathy of the NCUI’s babus.

The latter are more interested in making TA-DA than doing anything substantial for the apex organization.

But this attitude of keeping media at bay is not only restricted to NCUI. Iffco Foundation held an equally important seminar recently and chose to ignore media including Indian Cooperative. S K Mahajan , who keeps sending his articles to Indian Cooperative, conveniently shifted the blame to the parent organization Iffco. Indian Cooperative later learnt that Mr Mahajan had a long stint as Media Handler in Iffco before he retired and joined Foundation. It is all in the attitude and speaks volume about one’s feeling towards the cooperative movement.

In the case of NCUI, the indifference was palpable all the more as the Babus did not even bother to inform the only dedicated news portal on cooperatives -indiancooperative.com. In a routine check the portal could learn about the event and its staff reporter rushed to cover the event.

Credit indeed goes to the NCUI President who asked his Personal Staff to arrange a copy of the main recommendations made at the brain-storming session for Indian Cooperative. The President was visibly upset with the faux pas.

Iffco Managing Director US Awasthi along with Cooperative Development Director G N Saxena left for Quebec City in Canada on Friday evening to attend what is billed as the biggest conclave on the eve of International Cooperative Year.

Dr Awasthi has been invited to comment on the speech of Peter Victor on Sustainable Development.

Peter Victor is a celebrated Professor in Environmental Studies at York University. Peter’s current research is an inquiry into managing without growth, using LOWGROW, a systems model for exploring the interplay of growth, employment, poverty, and the environment.

The International Summit of Cooperatives is taking place in Quebec City between October 8 and 11, 2012, in conjunction with the United Nations’ International Year of Cooperatives. Some 1,500 delegates from 90 countries are participating in this Summit.

The theme of the Summit is “The Amazing Power of Cooperatives.” About 100 world-renowned speakers, including Nobel Prize winners, economists, big names from the world of cooperatives have been invited to speak at the Summit.

Several other cooperative leaders from India are also participating in the conclave.

As part of the International Year of Cooperatives 2012, Go Coop in partnership with Commissioner of Cooperatives, Govt of Andhra Pradesh organized recently a seminar on “21^st Century Marketing Strategies for Cooperatives” at  Hyderabad.

Kasu Venkata Krishna Reddy, Minister for Cooperation ,  Chandra Pal Singh Yadav, President, National Cooperative Union of India, New Delhi, Sri IYR Krishna Rao, Special Chief Secretary for Agriculture and Cooperation, Govt of AP along with other heads of Departments have graced the occasion.

Among other things, the seminar mainly covered subjects such as innovation in the marketing of produce by grass roots organizations like the cooperatives and the Idea of using information technology in connecting cooperatives, farmers, weavers and artisans with consumers.

GoCoop is an organization dedicated to the development of co-ops and self-help groups (SHGs) through technology innovation.