Soon after the appearance of a report in Indian cooperative .com that Annual General body meeting in cooperatives has reduced democracy to a farce, this correspondent was invited angrily by the Vice-Chairman Chandra Pal Singh Yadav to participate in AGM of Kribhco and report the truth. To the utter surprise of this reporter, the AGM was conducted in “no hold barred spirit” with participants- one after another expressing themselves freely for and against the functioning of Kribhco.

A massive fire and reported explosions at the Adell Co-op forced village residents to evacuate early Wednesday morning amid fears that hazardous chemicals could be released into the air. About 200 firefighters from at least 15 area departments were called to the scene, where several agronomy buildings on the northwest end of the complex were destroyed by fire. The buildings, at 607 Mill St., were unoccupied when the fire began just after 3 a.m., and no deaths or serious injuries were reported.