The paper makes a Porter Analysis of India's Gems and Jewellery Sector wherein India is a significant player in the world market both as a source of processed diamonds as well as a large consumer market. India is the largest consumer of gold and a predominant portion of gold jewellery manufactured is consumed in the domestic market. Since times immemorial, India has been synonymous with gems and jewellery. Gems and jewellery (GJ) sector has grown enormously and occupies an important position in the Indian economy. On an export level, the industry moved away from the stereotypical view as being simply a manufacturing center for low-cost products, to one offering a wide range of high quality jewellery featuring diamonds, gemstones, and worked gold. Availability of skilled manpower, manufacturing excellence, state-of-the-art technology, forward looking entrepreneurs, liberalized government policies and an extensive international marketing network has helped India establish itself as one of the leading jewellery centers in the world. It is leading foreign exchange earner and also one of the fastest growing industries in the country.

Metaphor of 'pyramid' has been widely used in the top down approaches to development. Organizations and societies have been structured around the idea of pyramid. In fact, study of history shows that one type of pyramid has been replaced by another type of pyramid. In many countries, 'Feudal pyramid' was replaced by, 'Socialist pyramid'/'Communist pyramid' and during recent years it has been replaced by 'Market pyramid'. During the era of 'socialist pyramid', reaching out to the bottom of pyramid was the key note of a responsive State. During the era of the 'market pyramid' we hear a similar echo in the form of 'Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid' (Prahalad, 2005). However, for holistic development and holistic globalization, we need to take a new perspective and balance various 'pyramids' and be ready to rotate the pyramid at times by inverting the same. For this we need to understand the dynamics of underlying forces that shape our existence in the contemporary context.

The selection of a proxy for market portfolio in CAPM model remains one of the most crucial steps in its empirical use. This paper aims to check the validity of CAPM in Indian market and to identify the most efficient proxy for market portfolio. Incorrect selection of this proxy may lead to inaccurate result and even rejection of CAPM model when tested empirically. This further emphasises the importance of selecting the correct proxy for market portfolio. The paper reviews why standard cap-weighted indices can be used as the proxy and then which ofsuch index is the most efficient proxy for the Indian market. A sample of 100 companies and has been taken to study the efficiency of four broad index namely BSE SENSEX, BSE 100, BSE 200, BSE 500 as proxy for market portfolio. The result shows that BSE 500 is a better index to be used as proxy for the market portfolio, instead of the most popular BSE Sensex, which is widely used for these kinds of studies.

The SEBI ruling requiring issue houses to issue public offerings (IPO's, new issues, etc.) in compulsory demat mode has created an anomaly which keeps the small and long-term investor out of the game. The benefits that would have accrued to small investors are snatched away by the larger & powerful players. The IPOs of banks and companies like Maruti Udyog, NTPC and TV Today etc. had claimed to target the small investor, but the small investor had in fact been a mere conduit to channel the holdings to larger players. This defeated the objective of creating wide-spread public participation and holding in the disinvestment of profitable stocks. Based on actual market study and observations of the author, this case study raises vital and provocative policy issues such as: Who is the beneficiary of IPOs in compulsory dematerialised mode? It also highlights the failure of SEBI (the Securities Exchange Board of India), depositories and the major stock exchanges in addressing the cause of the small and marginal investors beyond lip-service and cosmetic efforts like framing rules for orderly 'development' and 'regulation' of the capital market. This study suggests some practical solutions to correct the anomaly.

Issues with which I had to contend are discussed within the context of historical precedent and family influences; discriminatory practices; the politics of political correctness; mentors; gender roles; and the interconnectedness of chance, choice, and opportunity, all of which could serve as catalyst for addressing management issues and new research paradigms.

Through this article effort has been made to identify key regulatory tasks and objectives of RBI as regulator of key financial markets. The Increase in systemic risk due to greater integrity of the Indian market with the global market and with emergence of new markets and instruments have made the task of regulator most difficult as it has to constantly keep up pace with the changing marketplace and prescribe new regulatory safeguards for all market participants. The effort is to make unregulated or poorly regulated markets & instruments under better regulation. However, there are border problem between regulators over the domain of the financial markets & institutions. The paper tries to discuss the policy dilemmas and option to tackle emerging challenges, need to revisit the regulatory framework to make it more effective. It also discusses Pro-cyclicality as a special case of systemic risk and the need to move from Basel-II to Basel-III to ensure adequate bank liquidity during the credit crunch situations. This will however affect the regulatory capital the banks need to keep towards capital charge of its risky asset and the provision of additional capital buffer in the form of contra-cyclical capital will be anything but easy in implementation due to significant technical work required in understanding of business cycles. Finally, areas of further research have been identified in the paper.

Why is it that there are so few cases about professional service firms (PSFs) given their increasing dominance in the knowledge-based era? The attempt to answer this question presupposes a willingness to differentiate between what strategy professors mean by strategy and what strategy consultants mean by strategy. This perspective essay argues that the development of strategy in the business academy and in strategy consultancies has happened on parallel tracks. There has not been as much interaction between these strategists as would be desirable, albeit with some exceptions. These exceptions happen when consultancies have been spun-off from the theoretical work of top academic strategists. However, since these theoretical exchanges are few and far between, academics have focused mainly on developing general frameworks while the consultants have concentrated on building specific forms of knowledge through intense tracking of industrial segments known as 'verticals', and in presenting their findings as granular insights. The role models of strategic cognition and the outlets where results of such studies are reported using these approaches also vary considerably. The revitalization of the case method in management education however demands not only the willingness to write more cases about professional service firms on the part of academics in business schools, but also the availability and the deployment of interdisciplinary approaches to the case method analogous to those that have 'defamiliarized'the case method in the U.S. law school system.

This study was designed to compare organizational commitment of the employees in public and private sector organizations in food processing industry, to make out the association between subscales of organizational commitment, to compare these dimensions of organizational commitment vis-a-vis different psycho-demographic factors of the employees and to investigate the relationship between organizational commitment and organizational effectiveness. The scope of the study was public and private sector organizations belonging to Punjab and Haryana in food processing industry. The sample comprised 196 respondents drawn from three public Sector organizations, and six private sector organizations. Comparisons made on the basis of hierarchical levels and other psycho-demographic factors make the study comprehensive. The results revealed a very significant and positive correlation between three subscales of organizational commitment and clearly support the idea that aggregated organizational commitment is related to organizational effectiveness indicators.

The main objectives of this paper were to study work family spillover and burnout of employees in a few selected public and private sector banks, to find the correlation between workfamily spillover and burnout and to see the association of workfamily spillover and burnout vis-a-vis psycho-demographic factors. The scope of the study was public and private sector banks in and around Chandigarh. The sample comprised 120 respondents drawn from four public and private sector banks. The results revealed a very significant positive correlation between workfamily spillover and burnout. Almost all null hypotheses concerning work-family spillover and burnout across psycho-demographic variables vis-a-vis failed to be rejected.

This paper attempts to understand the prevalent accounting disclosures in India and Germany, through a study of the Automobile sector in the two countries. This sector has been picked up because it is massive, competitive, and it is expected to undergo major restructuring in the near future due to globalization and decreasing oil reserves. To analyse accounting standards in the two countries, the researchers have chosen the time period 2009-11, when two different standards were being used in the two countries: India was employing the standards prescribed by ICAI, while firms in Germany had more or less adapted themselves to IFRS since 2005. For each country, the study has closely studied the 'Disclosures'in the Financial Statements in each company's Annual Report. The companies that we chose are Daimler Group, Volkswagen Group, and BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke) Group in Germany, and Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd., Ashok Leyland Ltd., and Tata Motors Ltd. in India. This analysis of individual firms 'financial statements gives a picture of disclosure practices followed in the industry, in the two countries under study. The paper then juxtaposed this analysis with the accounting standards employed in each country, and understood standards based on this analysis. Thus, the paper has been able to pinpoint specific differences in accounting policy as per the two standards, and also recognised the need for simplification. The findings suggest that there are more similarities in the accounting standards as applicable to the automobile sector in India and Germany. However the quality and content of the disclosures of German Automobile firms is superior to Indian counterparts.