The academia and the industry need to go hand in hand to provide skilled human resources to be used by the industry. This can happen only when the academia understands as to what is required for the industry. The overall process can in turn reduce training costs for the industry drastically and improve the performance of the employees. To improve the overall status, the academia and industry need to interact more frequently in terms of designing the curriculum, delivery of the designed curriculum and also develop cases to bring the liveliness of business into the classroom. This calls for revitalization of the overall process and the methods of teaching in the management education. Accounting, in particular, is a field where the educational programs should focus on the basic concepts, problem-solving methods, critical thinking, etc., along with their applicability in the industry. In an attempt to find a solution to the above issue, the paper titled, "Employing Active Learning in the Discovery of Activity-Based Costing", by David S Harrison, J Gregory Jenkins and Michael Ritchie, emphasizes on creating a more active, cooperative-based learning environment to promote critical thinking, communication and problem-solving skills. The program was felt to be essential to develop the interests of the student, leading to the development of active participation, improved problem-solving skills, higher level of learning, communication, group and cooperative learning development, and the introduction of additional technology into the classroom. In this paper, the authors present an interactive computerized simulation game used to improve students' analytic, communication, group, and technological skills. The game teaches Activity-Based Costing (ABC), a moderately complex managerial accounting topic using Excel® as its platform, and Visual Basic® modules, making the topic completely live and interactive.

Mergers and acquisitions have become a buzz word in the current era. Business combination and takeover of the companies will make the holding companies enlarge their brand value, presence and market share. The financial statements of these companies must reflect performance and all such changes along with the original assets of the company. To increase transparency and disclosure, the parent company that fully controls its subsidiary must present the financial statements of its subsidiary companies along with its own financial figures in a consolidated manner by publishing a Consolidated Financial Statement (CFS). The increasing support for such consolidated statements is due to the accessibility of more information for shareholders and stakeholders. Considering the importance of disclosure requirement, companies in India have been mandated to provide CFS since the year 2002. In this context, the paper titled, "An Analysis of Consolidated and Parent-Only Financial Statements of Indian Companies", by Padmini Srinivasan and M S Narasimhan, examines whether any structural changes are required in the operations of Indian companies due to the regulation changes promoting consolidation. The study examines the need for such consolidated statements deviating from the earlier practice of providing individual company reports. However, all is not so bright for CFS, as regulators argue that mangers use such statements for smoothing the holding companies' reporting profits as means of promoting financial stability.

Internet reporting practices are still at the nascent stage and there is a great scope for research in this field. Technology has the potential to exhibit the distinctive and attractive features of information, making it an efficient and cost effective measure as compared to the traditional methods. In the current internet world, every company maintains its own website and in fact it has become mandatory for the organizations to disclose information on their websites. The paper titled, "Web-Based Corporate Reporting Practices: A Survey", by Divya and M C Garg, provides a comprehensive review of the empirical studies conducted earlier, to understand the web-based corporate reporting practices followed by different companies throughout the world.

The developing countries over the last few decades have initiated measures to adapt to regulated capitalism with reforms in the public sector and the government. In the process, they are working on the lines of Program and Performance Budget (PPB). The introduction of PPB in all the activities of the government, with the strong foundation of accrual accounting that measures operations and quantifies financial position, will go a long way in heralding a new era of managing by results. The paper titled, "The Conceptual Framework of Accrual Accounting as Applicable to Government Activities", by Mohammed Al-husaini and K Nanje Gowda, tries to explain the relationship between reforming the government's accounting system and the wider budget system. The study lays emphasis on the need for the government to adopt the concept of accrual accounting as the foundation program for performance budget. The author feels that the implementation of accounting and budgeting reform will bring about significant changes towards reforming the public sector. The study concludes that accrual budgeting and accounting reforms on the lines of private sector accounting will go a long way in achieving effectiveness of governmental activities at all levels.

- Vunyale Narender
Consulting Editor