The October issue of JIMS 8M redeems the pledges made in the July issue. Firstly, all the papers appearing in this issue have come out successful through the grind of blind peer-review. Secondly, all the articles have been cast in a uniform style to give the journal a distinctive look. Thirdly, documentation in the journal has been standardized in line with that in international journals. Lastly, new additions by way of Business Reports and Reviews have found their place in it. In the coming issues, we shall continue the efforts to upgrade the journal to make it come up to international standards.

In this issue of JIMS 8M, the following articles have been incorporated. “Benchmarking HR policies in IT sector”, an article by P. James Premkumar identifies the benchmarking HR policies of different companies which add to the motivational level of employees and continuously improve the management of processes in companies. In the article, “ Enhancing the Management Teachers Productivity through E-Tools: Demand forecasting as a Case”, Dr. Basavaraj S. Benni highlights the use of E-Tools to explain the concept of demand forecasting. Chandan Kumar Sahoo and Dr. Santosh Kumar Tripathy analyse the emerging labour management relations in the state of Orissa since globalization in the article “Labour Relations Scenario in Orissa –A Paradigm Shift”. In another article on “Efficacy of Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) in India: A conventional analysis”, Karam Pal and Jasvir Singh critically examine the credit distribution and geographic distribution of RRBs. Valeed Ahmad Ansari, in his article “Transaction Costs, Resources Based and Real options views on Vertical Integration: An Appraisal”, highlights the three approaches of transaction costs, resources based, and real option that offer explanation of a firm's decision to engage in a particular stage of valuechain. “An analytical study on communication behaviour of professional women at workplace” by Dr. R.Krishnaveni and R. Thamaraiselvi focusses on the Communication behaviour of professional women at workplace to improve the quality of effective interpersonal relationships in their respective positions. A paper on “Shopping Malls: New Retail Formats- Keeping pace with the shoppers mood” by Prof. Anu Singh Lather and Ms. Tripat Kaur focusses on the strategies adopted by the retailers to keep pace with the enhancing mood of the shoppers.

Besides the research papers, a review of the Economic Report of the US President for the year 2006 by Dr. R.S. Nigam, Highlights of Trade Policy, a perspective paper on SMEs by Dr. S.S. Aggarwal and a book review by Dr. J.P. Sharma have also been added in this issue.

(Dr Ravi K. Dhar)