Common denominator

Rivalry between the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India (ICWAI) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) over roles, relevance and – the latest row – name changes has been on for almost 25 years. But the current ICAI President, G Ramaswamy, thinks that, unlike his many predecessors, he has the solution to resolving it via two important points in common with his cost and works counterpart M Gopalakrishnan. “The ICWAI president is from Coimbatore like me, and also a chartered accountant, so imagine him wanting the word ‘chartered’ removed from ICAI,” he said. In any case, Ramaswamy added, though ICWAI has removed the ICAI link from its website, the latter has been magnanimous enough to keep the ICWAI link on its portal.