Despite all the challenges caused by covid-19 around the world, I am finally pleased to announce the release of the July 2020 issue. I apologize to all the readers, members of the editorial board and all the stakeholders for the delayed release. The global pandemic has forced upon us a new normal in which we need to find new ways of teaching and researching. As we continue to discover new ways, Nidan will always endeavor to support scholarly publications and make them available to scholars across the globe. This year, despite all the limitations, our authors have managed to submit their papers and Nidan is happy to offer them to you, albeit rather belatedly. I want to express my gratitude to Prof Ines Zupanov for guest editing the issue. I want to thank the authors for their contributions to the Nidan’s goals for advancing scholarly engagement. I wish to express my gratitude to all the peer reviewers for their critical and insightful comments on the papers and for helping authors to take cognizance of the issues they may have missed. I also wish to thank the book reviewers who have offered thoughtful reviews on some key publications that we have included in this issue. As always, I am grateful to all the editorial board and the associate editors, especially Dr. Dandekar for ensuring that this issue is kept alive. I thank the Sabinet staff for their continued support for Nidan. I also wish to thank the UKZN Website Staff for their diligent work, especially Mr. Vincent Mbonye for managing our website. I hope that the readers will find the papers and book reviews thought provoking and illuminating. Thanks again for supporting Nidan.

P. Pratap Kumar

Editor-in-chief