EDITORIAL

I am indeed happy to see that the 5th volume of Social Trends in published on time. From the last volume, Social Trends is one of the journals that have been approved by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and I am happy that it has survived the periodic cuts by the UGC. For this volume we had received about 17 articles and we had to reject four of them based on reviewers’ reports. As in the previous volumes we have mostly the young scholars who have contributed papers in this volume. As editor I read all the articles carefully and enjoyed doing editorial corrections and arranging them in an order. I apologise for the errors that will still be there. Some of the articles in this volume have been selected out of the ones presented in the Research Committee (RC) on Sociology of Everyday Lifeas a part of the 43rdAll India Sociological Conference held in Lucknow University on 9-12 November 2017, and some other articles have been selected out of the ones presented in a national seminar on Nuances of Social Relations, organized on 2-3 March 2018 at Sikkim University by the Department of Sociology, Sikkim University, in collaboration with the RC of the Indian Sociological Society on Sociology of Everyday Life. It is gratifying to note that the young scholars who present papers in seminars and conferences work on their papers to make them publishable. The papers by Tila Kumar of Delhi University and Maudual Islam and Rozyna Begum of Chittagong University were not presented in the seminar/ conference we had organized but I am happy that these scholars of reputed institutions have taken interest in Social Trends. The interdisciplinary character of the Social Trends has been retained. The contributors to this volume represent literature, phisophy, psychology, history, economics and sociology. We are commited to promote and preserve dialogue and closer interaction among the scholars of different yet related disciplines because this is the only way to transcend the rigid boundary of a particular social science discipline. Some of the members of the Advisory Committee took interest in some of the articles published in the last volume and gave their comments. This prompted a dialogue between the author and the senior sociologists of the Advisory Committee. This is indeed a healthy development which will definitely promote debates on methodological, social and political issues in the public sphere. I take the opportunity to thank all the contributors, the members of the Advisory Committee and my fellow colleagues on the Editorial Board whithout whose help the present volume would not have seen the light of the day. I would also thank the emplyees of the North Bengal University Press for printing the present volume with utmost care.

Sanjay K. Roy

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NOTES AND COMMENTS