Preface : In honor of Professor Padma Kant Shukla on the occasion of his 60th birthday

It is our great pleasure to dedicate this special issue of Journal of Plasma Physics to our dear friend and colleague Professor Padma Kant Shukla on the occasion of his 60th birthday on 7th July 2010. Padma is one of the most prominent and productive scientists in plasma physics and in neighboring fields, and has published more than 1300 papers in scientific journals. It has for some time been the aim of his friends to honor him on this occasion, and earlier this year we sent out invitations to distinguished scientists who have collaborated with Padma over the years. The response has been overwhelming, and we collected 43 manuscripts, covering a diverse range of topics in plasma physics, which are now published in this issue. We believe that these papers reflect some of the impact of Padma's research in plasma physics