This foreword is to introduce the reason for this special issue of the journal. Professor Vasudev Mangesh (Nitant) Kenkre has had a distinguished career as a statistical physicist, teacher, educator and a magnet for a great many statistical physicists from around the world across nearly five decades. This volume is to celebrate Nitant's work. The contributors are mostly his former students, friends and collaborators. This foreword captures a fraction of what Nitant means to us. © 2022 World Scientific Publishing Company.