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Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the firebrand CPI(M) leader who ruled Bengal as the chief minister from 2000 to 2011 May following retirement of the party icon Jyoti Basu stepped into his 80th year on March 1. The soft spoken leader of the Left has been ailing for many years staying recluse in his small flat with his wife. Reading books was his best passion, but due to his serious eyesight problems, he can not read much.

It is the 176th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto, a program for scientific socialism, a guide for change. On February 21, 1848, Communist Manifesto was published in London. It was prepared by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. The duo were the forerunners of scientific Socialism. The historic task was accomplished with its prophesies. The writing was started in Brussels itself where the Communist League was functioning from underground. Karl Marx had been banished from Belgium as he was writing about the injustices the toilers were facing in that country and also in entire Europe and the world. He had to shift to London and the Manifesto was published from there.

Does austerity match with aesthetics? Art house cinema icon, Kumar Shahani who passed away on Sunday at the age of 83placed these two unlikely attributes side by side in his works in celluloid. It was no square peg in round whole existence. A look at the films he directed underscored the point.

A recent report by Cision, a leading media intelligence and communications platform, unveils growing anxieties within the journalism industry. The meteoric rise of AI-powered tools like ChatGPT casts a shadow over the core tenets of the profession: accuracy and credibility. Journalists fear this disruptive technology might exacerbate the already intricate task of delivering authentic and reliable news in an increasingly complex media landscape.

Love is in the air, but so is AI! A recent study revealed that 65% of Indians are using ChatGPT or similar platforms to craft their dating profiles, with 56% even considering AI-written messages for Valentine's Day. While this tech-powered approach seems to boost confidence and responses (81% reported better results with AI), there's a catch: 60% would be hurt if they knew their love message was machine-made. So, while AI offers exciting possibilities like overcoming shyness and photo enhancement, the authenticity factor might give the heart an ache. But experts suggest, tread carefully and remember, even in the digital age, love thrives on genuineness.

Artificial intelligence has made tremendous strides in recent years—from beating human champions at chess to revolutionizing self-driving cars and setting up life-like virtual assistants. Now, AI is putting its creative hat on and venturing into the world of content generation. While AI shows great promise for automating routine, and mundane, writing tasks and producing large volumes of content, its use also raises important questions about originality, quality and its impact on jobs. The question whether—or even when—AI will eventually replace human intervention in writing is being hotly debated even as we write this piece.

In the 1964 James Bond movie, ‘Goldfinger’, the bad guy, Auric Goldfinger, realized he could not just steal the huge amount of gold in Fort Knox, a famous US Army post in Kentucky, known primarily for housing a large portion of the USA’s gold reserves. So, he planned to use a nuclear device to irradiate it to make the gold useless, which would make his own gold more valuable.

Elon Musk announced that the first person has received a Neuralink brain implant, which is a significant step forward in the advancement of "brain-computer interface" technology. This technology has the potential to assist individuals with conditions like paralysis to interact with their environment.

On January 25, Kenneth Eugene Smith made history as the first person to be executed using nitrogen hypoxia. Smith was found guilty in 1989 for the murder of Elizabeth Sennett, the wife of an Alabama preacher, allegedly acting under her husband's instructions. Initially, Alabama attempted to execute Smith through lethal injection in November 2022, but the procedure failed. As a result, Smith opted for the untested method of nitrogen hypoxia for his execution. However, this decision has sparked controversy, as Alabama maintains that nitrogen hypoxia is a painless and swift method of death, while numerous medical experts disagree, comparing it to torture. The question remains: why did Alabama approve the use of this unproven method?

No ordinary rodent, Mickey Mouse represents an aspect of America which comic reading children grow up with and form their own ideas about a land whose residents do not find nothing beyond them. Of course, such ideas change as they grow wiser of the world around them sometimes opposing the initial ideas about a country which speaks of democracy but is often found supporting regimes which stifle the aspirations of people.