THE latest annual report of Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2021-22 published by NSSO, Government of India draws attention to many perennial problems that India seems to be facing in the employment front. True indeed that the annual unemployment rate has marginally declined compared to the pandemic period but the structural concerns such as high rates of youth unemployment, high unemployment rates within the educated, increased vulnerability due to rising self-employment and erosion of rights of regular salaried workers, continue to remain as dark spots in India’s labour market.

THE violence and clashes that erupted in various places during Ram Navami observance on March 30 was an event foretold.  Over the years, the Hindutva forces have shaped the Ram Navami processions into an instrument for aggression and attacks on Muslims.  Last year, in 2022, the Ram Navami processions led to widespread attacks and clashes in Khargone in Madhya Pradesh, in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, Jharkhand and in Shibpur area of Howrah, West Bengal. This year too, the Ram Navami festival occurred during the period of Ramzan and provided the backdrop for provocations in areas where Muslims

THE unprecedented popularity of ChatGPT has turbocharged the AI hype machine. We are being bombarded daily by news articles announcing humankind’s greatest invention –  Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is “qualitatively different”, “transformational”, “revolutionary”, “will change everything” – they say. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced a major upgrade of the technology behind ChatGPT called GPT4. Already, Microsoft researchers are claiming that GPT4 shows “sparks of Artificial General Intelligence” or human-like intelligence – the Holy grail of AI research.

THE first quarter of the twenty-first century is showing many similarities with its immediately preceding counterpart (the twentieth century), especially regarding science in general, and elementary particle physics, and cosmology in particular; and regarding the latter, the literally earth-shaking discovery made by Edwin Hubble. His observations using earth-based telescope(s), of the “red shift” of light reaching us from the distant stars, showed that the universe is expanding! This has been confirmed and further examined, by probes sent into space as well as ground-based observations.

THE election schedule for 224 seats of the state assembly in Karnataka with an electorate of 5.2 crores was announced on March 29. Elections will be held in a single phase on May 10 and the results will be announced on May 13. The last day for nominations is April 20. Over 58,282 polling stations will be set up with 34,219 being in rural areas and 1,320 women only booths.Before the election schedule announcement, inauguration spree continued in the last week with Prime Minister Modi visiting Karnataka for the third time in election campaign cum official visit.