CHATGPT – the AI-powered chatbot – has taken the tech world by storm. Launched as a prototype and made available for public testing two months ago, on November 30, 2022, it has generated quite a buzz. It gathered one million subscribers in less than a week. People worldwide have been amazed and amused at its almost human responses on a wide range of topics.It has produced poetry, Shakespeare-like prose, software code and medical prescriptions. Teachers and educators have expressed alarm over the use of ChatGPT by students to complete assignments.

THOSE in West Bengal who laboured under the delusion that the Trinamool Congress had learnt a lesson from the countrywide condemnation it drew after making a mockery of the democratic voting process in the last panchayat polls in 2018 now know from the very recent happenings in the state that there is no room for even an iota of hope of revival of democratic freedom as long as the Mamata Banerjee-led party is in power.

THE All India Peace and Solidarity Organisation (AIPSO), in a statement issued on February 7, expressed its deep grief to the people of Turkey and Syria who faced one of the severest earthquakes to strike that region. More than 3,000 people have died and many more are injured. Reports suggest that the death toll might rise as the rescue operations gather pace.The AIPSO urges the governments of Turkey and Syria to prioritise relief and rescue operations. It demands the US, NATO and other military forces active in the region to immediately cease their operations and withdraw at least now.

THE central working committee of the All India Agricultural Workers Union has condemned the union budget for 2023-24 as anti-people as it fails to do anything about the huge problems of unemployment and hunger. This budget is a brazen attack on the livelihood of rural people as there is a decrease of 33 per cent in the allocation for MNREGA. This year it is only Rs 60,000 crore, while the revised estimate for 2023 was Rs 89,400 crore, up from the budget estimate of Rs 73,000 crore. Moreover the availability of working days under MNREGA was only 42 days, the lowest in recent times.

SOCIALIST Cuba, that tiny Caribbean Island in the coast of the Gulf of Mexico joining in the Pacific Ocean, right below the mighty American nation 18 miles farther from the mainland, has always been an ideological eyesore for the American capitalist class. But, Cuba has been the rallying point of the working class all over the world to express their anti-imperialist fervour. They stood solidly behind her to help valiantly fight the American onslaughts.