Can you plan a trip to Iceland for me? Can you plan a vegetarian meal for a dinner party at my house tonight? How can I productively engage my six-year-old who likes art and craft. Can you explain to me Einstein’s theory of relativity? In the real world, no one person can answer such a diverse set of questions? But in the cyberworld, there is a new entity which can. It goes by the unusual name of Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer or ChatGPT with its unique ability to generate human like responses in record time. This new entity, unveiled in…
Read moreEDITORS' PICK
Books connect readers to voices from the past, from alternative universes, from lives of people we don’t know. Books transport us to unknown worlds, while simultaneously revealing and helping us interpret the realities of our own. Books transform, by making us think, wonder and find our own voices. Public libraries, therefore, can be the centre of such transformation — for both individuals and communities. Libraries, however, can be more than a repository of books. During the pandemic and subsequent lock down, community-run free libraries in India educated its members on social distancing and masking, helped them book vaccination appointments, filled…
Read moreAs with Joshimath, the ecological crisis threatening an already sinking Shimla and other hill towns in neighbouring Himachal Pradesh was long foreseen and predicted. Prof A K Mahajan, a geologist at Central University of Himachal Pradesh, Shahpur (Kangra) undertook a scientific study in 1998 on the twin-towns of Dharamshala and McLeodganj. “There is high similarity in the land subsistence crisis at Joshimath and McLeodganj town,” says Professor Mahajan. “Since 1998, I have been repeatedly highlighting the warning signals relating to the sinking threat at McLeodganj. Recently, when a road, ‘Khara Danda’ connecting Dharamshala with Mcleodganj started sinking, it was a…
Read moreWhen someone sees him for the first time, the most striking feature will have to be his quirky spectacle frame – square on his left eye, and round on the other. Narresh is the co-founder and creative director of Shivan & Narresh, India's first luxury holiday brand that was launched in Cannes with 100% stitch-free swim line. He has been featured in every major luxury fashion magazine and portal. Whether this was a future he had envisioned years back, when he was preparing for his final school board examinations, is difficult to say. But in a way the genesis of…
Read moreEvery day we see two Indias. One with Indians heading prestigious companies, one with high unemployment rates. One where children thrive in online classrooms, learning new digital skills and coding games and one where 15-year olds struggle with reading from a children’s picture book. As a country we have taken gigantic strides, while leaving so many of our own behind. The real status of literacy in India One morning, I saw my maid’s daughter, who was educated in an English medium school and is pursuing her Bachelor’s in commerce, struggle to read and understand a story meant for Grade 2…
Read more