BJP and Congress Use ChatGPT '80s Photo Trend for Political Messaging

A viral ChatGPT image trend that recreates 1980s-style photos — featuring film grain, date stamps, faded backgrounds, and colorful clothing — has been adopted by Indian political parties. Both the BJP and Congress have used the aesthetic to craft and share politically themed posts on social media. The trend, originally popular as a nostalgic creative tool, is now being leveraged for political messaging and propaganda. The development highlights how mainstream AI image trends can quickly be repurposed for political purposes in India.

AI Test Automation Cuts Maintenance Costs as SaaS Codebases Scale

Traditional test automation becomes increasingly expensive to maintain as a SaaS codebase grows, with maintenance costs scaling alongside new features and longer regression cycles. AI-assisted automation addresses this by generating tests tied to actual code changes rather than expanding a static list, keeping test creation proportional to real development activity. The approach also uses anomaly detection to reduce false positives from superficial UI changes, and flags outdated tests when features are deprecated or refactored. However, AI test generation alone does not solve the maintenance problem, since a one-time generation pass still becomes a fixed snapshot that drifts out of alignment over time. Experts note this investment is most justified when regression cycles are visibly delaying releases or when suite maintenance time rivals the time it saves, rather than as a default for every project.

China's Social Media Fills With Posts on Unemployment, Low Wages and Falling Home Prices

Chinese social media platforms including RedNote, Douyin, and Weibo are seeing a surge in posts about financial hardship. Content related to job losses, poor wages, and declining property values is attracting thousands to millions of views. The trend reflects growing economic anxiety among ordinary Chinese citizens. The viral spread of such posts signals that personal financial distress has become a dominant and widely relatable topic across China's major online platforms.

Why Some Founders Are Automating Workflows Before Hiring New Staff

A founder behind FuturixAI argues that hiring should not automatically be the first response to a growing workload. The core idea is to ask, for every repetitive task, whether it genuinely requires a human or could be handled by automation or AI. This approach repositions the founder as an operator who designs systems rather than personally executing every task. The author acknowledges limits, noting that some businesses require large teams, on-the-ground staff, or specialised expertise, and that automated processes still need human review. The broader takeaway is that building better systems before adding headcount can reduce unnecessary complexity as a company scales.

Nginx proxies HTTP QUERY method but won't cache it, tests reveal

The IETF's RFC 10008, published in June, introduces a new HTTP method called QUERY — essentially a GET request permitted to carry a body, designed to be safe, idempotent, and cacheable. A developer tested real-world readiness by building a strict search API in Frankfurt that only accepts QUERY requests, then asked eight AI language models to write working clients. When explicitly told to use the QUERY method, all eight models succeeded without falling back to POST, largely aided by Python's flexible standard library. However, when given only a vague prompt with no method specified, all eight defaulted to POST — reflecting 15 years of convention around JSON search endpoints. The bigger surprise was infrastructure: nginx will proxy QUERY requests but will not cache them, meaning the method's key caching advantage remains unrealised in common server setups.

Azerbaijan Reconsiders Its Stance Toward India After Years of Backing Pakistan

Azerbaijan, a long-standing ally of Pakistan, is showing signs of gradually warming up to India after a period of open opposition. The country had previously condemned India's Operation Sindoor and permitted Pakistan's Embassy to organize Kashmir Day events on its soil. These actions had placed Azerbaijan firmly in Pakistan's camp on sensitive bilateral issues with India. However, recent signals suggest Baku is reassessing the strategic value of its relationship with New Delhi. Analysts are now examining the geopolitical and economic factors driving this potential diplomatic shift.

Bumrah returns as Harshit Rana ruled out of Afghanistan T20Is with injury

Jasprit Bumrah has been declared fit and will be part of India's squad for the upcoming T20I series against Afghanistan and the Asian Games. Harshit Rana, however, has been ruled out after sustaining a new injury during a match simulation session on September 7 at the Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru. Yash Thakur has been named as his replacement in the squad. The injury setback is a blow for Rana, who had been included in the original selection.

Paytm CEO Compares Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT and Grok on iPhone Image Recognition

Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma conducted a hands-on test of four major AI assistants — Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, and Grok — using an iPhone Duo as the subject. The test evaluated each AI's ability to identify the device and provide its specifications from an image. Grok, Gemini, and Claude successfully recognized the iPhone Duo and returned relevant specs. ChatGPT, however, differed from the others by requesting additional information before providing an answer. The informal comparison highlights the varying capabilities of leading AI tools in visual recognition tasks.

Django's prefetch_related can add queries instead of saving them, benchmarks show

A Django developer discovered that using prefetch_related with certain queryset methods like filter(), order_by(), and first() generates one extra database query per parent object rather than using the prefetched cache. Benchmarks across Django 4.2 and 6.1 confirmed that operations which modify the underlying queryset bypass the cache entirely, while count() and exists() correctly use it. For ten orders, a loop using order.lines.filter() produced twelve queries instead of the expected two, making the prefetch a net loss. The recommended fix is to move filtering conditions into a Prefetch object with a to_attr argument, reducing total queries to two regardless of dataset size. When the cache cannot satisfy the access pattern, removing prefetch_related entirely is advised over paying its cost and re-querying anyway.

Gold rate today: 24k vs 22k vs 20k vs 18k

Missouri volunteers install cedar brush piles to restore fish habitat at Truman Lake

Truman Lake in Missouri is receiving significant underwater habitat improvements through a community-led conservation effort. Volunteers have so far sunk 93 cedar brush piles into the reservoir to serve as shelter and feeding grounds for fish. The broader project aims to establish 450 such habitat structures across the lake in total. A $75,000 grant is funding the multi-year initiative, which is designed to enhance the overall fishing experience at the site. Multiple organizations and local volunteers are collaborating to carry the project forward.

Baltimore swaps invasive pear for native tulip poplar as official city tree

Baltimore has officially replaced the Chanticleer pear with the tulip poplar as its city tree, ending the pear's 52-year tenure since 1974. The change follows Maryland's ban on the sale of the callery pear, an invasive species. Six native tree species were in contention for the title, with Baltimore residents casting votes to determine the winner. The final announcement was made in a festive costumed tree race held at Cylburn Arboretum, drawing hundreds of attendees.

Why Apple Keeps iPhone Prices High in India Despite Low Affordability

Apple maintains premium pricing for iPhones in India, making them accessible to only around 5% of the population. However, that small percentage still represents approximately 70 million potential customers. This figure surpasses the entire population of several major European nations, including the UK, France, and Italy. The sheer size of India's aspirational consumer base gives Apple little incentive to reduce its prices in the market.

Developer Reflects on AI Taking Over Coding as Profession Faces Uncertain Future

A software developer writing on DEV Community describes how, within just one year, AI has become deeply embedded in nearly every stage of their product development workflow, from architecture and UI design to testing and SEO. The developer recently built a Chrome extension called meelang almost entirely with AI assistance, including a fully functional operations dashboard completed in under an hour. While they acknowledge AI's power to bridge skill gaps and democratize knowledge, they express concern that it may be eroding the foundations of software engineering as a profession. Newcomers are missing hands-on coding practice, experienced developers are declining in number, and the author warns this could create a damaging cycle for the industry. They conclude that AI's disruption extends well beyond tech, affecting designers, scientists, and creatives alike, marking what they call a genuine turning point in human history.

SBI: FCNR liquidity deployment to take 4 months

Kanpur Murder Case: WhatsApp Chats Link Daughter-in-Law to Father-in-Law's Killing

Investigators in Kanpur have uncovered WhatsApp messages suggesting that a woman named Shalu allegedly manipulated Vishal Gautam into murdering her father-in-law, Vineet Minocha. The chats, exchanged over several months, show Shalu complimenting Vishal and probing into his personal life, which police believe was part of a deliberate effort to influence him. Authorities suspect Shalu orchestrated the killing by exploiting her relationship with Vishal. Although Vishal attempted to delete the chat history, he failed to erase all WhatsApp call records, which investigators were able to recover as key evidence.

Vande Bharat food complaints, train water issues: Railways plans key changes to RailMadad portal

Asian Games: Can India better its 107-medal haul?

Xbox to publish Hideo Kojima's Physint after PlayStation cancelled the project

Xbox has stepped in to publish Physint, an action game from Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, after PlayStation unexpectedly dropped the project. Sony, which previously published both Death Stranding titles, described the move as a difficult decision while maintaining that its relationship with Kojima Productions remains intact. Kojima himself contradicted the diplomatic tone, stating on X that Sony delivered a surprise cancellation notice in June. According to Kojima, his studio has spent the past three months scrambling to find a new publishing partner following the abrupt exit. The announcements came simultaneously from PlayStation, Xbox, Kojima Productions, and Kojima personally.

7 cases dropped: HDFC scores big win in Bahrain