When Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik recently announced the names of the five new members of the state planning board, no one was surprised after seeing Kamala Pujari’s name on the list. Pujari, a tribal woman from Koraput district had become famous by preserving hundreds of local varieties of paddy and promoting organic farming. She …

Lance Naik Devendranath Rai was 33 years old when he was convicted and sentenced to death for murdering two colleagues while posted in Mathura in 1991. Today, as a 60-year-old, he is still lodged in Naini Jail in Allahabad. In the last 27 years, he did not get a single day’s parole to visit his family. Rai’s wife, through senior …

It looks like 5G deployments in the states will be getting a kick-start. The $1.3 trillion US government spending bill signed into law Friday includes a bipartisan effort to speed the rollout of 5G: the Ray Baum Act, named in honor of the late Energy & Commerce staff director who died last month. The legislation folds in language from the …

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that’s taken over our lives. A good idea? Or a touch annoying? Android Authority/Twitter screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET It’s not easy being shunned. You can feel hurt. You might even want to protest.  This may be what inspired Huawei to place mobile billboards outside Apple and Samsung Experience stores in …

The federal spending bill signed by US President Donald Trump on Friday does more than fund the budget. It also makes it easier for law enforcement agencies to demand access to online information no matter what country the data is stored in. Lawmakers added the CLOUD Act (PDF), which stands for Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act, to the …

The Federal Trade Commission said Friday it charged two brothers for alleged scam workshops to teach people how to make thousands of dollars selling goods on Amazon. The FTC charges come a few months after Washington state’s attorney general and Amazon filed civil suits against the brothers, Adam and Christopher Bowser, who live in Massachusetts. Like with the prior suits, …

A wheelchair, a service dog and prosthetic limbs could join your emojis of men and women jogging and playing sports. Apple has proposed 13 new emojis to include more experiences for people with disabilities. The iPhone-maker submitted its formal request to Unicode, the consortium that governs the standard that includes emojis.  See all of Apple’s emojis for people with disabilities …

Five years ago, Apple appeared to own the education market. Its iPad was selling like crazy, and Apple partnered with major publishers to digitize their textbooks. Many schools bought the tablet — most notably, Apple won a $1.3 billion deal with the Los Angeles Unified School District to provide nearly 700,000 iPads bundled with Pearson curriculum for every student and …

Investors want a piece of Dropbox and apparently paid more for it than expected.   The company raised $756 million in its initial public offering, Bloomberg reported, citing someone familiar with the information. Dropbox sold 36 million shares in its IPO at $21 each, according to the report. Initially, shares were expected to sell in the $16 to $18 range. The increased …

CNET’s Cheapskate scours the web for great deals on PCs, phones, gadgets and much more. Questions about the Cheapskate blog? Find the answers on our FAQ page. Find more great buys on the CNET Deals page and follow the Cheapskate on Facebook and Twitter! Enlarge Image The new Dell XPS 13 offers a nearly bezel-free screen. Sarah Tew/CNET Happy Friday, cheeps! A …