News in Short

• Britain’s top court refused WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange permission to appeal against a decision to extradite him to the U.S. to face spying charges.
• Assange has sought for years to avoid a trial in the U.S. on a series of charges related to WikiLeaks’ publication of a huge trove of classified documents more than a decade ago.
• The case is now expected to be formally sent to British Home Secretary Priti Patel, who will decide whether to grant the extradition.

• Leon Schwarzbaum, a survivor of the Nazis’ death camp at Auschwitz and a lifelong fighter for justice for the victims of the Holocaust, has died. He was 101.
• Schwarzbaum was the only one of his family to survive the concentration camps at Auschwitz, Buchenwald and a subcamp Sachsenhausen.
• He became known to a wider audience when film director Hans Erich Viet made a movie in 2018 about his life. “The Last of the Jolly Boys” was shot with Schwarzbaum himself at original location.

• The Centre envisages a ?19,000–crore project to rejuvenate 13 major rivers by planting trees along its bank.
• These ‘forestry’ interventions are expected to increase the cumulative forest cover by 7,417.36 sq. km. in the vicinity of these 13 rivers.
• They would help recharge groundwater, reduce sedimentation, generate ?449.01 crore from non-timber and other forest produce as well as provide employment of 344 million man–days.

• The Karnataka High Court quashed all petitions challenging the ban imposed by the government on wearing Hijab in schools and colleges.
• The HC declared that educational institutions have a right to prescribe uniforms and held that the Karnataka government’s order dated February 5 is not unconstitutional.
• It also said that wearing of Hijab does not form a part of essential religious practice in the Islamic faith.

• Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran has been appointed the Chairman of Air India at a board meeting of the airline.
• The priority is to get a professional CEO for the airline, who can then put a team of top notch aviation personnel for turning around the fortunes of Air India.
• The airline’s wait to get an aviation veteran as CEO continues as former Turkish Airlines chairman IlkerAyci recently declined the position of AI MD & CEO.