American actor Will Smith and rock legend Mick Jagger are among international and Bollywood stars to take part in a four-hour online show on Sunday to raise funds to help fight the new coronavirus epidemic in India. The captain of the national cricket team Virat Kohli, the actors Priyanka Chopra and Shah Rukh Khan are among the Indian stars who will perform or read messages from their home.
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Organized by Karan Johar and Zoya Akhtar, directors of Bollywwod, the Indian film industry, the show will be broadcast live on Facebook. It aims to raise millions of dollars for a hundred organizations that provide essential services and food during the epidemic. This money is necessary to help " all those who have no work and no home, and who do not know where they will find their next meal, " said the organizers.
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The confinement imposed on March 25, and at least until May 17, on the 1.3 billion Indians has plunged the distress of millions of workers in the important informal sector and dealt a very heavy blow to the third economy d 'Asia. Millions of rural workers are trapped in cities with little to live on and feed themselves. Trains were set up on Saturday to help them return to their villages and towns of origin.
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The strict restrictions are supposed to have kept cases of contamination with the new coronavirus at a relatively low level in the second most populous country in the world: 37,335 cases for 1,218 deaths, with 2,000 new infections in 24 hours. The assessment could however be heavier, according to experts, due to the lack of screening and data collection. The Indian Air Force is hosting an air parade on Sunday, in which military helicopters will drop petals to hospitals treating coronavirus patients.