COVID-19 is spreading with impressive speed through many towns and cities in India. As of Friday, the country had registered 18,376,524 cases with 204,832 deaths.
The New Delhi government, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been harshly criticized for its handling of the crisis, allowing religious festivals and general mismanagement.
As a result, tens of thousands of people, especially in the capital New Delhi, have been left without access to healthcare and dozens have died from lack of ventilators and oxygen condensers.
Many Bollywood actors try to help people in need with monetary contributions, medical supplies, and food.
Actors on the front line
Bollywood actor Sonu Sood has been on the front lines since the first wave of COVID-19 hit India. Last year, the actor helped thousands of stranded workers (who had moved to larger cities to find work), get home after the Modi government imposed a harsh nationwide shutdown with just a few hours of advance.
This year, Sood has launched a free help service together with two private medical organizations. The actor frequently interacts with his followers on Twitter, many of whom ask him directly for help on the social network.
Priyanka Chopra Jonas, who is a very popular star in India and now lives and works in Los Angeles, has started the #TogetherForIndia fundraiser with her husband Nick Jonas. He announced the fundraiser on Twitter and Instagram: “India, my home, is suffering from the worst COVID crisis in the world,” he said, “and we all have to help! People are dying in record numbers. There is disease everywhere. parts, and it continues to spread and kill on a large scale.
Ajay Devgn, another prominent Indian actor, joined the Brihanmumbai Municipal Council (BMC), in the Mall of India, Mumbai, to provide medical facilities to citizens affected by COVID. The actor is collaborating with a city hospital to create Intensive Care Units (ICU) for patients.
For his part, actor Gurmeet Choudhary also announced that he was going to open hospitals in Patna, in eastern India, and in Lucknow, in the north, with 1,000 beds each. The actor has formed a special team to deal with COVID and respond to inquiries from people in need who are trying to contact him.
Bollywood star Akshay Kumar, who has more than 40 million followers on Twitter, also donated 100 oxygen tanks to COVID patients in Mumbai. Kumar has also received many requests for help from his fans on Twitter.
Superstar Salman Khan, very popular with his fans and who started the Being Human foundation, also launched the “Being Haangryy” initiative, which sends food trucks to police and medical personnel during the pandemic. Khan regularly visits the places where his trucks operate and also tests the food for quality while maintaining sanitary restrictions, reports Filmfare magazine.
COVID and censorship in social networks
However, other actors have been criticized for their apathy in the face of the crisis. Newspapers and tabloids have published photos of stars enjoying a beach vacation, enraging fans, who are expecting more empathy from their big screen idols.
Actress Kareena Kapoor, who is also participating in a concert to raise funds for the fight against COVID, recently posted a post on Twitter asking people to be more responsible when it comes to wearing masks. Twitter users immediately retorted, referring to the star’s brother, actor Ranbir Kapoor, who posted photos with his girlfriend on a Maldives beach, The Times of India reported.
Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have recently come under fire in India, after Prime Minister Modi’s government blocked nearly 50 tweets criticizing its handling of the COVID crisis, the news outlet reported. online communication The Print.
Among the blocked messages were some from opposition politicians, journalists and filmmakers. Facebook also reportedly blocked some posts with the #ResignModi hashtag, claiming they violated the website’s community standards, The Quint reported.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of India has announced that blocking user complaints about the COVID crisis will be considered “contempt of court”, a punishable offense under Indian law. According to a report by The Indian Express, the Supreme Court, DY Chandrachud, said: “We want to make it very clear that if citizens communicate their complaint on social media and on the internet, it cannot be said to be misinformation.”
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