We For India: Stars unite to help Covid relief work in India

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Big-named musicians including Annie Lennox, Ed Sheeran and Sir Mick Jagger will join with Bollywood stars to raise funds for Covid relief work in India.

A virtual fundraising event entitled We For India: Saving Lives will take place on Sunday 15 August, in both London and Mumbai, it was announced on Monday.

The three-hour event, ran by social impact enterprise The World We Want, will be livestreamed over Facebook.

It will feature more than 80 Indian performers such as composer AR Rahman.

Nile Rodgers, Sister Sledge, Jay Shetty and Nancy Ajram will also take part in the event.

Rajkummar Rao, star of Oscar and Bafta-nominated film The White Tiger, will host the event.

Hospital admissions soared in India during a deadly second Covid wave this spring and summer, with many turning to crowdfunding to pay their steep medical bills.

Distressing scenes of hospitals running out of oxygen were shown around the globe.

India’s government is promising to vaccinate the entire adult population by the end of 2021. But questions remain over whether it will have enough doses.

Proceeds from the event, where Lennox will perform alongside her daughter Lola, will be used to help provide ventilators, oxygen concentrators and ICU units, as well as essential medicines.

They will also go towards supporting the staffing of vaccination centres, and helping those who have been thrust into poverty by the virus. (BBC)