India captain Virat Kohli on Monday took to Twitter to announce that he and his wife Anushka Sharma would be donating to battle the novel coronavirus, COVID-19
Not specifying any amoung, Kohli said, “Anushka and I are pledging our support towards PM-CARES Fund & the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund (Maharashtra). Our hearts are breaking looking at the suffering of so many & we hope our contribution, in some way, helps easing the pain of our fellow citizens (sic).”
On Sunday, India’s Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane announced that he was donating Rs 10 lakh to battle coronavirus. Former cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar, too, have donated to battle the novel virus that has claimed 27 lives, and resulted in over 1,000 cases in India as of Monday.
Earlier in the day, Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba on Monday admitted that he was ‘surpirsed’ at reports suggesting that the central government had planned on extending the 21-day lockdown period, saying that there were no such plans to do the same.
Last week, Gauba had asked state chief secretaries and administrators of the Union Territories to extensively carry out contact tracing as more than 15 lakh international passengers have landed in India since January 18.
Gauba had admitted that there was a gap between the number of international passengers who need to be monitored by the States /UTs and the actual number of passengers being monitored.