A host of Pakistan’s much-loved celebrities have come together for a short film titled Call To Action to raise awareness on the coronavirus pandemic.
Among those who feature in the film includes Hamza Ali Abbasi, Humayun Saeed, Reema, Shehzad Roy, Ali Rehman Khan, Zara Noor Abbas, Maya Ali, Anwar Maqsood, Bilal Maqsood, Sheheryar Munawar, Wasim Akram, Shaniera Akram, Ayesha Omar, Iqra Aziz, Yasir Hussain and Mikaal Zulfiqar. The film follows them as they talk to each other on the phones. While the conversation appears to be like one anyone would be having with their friend or family on the phone, each dialogue has a message behind it.
For example, Shehzad Roy talks about how important it is to keep washing our hands, while Iqra says, “Fasla rakhain, kaheen corona na ho jaye.” Ayesha Omar expresses her annoyance at unverified Whatsapp forwards. The dialogues are fun, short and witty.
The film has been written and directed by Faisal Qureshi.
Hit Spanish TV series La Casa de Papel, popularly known as Money Heist is very popular all over the world as it released its fourth season earlier this month. The show is also a big hit among Pakistani audiences.
One thing that made Pakistani fans more involved in the show were the inclusions of two Pakistani characters – a surgeon and a hacker. Shakir, who plays the hacker is actually from India. He was cast in the show as someone who helped the Professor and his team of robbers in robbing the Bank of Spain.
In a recent interview, the actor, Ajay Jethi, shared how he landed the role of Shakir.
“When I got a call for Money Heist, it was like any other project for me, a new project for me. The manager told me it is a big project and the series is famous on Netflix,” Jethi said. “But, I had not seen the series till then as I was occupied with other things. I did not give any auditions because I had worked a lot with the casting director on many projects before.”
Though Ajay is from Patiala, India, has is currently living in Spain.
Before India became a victim to extremism and religious bigotry, things were pretty decent between Pakistan and India. There was a lot of cultural exchange and several of our superstars crossed the border and won hearts there. Fawad Khan, in particular, became an instant hit with the audiences there who couldn’t get enough of his good looks and charm.
Recently, The Current came across a video of Fawad serenading Deepika Padukone and Sonakshi Sinha at the 2016 IIFA Awards held in Madrid. In the video, Fawad is hosting the award ceremony with Karan Johar, when Johar challenges him to win the ladies. Karan then proceeds to first invite Sonakshi Sinha on stage and then Deepika Padukone. While Fawad sings Roop Tera Mastana for Deepika, he sang Chaudvi Ka Chaand for Sonakshi Sinha. Needless to say, the ladies were impressed and Deepika even went down on one knee for Fawad.
Watch video:
At the same event, Ranveer Singh also expressed his desire to work with the Pakistani heartthrob and demonstrated how girls act when they see Fawad.
Meanwhile, it was also reported that after the awards ceremony, Fawad jetted off to Barcelona with Deepika and Karan Johar for a mini-vacay.
Fawad’s last project in Bollywood was Karan Johar’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, which also released in 2016.
Twitter is working to ensure that misinformation and panic does not spread through the platform. According to the official Twitter Safety handle, the social media site has “removed over 2,230 tweets containing misleading and potentially harmful content.”
Twitter Safety tweeted: “We have broadened our guidance on unverified claims that incite people to engage in harmful activity, could lead to the destruction or damage of critical 5G infrastructure or could lead to widespread panic, social unrest, or large-scale disorder.”
“Our automated systems have challenged more than 3.4 million accounts targeting manipulative discussions around COVID-19,” the tweet further read.
“We’re prioritising the removal of COVID-19 content when it has a call to action that could potentially cause harm,” TechCrunch quoted a spokesperson for Twitter as saying.
With the entire world fighting against coronavirus, many social media domains have made consistent efforts on their part to ensure only relevant remains on their platforms. Earlier, Whatsapp placed a limit on the number of times a message could be forwarded.
The number of estimated coronavirus cases in Pakistan can rise to 200,000 by mid-July if “effective interventions” are not taken, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned.
According to WHO Director General (DG) Dr Tedros Adhanom, who was speaking at the launch of a virtual conference titled “Pakistan National Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan”, without effective interventions, there could be an estimated 200,000 cases by mid-July, the impacts of which on the economy could be devastating and double the number of people living in poverty.
“When this year began, little was known about #COVID19. Now, it has spread globally, upending health systems and economies, and putting lives and livelihoods at risk”-@DrTedros at the Launch of #Pakistan National Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan virtual conference pic.twitter.com/XKLUEifu5H
Former Pakistan captain-turned-commentator Ramiz Raja thinks cricket boards cannot survive for long without resuming cricket. He urged the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to hold talks with other associations to find a way to play the sport behind closed doors.
“Cricket fans are starved now and the coronavirus pandemic has brought life to a standstill but I don’t think cricket boards can survive for long like this. They can’t continue to pay out salaries and expenses without having cricket activities it would be disastrous for them,” Ramiz said in a video on his Youtube channel.
“I would also urge the PCB to think on these lines and hold talks with other boards to see how cricket activities can be resumed even behind closed doors.”
The former Test opener said it would be a disaster if this lockdown continues for long.
“Unless a vaccine can be created, we can only defeat it through social distancing and precautionary measures,” he said. Raja urged the PCB to take the first step in initiating talks with other boards in this regard.
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit sports hard with Cricket Australia forced to stand down almost 80 percent of its staff.
The fast-spreading disease has halted all cricket activities across the globe.
Earlier this week, a video of an emotional Meera appealing to Prime Minister Imran Khan to bring her back home went viral on social media. In the video, Meera had said that she was stranded in New York for the past two months and that she was running out of resources and funds to sustain herself. Meera urged the Government of Pakistan to facilitate her journey back home as soon as possible because New York was turning into a graveyard and she did not want to die in a foreign land.
Soon after Meera’s video went viral, several media outlets reported that the actor is not telling the truth and that she is in fact at her husband and father-in-law’s house in New York. The media reports also suggested that her video was shot in a room at their house and not in a hotel room as she claimed.
Furthermore, Meera in her first video had also said that she had travelled to the US with Humayun Saeed and that while he had managed to return home she was left behind. However, Humayun Saeed while speaking to GNN stated that he had gone to the US with Adnan Siddiqui and Hira Mani for Meray Paas Tum Ho shows. He said that Meera was not part of their contingent and that he had met her last six months ago. Humayun further shared that Meera had approached him for a film but because he was busy with the shoot of London Nahi Jaunga, he has to turn down her offer.
Following the reports and speculations, Meera, in another video message denied the rumours and called out those spreading false information.
“In my video, I had asked requested Prime Minister Imran Khan to bring me home. As a Pakistani, it is my right,” she said. “This is not the time to mock or ridicule people.”
Slamming those twisting her story, Meera further said that the Pakistan embassy in New York knows of her whereabouts and that she is grateful to Council General Ayesha Ali [for her help].
Meanwhile speaking on Bakhabar Savera among other media outlets, Meera further clarified that the videos of her enjoying BBQ parties were from a few days back and that for the past one week, she has been stuck in a hotel in New York.
Meera also shared a series of erratic social media updates.
A marriage ceremony took place in Karachi, where a groom came on a motorbike to take his newly wedded wife.
As per reports, the groom went to his in-laws’ house with two witnesses for nikkah on motorbikes due to lockdown and imposed section 144 due to coronavirus spread.
Last month, at least nine members of a family contracted coronavirus after they attended a marriage ceremony in Karachi.
According to details, the nine-member family attended a marriage ceremony, where a woman infected with COVID-19 was present. The woman had arrived from Saudi Arabia and was diagnosed with the deadly virus.
The coronavirus patient met with the family in the marriage ceremony and had dinner together and infected all the people with the virus.
Senior doctors and top healthcare professionals issued a stern warning on Wednesday and appealed to the federal and provincial governments to reconsider relaxation in lockdown given that they fear a spike in coronavirus cases in the country. Doctors said easing relaxation could prove disastrous for Pakistan.
Addressing a press conference in Karachi, Dr Saad Niaz said that from April 16-April 21, cases have increased around 40 percent.
“If we don’t strictly enforce lockdown measures, the projected number of coronavirus cases may go up to 70,000 by May 15,” he stated.
Dr Saad also said that we don’t have the testing capacity. “We are not safe. These are just myths. If there had been no lockdown initially, things would have been worse…Wards are already saturated. We have more patients under the age of 60 than in western countries. We have to realise that we don’t have enough healthcare facilities to cope with cases…In fact, severity is much more than what we think.”
He said that more than 162 healthcare workers have been tested positive for COVID-19 in Sindh alone. “Don’t take this lightly based on myths. Neither is there any cure nor do we have the capacity to cope with the cases. Lockdown helped contain the spread. The only thing that can help is complete social distancing and lockdown. We know that at least 200 people have died of coronavirus in the last month alone. We don’t want to get to a point where we will be treating people on the roads or deciding who to save – the 35-year-old patient or the 55-year-old one. We are taking risks. It is very depressing for us to see that everything is being opened while we are at the frontline of this war against corona.”
Watch the complete video of doctor’s press conference here.
Meanwhile, Dr Atif Siddiqui said that doctors are there for you but please stay at home. “We are running out of beds. We need to understand why the number of cases are increasing.”
The list of demands by healthcare professionals included :
Strict enforcement of lockdown and prevention of congregation of all sorts
People will have to cooperate. Do not leave your houses
Request the business community to reconsider opening businesses
Appeal to religious scholars to review decision to keep mosques open
A large number of users are switching to Wikipedia as a trusted source to share and find COVID-19 updates. Around 4,504 Wikipedia pages have been created to record different aspects of the pandemic like it’s spread to different countries, research to find its treatment and popular conspiracy theories, a private media outlet reported.
Although the information on Wikipedia is available in 130+ languages, however, the English-language articles on Wikipedia about the virus alone have registered over 240 million views.
The report also says that Wikipedia Foundation observed a record five-years high traffic, with over 673 million page views in a single day –the traffic was mostly — if not completely to COVID-19 articles.
On March 12, 2020, the day World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic, the main English Wikipedia article on virus received over 1.4m page views; which means that it increased by 73 per cent from the day before WHO’s declaration.
BATTLING MISINFORMATION
It is not easy to control misinformation, that is why a dedicated page titled as ‘Misinformation related to the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic’ is constantly charting and debunking falsehoods on the outbreak. Also, a large number of people are editing information by citing credible sources.
Hello, everybody.
Coronavirus news is piling up, and Wikipedia editors are keeping pace. We’ve seen more than 12k edits by 1.9k editors on Wikipedia’s article about the pandemic.
According to the editor, the key to maintain accuracy on the platform is to cite sources, a single line cited with the credible source will be published but a complete paragraph written by a doctor, without citation will not be published on the platform.
