New Delhi: India captain Virat Kohli and his actor wife Anushka Sharma have donated Rs 2 crore to a fund-raising project, which will raise a total of Rs 7 crore to support the country's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The two are raising money through crowd-funding platform Ketto. "...Virat Kohli and Bollywood superstar Anushka Sharma are aiming to raise Rs. 7 crore for COVID relief in India," a press release from the celebrity couple stated.

"They are kickstarting a fundraising campaign #InThisTogether on the crowd-funding platform Ketto and are putting Rs. 2 crore for this initiative."

The campaign will run for seven days on Ketto and the proceeds will be directed to ACT Grants, the implementation partner which will work towards providing oxygen, medical manpower, vaccination awareness and tele-medicine facilities all through the pandemic and the amount.

"We are going through an unprecedented time in the history of our country and our nation needs all of us to unite and save as many people as possible. Anushka and I have been shocked to see the human suffering since last year," Kohli said.

Kohli said that he and his wife had tried to help as many peope as possible in their fight against the virus.

"We have been working towards helping as many people as possible all through the pandemic and now, India wants our support more than ever," he said in a statement that was also shared on his social media handle.

"We are starting this fund-raiser with the confidence that we will be able to raise substantial funds to aid those in dire need. We are confident that people will come forward to support fellow countrymen in crisis. We are in this together and we shall overcome this."

Anushka said it has been painful to watch the suffering of people as the country's health-care system struggled to cope with the case load.

"Virat and I have been hugely pained looking at the inexplicable suffering that people are going through and we hope that this fund will aid in our fight against the virus that we are all helplessly witnessing," she said.

Gayatri Yadav, spokesperson ACT Grants said, "Having strong voices like Anushka and Virat help drive fundraising efforts will go a long way towards helping us realise this goal. On behalf of India's startup ecosystem, ACT Grants is truly grateful to have them join this mission." 

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Prayagraj, Jul 25 (PTI): The Allahabad High Court has observed that each incident of mob lynching or mob violence is a separate incident and cannot be monitored in a public interest litigation (PIL).

A bench of Justices Siddharth and Avnish Saxena was hearing a PIL filed by Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind seeking compliance of apex court's guidelines for checking incidents of mob lynching.

Disposing of the PIL, the bench said that the judgement of the apex court in the Tehseen S. Poonawalla Vs Union of India (2018) is binding upon the state government as well as the central government.

"Therefore, it is always open for the aggrieved party to approach the government first before rushing to this court seeking compliance of the judgement of apex court," it added.

In the PIL, the petitioner had sought extensive directions concerning the implementation of the apex court's binding guidelines in the case of Tehseen Poonawalla.

In the PIL, specific incidents of mob lynching and mob violence in Uttar Pradesh, including one in May in Aligarh, were referred.

The petitioner had sought setting up of a special investigation team (SIT) headed by an inspector general-rank officer to investigate the mob violence incident in Aligarh, the notification and circular related to the appointment of nodal officers in each district dealing with mob lynching cases, along with a status report on such cases.

Counsel for the state government opposed the maintainability of the PIL.

In its judgment passed on July 15, the court said that although the reliefs prayed in the PIL were consistent with the apex court's guidelines in Tehseen Poonawalla case, they could not be granted through a PIL seeking general oversight over individual incidents.

The court, however, noted that the affected parties have the liberty to first approach the appropriate government authority for the implementation of the apex court's directions.