"The lockdown, whatever its effect on the virus, has given Indian cities the kiss of life. In a week, Delhi’s PM2.5 count dropped by seventy-one per cent. The sky is bluer now, the Yamuna River less black, and my friends say that the stars are out at night."
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On the morning of April 3rd, residents of Jalandhar, an industrial town in the Indian state of Punjab, woke to a startling sight: a panorama of snowcapped mountains across the eastern sky. The peaks and slopes of the Dhauladhars—a range in the lesser Himalayas—were not new, but the visibility was. Last summer, Jalandhar had the worst air quality in Punjab, although it still doesn’t rank among the most polluted cities in India. On March 24th, as a national lockdown was imposed to stop the spread of the coronavirus, nearly all of Jalandhar’s road traffic came to a halt, along with its manufacture of auto parts, hand tools, and sports equipment.
Ten days later, suspended particulates had dispersed from the air, and the Himalayas were unveiled. Residents gathered on their rooftops, posting photos of far, icy elevations towering behind water tanks and clotheslines. “Never seen Dhauladhar range from my home rooftop in Jalandhar,” the international cricketer Harbhajan Singh, who was born there forty years ago, tweeted. “Never could imagine that’s possible.”
The view from my own rooftop, fifteen hundred miles to the south, in Bangalore, has not revealed any equivalent surprises. Instead, there is the birdsong. The constancy of car horns in India is legend, a stock line for travel writers. I could never have imagined it possible, in an Indian city, to wake up not to the sounds of traffic but to the sovereignty of bulbuls and mynahs over the morning air. I wonder when an Indian city last felt like this. I wonder when I last felt like this.
"Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has signed an executive order to ensure that refugee and immigrant communities have equal access to benefits and services provided by the city, including COVID-19 disaster relief."
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“This order is more than just an official decree, it is a statement of our values as a city and as Americans,” she said in a statement on Tuesday. “Since COVID-19 first reached our city’s doorstep, we have been working around the clock to ensure all our residents are secure and supported, including our immigrant and refugee communities, who are among the most vulnerable to the impact of this pandemic.”
“Here in Chicago, saying ‘we are all in this together’ means that during this crisis, no one gets left out and no one gets left behind,” she added.
Under the executive order, Lightfoot’s office said all residents in the city, regardless of their birthplace or citizenship status, will have access to the city’s newly-established COVID-19 Housing Assistance Grant program and online resources offered through Chicago public schools for students, among other benefits.
Some 10.7 million undocumented immigrants are ineligible for emergency federal benefits or state unemployment insurance without a valid work authorization. Here are some organizations that are directly helping these people that you can donate to.
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WeCount!’s Immigrant Worker COVID-19 Fund
Florida nonprofit WeCount! is attempting to address the gap in medical support, as many undocumented people fear using the existing public health infrastructure.
Sanctuary DMV’s GoFundMe
In the DC metropolitan area, volunteer organization Sanctuary DMV and partners MLOV, La ColectiVA, JMC, and ROC-DC have launched a site to support families directly, including households that are members of the local UndocuBlack Network.
Immigrant Worker Safety Net Fund
At a national level, National Day Laborer Organizing Network has set up a fund to specifically allocate cash donations to worker leaders, organizers, and volunteers who have already contracted the coronavirus, as well as undocumented laborers over 60 and/or with disabilities and medical conditions that make them particularly vulnerable to the virus.
"In Spain, just like the rest of the world, citizens are being asked to stay indoors. It's a tough time for musicians worldwide, but one group of roommates in Barcelona has turned their lock down into a jam session."
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The group is called Stay Homas, and its members are Klaus Stroink, Guillem Boltó and Rai Benet, three professional musicians who live together in an apartment in Barcelona. They plan to release a new quarantine song every day they remain in self-isolation — which has been nearly three weeks.
They've enjoyed playing around with different genres while confined to their apartment.
"First it's a bossa nova; then it's reggae; then it's Spanish rumba; then it's Irish folk," Stroink says, "and trap."
Stroink, Boltó and Benet compose their songs in the morning and then record them on their apartment balcony in the evening. Occasionally, musician friends outside of the trio join in through pre-recorded videos. Since they've been producing new music, the Stay Homas YouTube channel has reached tens of thousands of people.
