NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come under fire following a report claiming that multiple awards and honours he received during overseas visits were created shortly before his arrival in the respective host countries.
The controversy came to light after Modi received one of Seychelles’s “highest” honours during his recent visit to the archipelago nation in the Indian Ocean, according to a report by British publication The Guardian.
Reacting to the report about the honours, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that the “engineered recognition” was either “the worst kind of cheap popularity, or the most malicious gratification”.
“Awards created days before arrival, certificates printed through use of cheap AI model, obvious spelling mistakes, and then [Modi] becoming first and the only recipient,” he wrote in a post on X. According to the defence czar, Modi was “putting the Indian Nation to shame” due to his personality-driven politics.
Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said that the awards given to Modi raised serious questions about the politics of “manufactured prestige” in India.
