ISLAMABAD: Indian opposition called out the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for damaging country’s reputation for collecting non-existent international awards, often as their first recipient.
Modi came under scrutiny last week after he received a new presidential distinction from Seychelles, with opposition identifying spelling errors, an AI watermark, and a four-day gap between the award's creation and its presentation.
In a post on X, spokesperson for the Indian National Congress, Dr Shama Mohamed, while citing Guardian’s criticism of Modi, said that the Indian premier’s habit of collecting non-existent awards did not help India in any way.
“Instead, they damage our reputation,” she said.
In her post, Dr Shama added that the Indian premier was again on a foreign tour to Indonesia, New Zealand, and Austria.
“We are quite sure he will return with a few more awards created just for him,” she said.
The award, given to the Indian premier from Seychelles, last week had multiple errors with journalists and civil society calling out the government for celebrating a bogus award.
Aroon Deep, who covers technology policy for The Hindu, said Seychelles used AI chatbot ChatGPT to make the "Guardian of the Blue Horizon" award.
AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair also catalogued the text errors on X.
"It's OPVS and not OPUS. It's Republic and not Repubblic. It's Seychelles and not Seycheeles," he said on X.
