By Mohammed Kudrati
An old fake message claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been declared as the best prime minister in the world by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has resurfaced on WhatsApp.
The message features an image of PM Modi alongside the caption congratulating Indians for the award received by the Prime Minister.
BOOM was able to confirm that the message is fake and has been viral from as early as 2016; it has been debunked multiple times before.
The message shows an image of PM Modi sitting on his desk with the caption, "Congratulations to all of us. Our PM Narendra D. Modi is now declared as the best PM of the world by UNESCO. Kindly share this. Very proud to be an Indian".
BOOM received it on its WhatsApp helpline (7700906588).
The image as received by BOOM
It has been present on social media for several years.
There is no such award with UNESCO, where it ranks world leaders.
This photo is from India Today and was taken when Modi was the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat. The article containing the image does not have a mention of UNESCO with it.
The original photograph taken by India Today
Further, in 2019, UNESCO confirmed to AFP Fact Check that these rankings were a hoax, stating that they did not give out any such award. "I can confirm that UNESCO does not establish rankings of political leaders' performance or give them distinctions such as 'best prime minister'", a representative of the UNESCO's press office told them.
UNESCO has also been attributed to other fake rankings, like that of the 'best national anthem' to India's 'Jana Gana Mana' (read here), or the 'most honest political party' to India's Communist Party of India (Marxist) (read here).
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