‘Double cross, first class’: Why India’s Modi wins so many foreign awards

During his June 27-29 visit to the Seychelles, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was graced with a trophy never seen before – a pristine, pyriform azure prize created especially for him, titled the “Guardian of the Blue Horizon”.

The award did not exist before Modi’s visit to the Seychelles. And the citation accompanying it was riddled with embarrassing misspellings: the country that conjured ...