Amid Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent Australia visit, an image of a newspaper clipping went viral on social media. It shows a photo collage featuring PM Modi, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and an enthusiastic crowd of people of Indian… Read on blog or Reader Alt News Read on blog or Reader Free food drew crowd to Modi event in Australia? Morphed newspaper clipping viral By Pawan Kumar on 12th July 2026 Amid Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent Australia visit, an image of a newspaper clipping went viral on social media. It shows a photo collage featuring PM Modi, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and an enthusiastic crowd of people of Indian origin. On the top right corner of the page, a story has been highlighted, the headline of which reads, "Free Curry and Roti pulled massive crowd." Sharing the photo, social media users claimed free food was served to attract people to PM Modi's event in Australia and the initiative was called out by the local media. Some called it an international embarrassment. X user Shree Ram Reddy shared the newspaper clipping with this claim. Australian Newspaper exposed the secret behind the massive crowd gathering for the Modi meeting. “Free Curry and Roti pulled massive crowd.” This is an international-level humiliation. pic.twitter.com/7XHWh1vgzt — SHREE RAM REDDY (@JAWAHARNEHR) July 10, 2026 The post was reshared by journalist Saurav Das, who is also the chief spokesperson of the Cockroach Janata Party. Former IPS officer Yashovardhan Jha Azad quoted the post while making the same claim. This slideshow requires JavaScript. Congress national spokesperson Surendra Singh Rajput, along with X users @nkk_123, @vizhpuneet, @BlewMedia_in and several others shared the clipping with similar assertions. This slideshow requires JavaScript. Fact Check We closely examined the viral newspaper clipping and noticed that apart from the headlines, the body text throughout the page consisted of garbled, unreadable characters. Additionally, the placards, printed T-shirts, and other text visible in the photo collage, too, contained garbled words, which is commonly seen in AI-generated images or images manipulated using AI. We then performed a reverse image search of the viral clipping, which led us to the original version of the newspaper page. It was shared on X by CNN-News18 journalist Aman Sharma on July 10, 2026. A comparison between the viral image and the original newspaper page clearly shows that the Australian newspaper (The Age) did not contain any article with the headline "Free Curry and Roti pulled massive crowd." Moreover, all the articles and other text matters on the page are clearly readable. So, to conclude, the viral newspaper clipping circulating on social media is an AI-manipulated version of  the actual newspaper page in which the fabricated headline, 'Free Curry and Roti pulled massive crowd', was inserted. Therefore, the claim that the large crowd at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's event in Melbourne was drawn by free food is entirely false. No Australian newspaper published such a report.

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