That Was 'Order of Zayed' Awarded to PM Modi by UAE in 2019, Not a Gift!

The video is from 2019 when PM Modi was conferred the 'Order of Zayed' medal, UAE's highest civil decoration.

The claim states that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was gifted a golden garland.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A video showing UAE’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, known by his initials MBZ, putting a medal on Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being shared, claiming it is recent, and that a "1.6-kg golden garland was gifted" to the Indian prime minister.

However, we found the video is from 2019 when UAE honoured PM Modi with the 'Order of Zayed' medal, Emirates' highest civil honour. It was presented by the UAE’s crown prince in the capital Abu Dhabi.

The 'Order of Zayed' medal has been awarded to kings, presidents, and heads of states in the past.

CLAIM

The claim shared along with the video states that, "1.6 kg golden garland gifted to out honourable PM Shri Modiji by Arab king (sic)."

An archive of the tweet can be seen here. 

Several other archived links can be seen here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

With the help of InVid, a video verification tool, we extracted several keyframes from the video and conducted a reverse image search on some of them.

This led us to news reports from 2019 which mentioned that PM Modi was honoured with the "Order of Zayed", the UAE's highest civilian award, for his efforts to boost bilateral ties between the two nations. The Quint has also reported on this.

An article by Al Jazeera from 24 August 2019 read that, "MBZ personally put the gold medal around Modi’s neck, with a portrait of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the UAE’s first president after whom the order is named, displayed behind them."

Further, we also found a tweet from the Twitter handle of PM Modi posted on 24 August 2019.

The video of the PM being conferred the medal can be seen below, that was posted in 2019.

Notably, the 'Order of Zayed' medal was conferred on several world leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin (2007), Queen Elizabeth II (2010), Chinese President Xi Jinping (2018), Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman (2021) among other prominent personalities.

Further, we also went through the the Ministry of External Affairs website and looked at the 'disclosure of gifts in Toshakhana' list.

The provincial treasury or the 'toshakhana' is a repository of articles or gifts received by public servants, including the prime minister, in an official capacity to the state.

Since the visit to UAE was in August, we checked the disclosure of gifts list for the month of August, and couldn't find any "golden garland gift" given to the prime minister.

Clearly, an old video of PM Modi being awarded UAE's highest civilian honour is being shared on social media with the false claim that he was "gifted a golden garland".

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