A fake Australian newspaper clipping is being shared on social media with the false claim that it reported “free curry and roti” as the reason behind the large turnout at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s event in Australia during his visit.
BOOM reached out to The Age, who confirmed that the paper did not publish the article and that it appeared to be an AI-distorted image of its page.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Australia on a two-day trip, during which he addressed a gathering of more than 25,000 members of the Indian diaspora alongside Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium on July 9, 2026. Modi also faced criticism from an Australian broadcaster for “avoiding unscripted news conferences, preferring instead more stage-managed appearances”.
The Claim:
The clipping is being shared on X with a caption claiming that an Australian newspaper had exposed the reason behind the large turnout at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s event.
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What We Found:
1) Original newspaper clipping
We ran a reverse image search using Google Lens, which showed the original newspaper page did not contain any report titled “Free Curry and Roti Pulled Massive Crowd”. The headline and article had been digitally edited into the image.
The original photo was posted by News18 journalist Aman Sharma, who shared images of the front pages of two Australian newspapers, The Australian and The Age. A third image in the post matches the viral newspaper page, except that the “free food” article does not appear in the original.
2) The Age's denial
BOOM reached out to The Age, who in an email response confirmed that the paper did not publish the headline, “Free Curry and Roti Pulled Massive Crowd” or any such article, stating the viral clipping appeared to be an AI-distorted image of its page.
The Age also shared a copy of the original printed page, which does not contain any such report.
3) Anomalies in the viral clipping
We also spotted several anomalies in the purported article, including unreadable text and the absence of a byline, even though all the other reports on the page carry bylines.
BOOM found that the clipping was likely created by using AI to alter the original newspaper page.