NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being roundly mocked for suggesting that radars are affected by clouds and boasting that he sent an email attachment years before the technology to do so was invented.
Modi claimed in a weekend television interview that he ordered air strikes on Pakistan in February because cloud cover would stop radar detection of Indian fighter jets.
`I said there is so much cloud and rain. There is a benefit,` the Indian premier told news nation channel in the interview, recounting the bombardment of what India alleges was a militant training camp in Balakot.
`(I thought) the clouds can benefit us too. We can escape the radar...
Ultimately I said there are clouds, let`s go,` he added.
Modi has been using the air strikes during the election campaign to bolster his strongm an image.
His Bharatiya Janata Party posted the comments on Twitter, but soon deleted them as newspapers quoted experts rubbishing Modi`s claims. The Kolkata-based Telegraph ridiculed the prime minister for his `shock and awe` disclosure.
Opposition politicians also piled in to taunt the 68-year-old. `It seems no one clarified (to) the PM how radars work,` tweeted Salman Soz, a member of the Congress party. `If that is the case, it is a very serious national security issue. No laughing matter! Social media jibes came thick and fast. One widely-shared internet meme featured a still from the blockbuster Avengers film franchise with Modi superimposed among the superheroes.Twitter users also had a field day over his claim that he had sent digital pictures as an email attachment in the late 1980s. `I am likely the first person to use digital camera in India in 1987 or 1988. `Only a few people had emails then,` Modi said in the same interview.
In reality, the first email attachment wasn`t sent until 1992 by researcher Nathaniel Borenstein. `The joke is not on Modi,` tweeted academic and columnist Nissim Mannathukkaren.
`The joke is on the `educated` elite/ middle class supporters of Modi who have made idiocy and ignorance fashionable.`-AFP
