Compiled by FAZLEENA AZIZ, C. ARUNO and R. ARAVINTHAN
INDIAN Prime Minister Narendra Modi is getting trolled online after a 11m statue he unveiled just nine months ago collapsed and broke into pieces, Malaysia Nanban reported.
The statue of the 18th century Maratha Empire’s founder and ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji at the Rajkot Fort in Maharashtra was officiated by Modi on Dec 4 last year.
The Maratha Empire, which was a confederacy of four major states that ruled one-third of the Indian subcontinent in its heyday, collapsed after being defeated in 1818 during the Anglo-Maratha wars.The collapse of the statue brought out much anger in the state, which reveres Shivaji to this day and associates him closely with the Marathi identity.
Opposition parties have slammed the BJP and Shiv Sena-led government for failing to ensure the right contractor was selected for building the statue and maintaining it.
The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.
