New Delhi: The Seychelles government said on Thursday (July 2) that the citation conferring the ‘Guardian of the Blue Horizon’ distinction on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which contained spelling and typographical errors, was an accidentally circulated “working draft”. It said in a statement that the “authentic and duly approved” version has since been issued.“The Guardian of the Blue Horizon distinction is genuine,” said the ministry of foreign affairs and the diaspora of the Republic of Seychelles. “It was duly instituted by the Cabinet on 24th June 2026 and conferred by President Patrick Herminie on His Excellency Shri Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of the Republic of India, during the Golden Jubilee National Day celebrations,” it said.To the left is the alleged earlier draft of the citation which was tweeted by the BJP. To the right is the final citation posted by Seychelles in the statement.Modi was in Seychelles from June 27 to 29 on an official state visit where the title was conferred by President Patrick Herminie. He accepted the honour and dedicated it to countries battling climate change and to future generations.The newly-created distinction became controversial almost immediately after the citation surfaced online. “It’s OPVS and not OPUS. It’s Republic and not Repubblic. It’s Seychelles and not Seycheeles,” fact checker Mohammad Zubair wrote on X on the night of June 28.“This draft was not intended for public release and should not have entered circulation; the Ministry is reviewing how this occurred,” Seychelles said in the statement.It did not address how the earlier version of the citation having been shared by the Bharatiya Janata Party‘s official X account and Union minister Piyush Goyal on the afternoon of June 28.One more criticism of the image shared on June 28 was that it was hurriedly put together using AI tools. A watermark indicating that it was generated using OpenAI’s image-generation tools was detected in it.Seeking to clarify how the errors came to be, the statement said that the earlier image was a “pre-final working layout, that contained a “placeholder” signature and not an authenticated mark since it was “never approved”. It also said the image was generated in part “using digital design tools” as it was prepared in short time – “under a compressed timeline”.“It contains typographical and spelling errors, including on the seal, which the ministry acknowledges and regrets,” it said.“Such working drafts are intended strictly for internal review and quality assurance and are not for presentation or publication. The final citation undergoes verification and formal approval before issuance,” Seychelles said.Modi became the first recipient of Israel’s Knesset Medal and had earlier been the inaugural recipient of the Kotler Award for Global Leadership.The BJP’s June 28 post, still online, says the Guardian of the Blue Horizon “adds to a series of international honours” acknowledging the prime minister’s contributions to climate action. The note by Goyal, the Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, says it marked the prime minister’s “fourth global environmental honour”.