Several Indian celebrities and social media influencers have joined calls to boycott Maldives.
PM Modi [left], Akshay Kumar [centre], PM Modi snokerlling [right]Instagram , Twitter

India is known for its rich cultural heritage, diverse geography, food, lights and full of festivity and colourful and vibrant outfits. From religious places to beaches and mountains, Indian travellers and tourists have a plethora of options to visit and enjoy places in India. Along with dwelling in the pristine locale, tourists can also enjoy adventure sports in India. To promote Indian tourism PM Modi visited the Lakshadweep Islands and posted a slew of images from the island enjoying himself. He indulged in adventure sports and tried snorkelling

Bollywood urges Indian travellers to explore India Islands

However, PM Modi's visit to Lakshadweep didn't go down well with some people in the Maldives, including government officials. Maldives minister Mariyam Shiuna Lakshadweep made a derogatory Comment about India and faced massive backlash for the same. After receiving hate, she deleted the post on X.

Shiuna had encouraged tourists to visit the island country, through the #VisitMaldives trend. Some other Maldivian netizens also posted racist and insulting comments against Indians.

After this, a Maldives politician made a controversial remark on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Lakshadweep. Zahid Rameez, a member of the Progressive Party of Maldives Senate, wrote, "The move is great. However, the idea of competing with us is delusional. How can they provide the service we offer? How can they be so clean? The permanent smell in the rooms will be the biggest downfall."

As soon as these tweets started to circulate on social media, Bollywood celebrities like Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan, John Abraham, Shraddha Kapoor and many others came out in support of Indian tourism and took to social media and urged Indian travellers to explore Indian islands like Lakshadweep instead of planning a vacation in the Maldives.

Actor Kartik Aaryan said, "Incredible India is not just a tag, our beautiful country has some of the most incredible and stunning locales and #Lakshadweep is an example of it- a heaven like place in India itself! Can't wait to explore this beautiful Indian island."

The celebs joined the trend of promoting Indian tourism. Soon after politicians mocked Indian tourism, #BoycottMaldives started to trend.

Akshay, who recently rang in the New Year with his family in Maldives, took to X to react to comments against India's beach tourism by some Maldivians. The actor wrote, "Came across comments from prominent public figures from the Maldives passing hateful and racist comments on Indians. Surprised that they are doing this to a country that sends them the maximum number of tourists. We are good to our neighbours but why should we tolerate such unprovoked hate? I've visited the Maldives many times and always praised it, but dignity first. Let us decide to #ExploreIndianIslands and support our tourism.

Apart from that a lot of Indians have cancelled their trip to Maldives.

Several users also complained that the Maldives site was inaccessible for several hours on Saturday night.

The official websites of the Maldivian President's Office, Foreign Ministry, and Tourism Ministry were down for hours. Following the temporary unavailability, the top Maldivian government websites are now functioning again. Officials are suspecting a cyber-attack and are probing the matter to arrest the conspirators.

"Please note that the President's Office website is currently facing an unexpected technical disruption. NCIT and other relevant entities are actively working on resolving this promptly. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Thank you for your understanding and patience," it said.

Former Maldives president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih's remarks on row

Former Maldives president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih tweeted, "I condemn the use of hateful language against India by Maldivian government officials on social media. India has always been a good friend to Maldives and we must not allow such callous remarks to negatively impact the age-old friendship between our two countries."

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