Is the smart Namo phone a big fat Chinese hoax?

Reports that ‘fans of Narendra Modi’ in Gujarat are developing an Android smartphone in his honour may just be fake, according to this report in Quartz .

The plans for the phone which are available on this website were greeted with much discussion and speculation.

However according to this report , the phone could well be nothing more than clever PR branding on an unmarked Chinese Android device.

The report says, “The pictures of the phone posted to the Facebook page come from various websites. The pictures on the Facebook page of the “Smart Namo Saffron 2,” purportedly a specific model of Smart Namo phones, for instance, appear to be the same pictures as those of a phone called the iNEW i6000 that appear on a makeshift Spanish-language chat forum for HTC phones. (Saffron is the official color of Modi’s party and the Hindu right, to which Modi and his party belong). The iNEW is made by Shenzhen Chuangxinqi Communication, trading under the name iNEW, in Shenzhen, China.

It is possible the people behind Smart Namo are simply putting their own brand on white label (aka unbranded) phones. But stealing images off a Spanish user-forum for your Facebook page is perhaps not a mark of authenticity.

The registered owner of the web address Smartnamo.com is also dubious. It is registered to privacyprotect.org, a service that provides a cloak to people who want to own a web address without appearing in public records.

“There are a lot of products, including MP3 music players and smartphones, named after Chinese leaders, and we wanted to bring this concept to the Indian market,” said Ammeet Desai, a spokesman for the Smart Namo project to the Wall Street Journal , shortly after the plans for the device first came to light.

According to the official website for the device, the phone which will run on Android 4.2.2 aka Jelly Bean will be available in various specifications from a 1GB RAM and 16GB device to a 2GB RAM and 32 GB device. It also contains links for media information and an email address where interested parties can inquire after distribution,retail, partnerships, alliances and business development opportunities.

Of course the Smart Namo project is careful to say that they are in no way affiliated with the Gujarat Chief Minister and are only doing this as a group of dedicated fans who want to ‘honour’ him.