Fact Check: UNESCO has not recognised this signature as the most spectacular, viral claim is wrong

New Delhi (Vishvas Team). A post is going viral on Facebook, where users are sharing a screenshot of a signature, claiming that UNESCO has recognised this signature of Karnataka’s Honavar Town Sub-Registrar as the world’s most spectacular signature. Vishvas News in its investigation found that this claim is false. UNESCO does not give any recognition or award for the best signature.

What’s in the viral post?

Sharing this post, a Facebook user named Noshir Parlewalla (Archive )wrote ‘#SpectacularSignature’ UNESCO has declared Sub-Registrar Honavar in Karnataka, India, to have the most spectacular signature in the World…”

Investigation

To begin the investigation, we first used keywords to find out whether UNESCO recognises any signatures. We could not find any such information anywhere.

We also checked the UNESCO website. Here also we did not find any information which states that UNESCO gives any recognition to the signatures.

We then checked the signature given in the viral post. We searched it using reverse image search. We found several reports about this signature. According to reports, these are the signatures of Shantayya, a sub-registrar working in Honnavar city of Karnataka. According to reports, Shantayya had made this signature to be unique to avoid fraud. But no report mentioned UNESCO recognition.

We also contacted sub-registrar Shantayya in this regard. “No such information has been given to me by UNESCO. If it was true, I would have been informed about it,” he said.

We have contacted Roni Amelan, the English editor of UNESCO, via email in this regard. This fact check will be updated as soon as her response is received.

Facebook user Noshir Parlewalla, who shared the viral post, has 4500 friends on Facebook.